Duties and Expectations
The first duty of a Licensing Team member is to be familiar with our CC-BY-SA 3.0 License. Junior Staff will initially only be expected to understand the basic precepts of it so as to be able to handle assignments given to them by the Team Captain. Operational Staff and above, as well as Junior Staff who are being promoted to Operational Staff, should have a thorough and complete understanding of the license and its interaction with other license/license-equivalents such as CC-BY-NC and Public Domain, as well as possess at least a working knowledge of United States Fair Use Law. In addition, all Junior Staff and above should be able to answer basic licensing questions posed by users, Operational Staff and above should be able to apply our license to unusual and/or edge cases.
Team members should be in both 17 and 34, and if possible, 19, when they are on chat, and ready to answer posed licensing questions in any of those channels when they are active. In addition, all team members should be ready and able to answer same on the wiki or through wikidot or chat PMs.
Finally, team members should be knowledgeable as to how to handle an offsite licensing violation when one is assigned to them, including logging it on 05, and are responsible for making the broader team aware of ones that are brought to their attention or that they discover independently. Junior Staff will receive instructions, Operational Staff and above are expected to be able to operate with a degree of autonomy.
Being recommended for promotion from Junior Staff to Operational Staff shall be determined by a discussion between the Team Captain and Licensing Team Operational Staff about the quality and quantity of your activity on the team, as well as other factors. The final say on recommendations belongs to the Team Captain.
Handling an Offsite Violation
The first step in dealing with an offsite violation is ensuring that it is both A) actually a violation; and B) a violation we are concerned with. A) entails going through with all the available information posted to ensure that the license is not actually being properly complied with somewhere that you're not noting, while B) is generally a very simple yes/no "is money involved?" question. There are exceptional cases where we must get involved in materials not containing a commercial aspect, but these are on a "we know it when we see it" basis. If in doubt, ask an operational staff member.
The second step is logging the violation in the appropriate 05 forum. First make sure that it is not already a known and logged issue, if it is not, make a new thread beginning with [OPEN], according to that forum's format. In the post, provide a link, a basic summary of the issue, and, if you are Operational Staff or above, either how you will be dealing with the issue or a statement that you will be having someone else deal with the issue, as appropriate.
The third is handling the issue. If Licensing Team already has an account for the website involved, use that (requesting the password from the Team Captain or a Moderator if you do not know it); if there is no Licensing account, ask the Team Captain or a Moderator to create one for you, and then use that.
Whenever possible, you are to initially contact the creator privately through the website (or an email, if provided, using Licensing Team's email account) with an explanation of an issue, how they can resolve it, and a link to our Licensing Guide. Close out with a way for them to contact you if they have any questions- the account you have been using, the Licensing Team chat, the Licensing Team email, or any combination thereof are acceptable. If the website does not allow private messages, a comment on the work involved with the same general content is also fine. Creators are then to be given a reasonable amount of time, at least one week but generally no more than one month to make the changes and/or respond to the message. Log the fact that you sent a message, and, if applicable, any response or resolution in the 05 thread. Only if they do not respond within the time alloted, or if the website or circumstances do not allow the use of any other method, do we move to a DMCA.
Licensing Team members who are authorized to send a DMCA on the wiki's behalf will have been personally instructed in how to do so, and what information to use. If you are one of those people and a DMCA needs to be sent, send it. If you are not, ask a Licensing Team member who is to do it for you. The fact that a DMCA was sent must be logged on 05. The sender of a DMCA will be responsible for handling any questions from the site to which it was sent.
Finally, when an issue is resolved, by whatever method, make a post saying such, and have an 05 Moderator change the [OPEN] in the thread title to [CLOSED].
Licensing Team Goals
- Ensuring full CC-BY-SA 3.0 compliance for non-image content on the wiki
- Enforcement of the terms of our agreements regarding SCP-173, SCP-111, and SCP-1926
- Assisting the userbase and staff with license questions and concerns
- Ensuring reasonable offsite compliance with the terms of our license for significant works