It would be nice if we didn't have to live in a world of litigation and legalese, but since we do, this page contains various guidance and policy pertaining to legal issues that bear on the use of copyrighted materials, contributed work, and responsibility for our content. Try not to yawn -- this really is important stuff.

Prospective contributors should pay particular attention to the Terms of Contribution and the Guidelines for Determining Fair Use.

Policy on Intellectual Property Rights and Fair Use

Our General Policy
In all matters of intellectual property rights and procedures, our intention is to benefit the public at large, while respecting the legitimate rights of others. All material published on RomanArmy.com is published in good faith under the statutory guidance of U.S. Code Title 17, Section 107, Limitations on exclusive rights: fair use. RomanArmy.com is not a commercial, for-profit entity, but exists to disseminate scholarly knowledge and promote academic research.

Rights and Permissions
In order to build the content of RomanArmy.com, we receive contributions in various forms and from many persons. To best facilitate the dissemination of these contributions, it is necessary to understand any intellectual property rights relating to the contributions.

Terms of Contribution

By submission of a contribution, each person actually submitting the contribution is deemed to agree to the following terms and conditions on his own behalf, on behalf of the organization (if any) he represents and on behalf of the owners of any proprietary rights in the contribution. Where a submission identifies contributors in addition to the contributor(s) who provide the actual submission, the actual submitter(s) represent that each other named contributor was made aware of and agreed to accept the same terms and conditions on his own behalf, on behalf of any organization he may represent and any known owner of any proprietary rights in the contribution.

1. Some works are not subject to copyright. However, to the extent that the submission is or may be subject to copyright, the contributor, the organization he represents (if any) and the owners of any proprietary rights in the contribution, grant an unlimited perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, world-wide right and license to RomanArmy.com under any copyrights in the contribution. This license includes the right to copy, publish and distribute the contribution in any way, and to prepare derivative works that are based on or incorporate all or part of the contribution, the license to such derivative works to be of the same scope as the license of the original contribution.

2. The contributor acknowledges that RomanArmy.com has no duty to publish or otherwise use or disseminate any contribution.

3. The contributor grants permission to reference the name(s) and contact information (email address, mailing address, etc.) of the contributor(s) and of the organization(s) he represents (if any).

4. The contributor represents that contributions properly acknowledge major contributors.

5. The contributor, the organization (if any) he represents and the owners of any proprietary rights in the contribution, agree that no information in the contribution is confidential and that RomanArmy.com and its affiliated organizations may freely disclose any information in the contribution.

6. The contributor represents that he has disclosed the existence of any proprietary or intellectual property rights in the contribution that are reasonably and personally known to the contributor. The contributor does not represent that he personally knows of all potentially pertinent proprietary and intellectual property rights owned or claimed by the organization he represents (if any) or third parties.

7. The contributor represents that there are no limits to the contributor's ability to make the grants, acknowledgments and agreements above that are reasonably and personally known to the contributor.



Information and Property Rights

1. Where any proprietary rights are known, or claimed, with respect to any information developed for use on RomanArmy.com, and are formally brought to the attention of the Webmaster, the information shall not be published without an indication of the existence of such rights, or claimed rights.

2. The RomanArmy.com owner, staff, Webmaster or other related affiliates disclaim any responsibility for identifying the existence of or for evaluating the applicability of any claimed copyrights or other rights, and will take no position on the validity or scope of any such rights.

3. Where the Webmaster is formally notified of rights, or claimed rights under (1) above, the Webmaster shall attempt to obtain from the claimant of such rights a written statement of permission to use the referenced information under the Terms of Contribution, Paragraph 1. Information or images for which a dispute exists will be subject to removal or non-publication as determined by the Webmaster and owner of RomanArmy.com. This removal may occur without notice to the contributor(s) or the claimants of property rights for the disputed material.

Declaration of Fair Use

RomanArmy.com and its designated representatives and affiliates will presume upon receipt of any contributed material that the contributor(s) are aware of, and not in violation of, any intellectual property rights of another agency. RomanArmy.com does not assume responsibility for the veracity, content, or intellectual property status of a contribution. All content published herein is declared to have met the intent of Fair Use for educational and scholarly purposes, as defined by U.S. Code, Title 17, Section 107.

Fair Use is defined under U.S.C. Title 17 as follows:

“Sec. 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use.

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.”

Guidelines for Determining Fair Use

Contributors should adhere to the following guidance when utilizing materials not of their own creation:

1. Appropriately acknowledge authors of works being excerpted, used, or drawn upon in creating contribution(s).

2. Acknowledge websites that are sources of borrowed material. Wherever possible, show good faith by attempting to obtain permission from the website author or his/her representative to use the borrowed material.

3. Do not use excessive portions of any textual work; as an example, excessive could be more than 5% of a document in excess of 10,000 words, or 10% of documents less than 10,000 words.

4. Do not use borrowed material in such a way as to deliberately and maliciously conceal the fact of another’s original authorship (plagiarism).

Legal Notices

RomanArmy.com and its owners and affiliates take no position regarding the validity or scope of any intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the information provided on its website or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it has made any effort to identify any such rights. Contributors are solely responsible for their contributions, with special regard to intellectual property rights under the Terms of Contribution and Guidelines for Determining Fair Use, as stated above.

RomanArmy.com encourages all interested parties to bring to its attention, at the earliest possible time, the existence of any intellectual property rights pertaining to material published on our site. Please address any concerns on this matter to the Webmaster.

The following copyright notice and disclaimer shall be included on all pages:

"Copyright (©) RomanArmy.com [year]. All Rights Reserved."

The contents of this site, its pages and contents, and translations of such, may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works, with credit to acknowledged contributors. Content which contains references to RomanArmy.com or contributor(s) may not be altered to remove such references.

“This site and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and RomanArmy.com and its owner and all affiliates DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS, OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ACCURACY, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. WE disclaim any liability to any party for any loss or damage resulting from the use of information and materials contained on our website.

For more information, refer to our Policy on Intellectual Property Rights and Fair Use.”

Inquiries
Further information regarding this policy may be requested from the Webmaster.