Contributing to the Tree of Life – ToL Policies

Tree of Life Use of Contributions

ToL contributors generally keep the copyright for content submitted to the Tree of Life (see exceptions below), and they grant the ToL Project non-exclusive, royalty-free, and full rights to use submitted materials subject to a particular license. Licensing is handled differently for text and media (images, videos, etc.) contributions, and we explain the available options below.

By default, ToL contributions are released under the Attribution-NonCommercial Creative Commons License. If you prefer a more restrictive or more permissive license for your materials, you can specify another default license in your contributor registration record. Also, you can specify licenses for individual text or media contributions by selecting a specific license in the relevant page or media data forms. If you have submitted materials to the ToL before 2008, please see Legacy Materials for information about relevant use policies.

• Licensing Options for Text Contributions
• Licensing Options for Media Contributions
• Exceptions
• Legacy Materials

Licensing Options for Text Contributions

Contributors of ToL TEXT contributions (branch & leaf pages, other articles, notes, treehouses) are asked to select one of the following licensing options:

• Release to the public under a Creative Commons License
  • Text released under a creative commons licenses can be copied, reused, and distributed by the general public as long as attribution regarding the source of the information is maintained. Licenses are available that restrict the commercial use and the adaptation and modification of text. Copyright notices for materials released under this option are marked with the Creative Commons icon and contain a link to the deed for the selected license. For more information about these licenses, see the Creative Commons web site. We encourage ToL contributors to release their text contributions under a creative commons license, because these licenses will let us share materials with the Encyclopedia of Life (see ToL/EOL Collaboration). All creative commons licenses that permit the reuse and adaptation of text are compatible with the EOL intellectual property model, i. e., Attribution, Attribution-NonCommercial, Attribution-ShareAlike, and Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike.
• Tree of Life use only
  • Text licensed under this option can be displayed only on the Tree of Life web site. Note that ToL editorial staff and coordinators may adjust markup and fix errors or remove/update broken links in your text. Title illustrations, references and internet links may be updated, appended, and revised by ToL editorial staff and coordinators. The context or presentation of your text may change if the look of the ToL web site is updated or if new features affecting page layout are developed.
• Release in the public domain
  • Materials in the public domain may be freely reproduced, distributed, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, with or without attribution to the original source.

Licensing Options for Media Contributions

Contributors of ToL MEDIA contributions (images, movies, sounds, pdf documents, etc.) are asked to select one of the following licensing options:

• Release to the public under a Creative Commons License
  • Media released under a creative commons licenses can be copied, reused, and distributed by the general public as long as attribution regarding the source of the file is maintained. Licenses are available that restrict the commercial use and the adaptation and modification of media files. Copyright notices for materials released under this option are marked with the Creative Commons icon and contain a link to the deed for the selected license. For more information about these licenses, see the Creative Commons web site. We encourage ToL contributors to release their media contributions under a creative commons license, because these licenses will let us share materials with the Encyclopedia of Life (see ToL/EOL Collaboration). All creative commons licenses that permit the reuse and adaptation of media are compatible with the EOL intellectual property model, i. e., Attribution, Attribution-NonCommercial, Attribution-ShareAlike, and Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike.
• Use on ToL and share with other scientific/educational projects
  • In addition to use on the ToL site (see next option), this option allows the ToL to share materials with select, non-commercial, scientific or educational partner projects. This means that media may be exported to the databases of ToL partner projects, and they may be displayed on the web sites of these projects. Note that this license is not sufficient to let us share a media file with the Encyclopedia of Life. In order to be compatible with the EOL intellectual property model, a media file needs to be released under a creative commons license. See above.
  • Modification permitted: Other ToL contributors will be able to use the media file, in whole or in part, in their own montages or collages. Minor modification only: The media file cannot be excerpted or used in the creation of derivative media projects. However, the following minor modifications are permitted:
    • Visual media may be auto-scaled for use on ToL pages, and thumbnails will be created for use in captions, search results etc. They may also be cropped, rotated, and small adjustments in contrast and sharpness can be made.
    • The context or presentation of a file may change; e.g., this could happen if the look of the ToL web site is updated, if new features affecting page layout are developed, or if a media file is displayed on the web site of a partner project.
• Tree of Life use only
  • This option allows other ToL contributors to use media to illustrate the content of their pages (i.e., branch & leaf pages, other articles & notes, or treehouses). Whenever a contribution is displayed on a ToL page, it will be accompanied by a copyright notice informing visitors that the material is protected by copyright law.
  • Modification permitted: Other ToL contributors will be able to use the media file, in whole or in part, in their own montages or collages. Minor modification only: The media file cannot be excerpted or used in the creation of derivative media projects. However, the following minor modifications are permitted:
    • Visual media may be auto-scaled for use on ToL pages, and thumbnails will be created for use in captions, search results etc. They may also be cropped, rotated, and small adjustments in contrast and sharpness can be made.
    • The context or presentation of a file may change; e.g., this could happen if the look of the ToL web site is updated, or if new features affecting page layout are developed.
• Restricted to one-time use in specified location
  • This option gives media contributors strict control over the use of their materials. Restricted use media are provided only for specific use on a particular ToL page. While these files may be featured in ToL media search results and collections, they are not available for other uses without prior consultation with the copyright owner.
  • Restricted media may not generally be modified or edited. However, visual media may be auto-scaled for use on ToL pages, and thumbnails will be created for use in captions, search results etc. Also, the context or presentation of a file may change if the look of the ToL web site is updated or if new features affecting page layout are developed.
• Release in the public domain
  • Materials in the public domain may be freely reproduced, distributed, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, with or without attribution to the original source.

Exceptions

The copyright for both the ToL glossary and the tree structure represented on the ToL site belong to the ToL project, and these materials are made available to the public under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial Creative Commons License. Contributors participating in the building of the glossary and tree can use these materials as specified in the license, but they do not retain any rights to limit their distribution.

Legacy Materials

If you contributed materials to the Tree of Life before the project instituted explicit licensing policies, your text contributions are currently set to Tree of Life use only.

For images and other media that were added to the ToL database without explicit licenses, we have adopted the following policies:

• If the copyright owner of the media file is not a registered ToL contributor (i.e., if a contributor uploaded a file they received from another person not involved with the ToL), the license is set to Restricted
• If the copyright owner of the media file is a registered ToL contributor, the license is set to Tree of Life use only

If you would like to change the licenses of materials you have previously uploaded to the ToL, log into your ToL account, and follow the Review license defaults link in the Scientific Materials Manager. If you need any help, contact We will be happy to help you to get the proper licenses associated with your contributions.