Copyright and fair use

In short

Room for Peace is an educational, non-commercial site. We use other people’s works in three ways only: images that are in the public domain or under a free licence, with credit; short quotations with a source; and links and players that load only on request, instead of copies. If you hold rights in something here and think we got it wrong, we will check and remove or correct it.

What we use, and on what basis

Photographs: Only files that are in the public domain or under a free licence that allows reuse (Creative Commons BY or BY-SA, CC0). The BY and BY-SA licences require credit, a link to the licence and a note of any changes,¹ and BY-SA also requires an adaptation to be distributed under the same licence.² The creator, source and licence are listed in the photograph register on the About & sources page, where cropping is noted as a change. A photograph whose licence could not be confirmed is marked as such there, or is not shown. A portrait fetched automatically from Wikimedia Commons is accepted only when the licence recorded in the file’s data is on the site’s allow-list: public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA. Non-commercial-only and no-derivatives licences are not used, and no AI-generated image stands in for a real photograph.
Works of the United States government: Many of the archive photographs were taken by federal employees as part of their official duties. Under United States law, such a work is not protected by copyright in the United States.³ That is a rule of US law, and it does not settle the status of these works in other countries.
Quotations from speeches, agreements and documents: Short, with speaker, date, event and source. The basis in Israeli law is section 19 of the Copyright Law, 5768-2007: fair use is permitted for purposes such as private study, research, criticism, review, journalistic reporting, quotation, and instruction and examination by an educational institution. A court weighs, among other things, the purpose and character of the use, the character of the work, how much of it was used in relation to the whole, and the effect on its value and potential market.⁴ Under section 6 there is no copyright in statutes, regulations, Knesset proceedings and judicial decisions.⁴
Texts of agreements and UN documents: We link to the text at its original publisher, and summarise it in our own words.
Video: Nothing is downloaded or re-uploaded. A YouTube player loads only after the visitor clicks, with a link to the original upload beside it.
Songs: No lyrics or melodies are reproduced. The Songs of peace page links to recordings on the services where the rights holders or their distributors published them.
Maps and fonts: The maps are built from Natural Earth data, which is in the public domain. The fonts are distributed under open licences.

Credit to creators

Under sections 45 and 46 of the Law, the author of a literary, artistic, dramatic or musical work (computer programs excepted) has a moral right: to be named on the work to the extent appropriate in the circumstances, and not to have the work distorted in a way that harms his or her honour or reputation. The right is personal and cannot be transferred.⁴ So we name the creator wherever the source names one. If a credit is missing or wrong, write to us and we will fix it; corrections are recorded in the Corrections log.

Using this site’s own content

The site’s own texts, design, original illustrations and code are dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0: you may copy, translate, adapt, print and teach from them, commercially too, without asking.⁵ Credit and a link are not required, but they are welcome: they help the next reader check the sources. Do not present your use as if the site stood behind it. For classroom use, see the page For teachers and youth leaders.

The waiver covers only what the site created. Other people’s material shown on the site, including photographs, quotations, videos and the names and emblems of organisations, keeps its own licence. Anyone reusing it must follow that licence and the credit shown beside it, not this page. See also the Terms of use.

If you are a rights holder

What to send: Which work, where it appears on the site (the page address), your connection to the work, and how to reach you.
What we do: We check the request, and promptly remove or correct the material while we check. This is the customary “notice and takedown” procedure.
What that does not mean: Removal is not an admission of infringement. If the claim proves unfounded, we may restore the material.
Where to write: Contact details appear at the end of this page. Send only what is needed to handle your request.