Our New Rights Management System... All the Colors Belong to You!

When I first built COLOURlovers as a weekend project I had no idea it would become this amazing community. At the time, I threw together a terms of use and privacy policy modified from some of the big sites on the web... and the language used about who owned the content you uploaded here was WAY too aggressive. Basically, it said we "owned" anything you uploaded. It may have said that in small print somewhere, but that's never how we thought about or treated your creations.

Recently we took the time and the budget to update the terms to appropriate language clearly stating that you own everything you create here... but that you give us a commercial license to also use your content (without this we couldn't run the site or showcase your work in things like the Color Inspirations book).

BUT... Updating the terms weren't enough, as we want to fully hand over control of your content to you. Today we're launching two new features that hand the rest of the control of content here at COLOURlovers to you, our awesome and creative members.

Rights Management for all COLOURlovers Content

Can I use this pattern as the background for my blog? Is it free to use this? I don't understand the license you provide for the content on COLOURlovers... We get questions like this all the time. And although we've had a Creative Commons license on the bottom of every page... It hasn't been very clear what people can or can't do with the content shared on COLOURlovers.

License Display Area
So we've added a new section in the right column of each creation page to clearly show the license for that content. There are icons and bullet-points to explain what is allowed with each specific license, as well as a link to the Creative Commons site to learn more about the license terms.

Changing Your Content Licenses
To change the license for a specific color/palette/pattern/etc. you can click the "Edit" link above the license box in the right column. A window will open and allow you to change the license for that specific creation.

Default License Settings
The default license for all content on COLOURlovers is a By Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike license. (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

You can change your default license for all future creations in your account settings area (Set Default License). You can also update the license for all your existing content on this page. There is a checkbox at the bottom of the form to "Change All Existing" which will do a big bulk update for all your creations... ie, would you like to allow commercial usage of all of your existing content? You can do that here.

What Each License Means

There are a few different ways you can specify what people can and can't do with the content you share here on COLOURlovers.

All Rights Reserved
Nobody can use your creation without first getting your permission. This is the most protective license option. Ie, Selecting this license on a pattern template you've designed means that nobody else can color the template in. The license area for a creation with this license will link people to a page to send you a love-note to ask for permission to use the content.

Creative Commons
The Creative Commons is a non-profit that aims to "give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to keep their copyright while allowing certain uses of their work — a “some rights reserved” approach to copyright — which makes their creative, educational, and scientific content instantly more compatible with the full potential of the internet."

All creative commons license options include "By Attribution"... meaning people can use it as long as they credit you for the original creation.

Additional options under the CC license are:

Allow commercial use.
Selecting this license option will allow other people to use your creation in work that they sell or market commercial services with. It could be an Etsy seller using a pattern as part of a gift wrap paper package they sell, or a real estate agent using your pattern as the background of their website.

Allow derivative works to be created.
Selecting this license will allow users to remix & modify your original creation. For example, if you have created a pattern template that you would like others to be able to color in... it needs to be licensed with a derivative license.

Derivative works must be shared with the same license you’ve selected.
Selecting this option will require all derivative works to be shared with the same license as the original creation. If this option is set for a pattern template, there is no option to change the license terms of colored-in patterns. They must retain the original pattern template license.

License for Colors & Palettes

It's easier to understand these licenses in the context of pattern templates, but it's a little trickier when talking about named colors & palettes.

Colors
Technically you can't own the rights to a color (despite some large corporations trying to copyright their specific branding colors). All 16 million colors already exist, we're just allowing you all to come up with clever names to associate with those colors. For now, all color names on COLOURlovers will continue to have our default (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license.

Palettes
You also can't technically own the rights to the usage of certain colors together... ie, if you make a palette with Red, White & Blue... you can't prevent the US from printing more flags. What you can own the rights to is the combination of the colors in a specific order, and or the amount of colors presented as a 5 color palette like the way we do here on COLOURlovers. Ie, if you select an All Rights Reserved license for your palette: Somebody else can't present your palette anywhere else the way it is presented here on COLOURlovers. Even with an All Rights Reserved license though, they could still use that color combination to draw an illustration or design a logo.

We'll be adding a section to the site to explain the licenses better moving forward, so if you have any questions or think we should better explain something, please let us know.

Deleting Creations from COLOURlovers

If you really own all your creations, then you should be able to remove them from COLOURlovers too... and now you can. There is a new OPTIONS button in the About header for all creations. You're able to Edit & Delete your creations from here.

It's rare, but we know that sometimes people want to remove something they've shared on COLOURlovers... a palette they no longer love, a template they messed up on, etc. You're now able to delete all your creations, but the way we handle how things are deleted is a little different depending on what's being deleted. Here's a little more about what happens when you delete your different kinds of creations:

Colors. When you delete a color it will remove the color from your creations list, it will clear out the name, description, loves, faves, comments and all other associated information. The color will now be available for another member to name and list as one of their creations. A deleted color will still show in any palette or pattern, but will no longer have a name and will simply display the HEX value.

Palettes. When you delete a palette it will remove the palette from your creations list, it will clear out the name, description, loves, faves, comments and all other associated information.

Patterns. When you delete a pattern it will remove the pattern from your creations list, it will clear out the name, description, loves, faves, comments and all other associated information.

Templates. When you delete a pattern template it will remove the template from your creations list, it will clear out the name, description, loves, faves, comments and all other associated information. Any patterns colored in by other members will still exist on the site even after you delete the template, but no new version will be allowed to be created with the template.

*Gone But Never Forgotten*
Deleted content might still show up in search results in COLOURlovers for a brief time until our database runs it's regular updates to clear it out. Badges for your deleted creations will still exist, but the badge will be updated to show that the content has been removed, and the page for the creation will show that the creation has gone missing.

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