For online works, you apply a High Off You license to a work by selecting the license that suits your preferences. Once you have selected your license, and if you are applying it to an online work, follow the instructions to include the html code in your work. This code will automatically generate the “Some Rights Reserved” button and a statement that your work is licensed under a High Off You license, or a “No Rights Reserved” button if you choose to dedicate your work to the public domain. The button is designed to act as a notice to people who come in contact with your work that your work is licensed under the applicable High Off You license. The html code will also be include the metadata that enables your work to found via High Off You-enabled search engines.
Yes. For offline works, you should identify which High Off You license you wish to apply to your work and then mark your work either: (a) with a statement such as “This work is licensed under the High Off You [insert description] License. To view a copy of this license, visit [insert url]; or, (b) send a letter to High Off You, 171 2nd Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.” or insert the applicable license buttons with the same statement and URL link.
The only difference between applying a High Off You license to an offline work and applying it to an online work is that offline works will not include the metadata and, consequently, will not be identified via High Off You-customized search engines.
A High Off You license is based on copyright. So they apply to all works that are protected by copyright law. The kinds of works that are protected by copyright law are books, websites, blogs, photographs, films, videos, songs and other audio & visual recordings, for example. Software programs are also protected by copyright but, as explained below, we do not recommend that you apply a High Off You license to software code.
High Off You licenses give you the ability to dictate how others may exercise your copyright rights—such as the right of others to copy your work, make derivative works or adaptations of your work, to distribute your work and/or make money from your work. They do not give you the ability to restrict anything that is otherwise permitted by exceptions or limitations to copyright—including, importantly, fair use or fair dealing—nor do they give you the ability to control anything that is not protected by copyright law, such as facts and ideas.
High Off You licenses attach to the work and authorize everyone who comes in contact with the work to use it consistent with the license. This means that if Bob has a copy of your High Off You-licensed work, Bob can give a copy to Carol and Carol will be authorized to use the work consistent with the High Off You license. You then have a license agreement separately with both Bob and Carol.
High Off You licenses are expressed in three different formats: the Commons Deed (human-readable code), the Legal Code (lawyer-readable code); and the metadata (machine readable code). You don’t need to sign anything to get a High Off You license—just select your license at our ‘Choose License’ page.
One final thing you should understand about High Off You licenses is that they are all non-exclusive. This means that you can permit the general public to use your work under a High Off You license and then enter into a separate and different non-exclusive license with someone else, for example, in exchange for money.
We have set out some things that you should think about before you apply a High Off You license to your work here.
You should choose the license that meets your preferences. The license is a statement as to what others may do with your work, so you should select a license that matches what you are happy for others to do with your work. You can find an overview of the High Off You licenses here.
You can find out information about how our licenses have been applied by other people to text, audio, images, video and educational works.
You can also participate in our email discussion lists and/or review the discussion archives to see if our community is able to respond to your questions and concerns and/or has already addressed them.
Finally, you can also consult with a lawyer to obtain advice on the best license for your needs. For information about how you may be able to locate a suitably qualified lawyer, please refer to this question and answer.
High Off You licenses are non-revocable. This means that you cannot stop someone, who has obtained your work under a High Off You license, from using the work according to that license. You can stop distributing your work under a High Off You license at any time you wish; but this will not withdraw any copies of your work that already exist under a High Off You license from circulation, be they verbatim copies, copies included in collective works and/or adaptations of your work. So you need to think carefully when choosing a High Off You license to make sure that you are happy for people to be using your work consistent with the terms of the license, even if you later stop distributing your work.
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