This is a share and share alike site, but that only applies to original content. You have my permission to republish anything you find here written by me (Eric Troy) as long as you attribute the work in the manner specified below. Any deviation from this will be considered a violation of copyright laws.
I request a clear and active link to Ground Up Strength:
If possible this should be written as the following hyperlinked text:
www.GroundUpStrength.com
But a simple and active link to the site will do.
I expect that link to be in a text that is at least the same size at the main body text. The tiny attribution thing is pretty obvious and pretty weak! I wouldn't do it to you so I request you don't do it to me.
So, to make this abundantly clear a proper attribution is my name and a link to this site given in clear text at the top of the article. Yes, at the TOP. Nobody wants their byline to be buried at the bottom of an internet page. This is all I ever ask for in return. I place no limits on the number of articles anyone can use unless the article in question states a different copyright policy.
Feel free to make "derivative works" of any of my work. That is you can mix it up, use portions of it verbatim, etc. as long as you, again, clearly attribute the borrowed work to me and that you do not represent this use as my own endorsement of the work you make. And make it clear which work is your own and which is mine to the best of your ability.
I've adopted the broadest possible license I am comfortable with since limits such as "no commercial" use essentially make CC licenses useless, in my opinion. I'd rather you not outright charge for my work but I have no problem with you turning a profit in part due to usage of my work. That means if you have ads on your site, no problem. Again, I simply request clear attribution for any use of my content.
If you do use something on your site, etc…it needs to be published under the same license. It is way uncool to publish something from a CC license and then try to "copyright" it! Feel free to contact me if you are unsure about any of this.
What I am against is having the content used on a 'pay to view' basis of any kind such as on a paid membership site. Clearly, charging someone to view material that is puplished under a share alike and free to use license is a bit dishonest. It's not the money, it's the fact that you are distributing it under different terms, which violates the license agreement. "FREE" to me means not only is it free to use and share but it's not charged for! When you make a profit in any way that still allows the material be be freely viewed and shared by others and it published under the same license then all is well, as long as my name does not appear alongside ads to pornographic, racist, or any material promoting violence and hatred. I don't know why anyone would consider my material a fit with that kind of site but I thought I'd make that clear, nonetheless.
Licenses of this sort are new and there are many loopholes and inconsistencies. If someone were to take a work published under this license, and use on a paid membership site, then, essentially they have published it under a different license since open access means FREE and open access. Yet, the license states, that they are both allowed to use it for commercial work but have to make clear what the license terms are. I don't know about you, but if I paid money to see an article, and then found out that this article was published under an open access license…I'd be just a tad irritated. So if you take commercial usage to mean "you own the right to do whatever you want" then you don't understand the other terms of the license.
And there are a number of sites that do just that. It's dishonest to say the least. I'd rather people simply visit my site than be charged to read the articles that are freely displayed on this site. Wouldn't you? So this is why I do not want anyone to charge for my work in any direct way, including pay for membership sites or any other inclusion where the end user is required to pay for access to the work. However, any other indirect way you can make money from it, as long as the reasonable conditions I mentioned above are met, go for it. Just please give me credit and an active link to my site as spelled out above. That way, we both benefit. Indirect ways would be ads running on the page that the article appears on or affiliate links, etc.
You are free to distribute this work in other ways such as newsletters or by providing it as "free incentive material" as long as the attribution requirements are met. That always includes a link to this site. Just including my name is not a proper attribution by the terms of this license. You can post them on a forum or any other community site. Same rules apply. However, you may NOT publish them on any type of content reprint site such as Ezine Articles or any other similar site..of which there are hundreds. I don't know why anyone would do that unless they wanted to pass the articles off as their own so there you go.
Works by other authors on this blog are used with permission and are subject to separate copyright, pertaining to the author's wishes. Do not use these materials without the express permission of the original author. I want everyone to be able to share, but share fairly. For further info click on the icon and links below. You can also contact me if you have any questions pertaining to these policies.
The best way to contact me is through my site www.groundupstrength.com
You can email eric or erictroy at groundupstrength. com or gustrength.com
With all that said, the following license applies to any original article, known as a "Ground Up Strength Article" by myself (Eric Troy) found on this site:
