Copyright Policy

H-Net Terms of Use and Copyright Policy

Use of the H-Net Commons constitutes acceptance of H-Net's terms of use.

H-Net is a nonprofit educational scholarly society seeking to advance the teaching, research, and service of scholars, educators, and students through the use of new media. The following policies constitute the terms of use of our site by members and nonmembers of our organization, and serve to clarify all previous H-Net copyright policies. This policy supersedes any previous policies that are determined to be inconsistent with it. Submitting, downloading, redistributing or republishing content constitutes the user's acceptance of these terms and conditions:

(a) The management of H-Net's content, services, and resources is subject to policies determined by the H-Net Council as administered by the organization's officers in compliance with H-Net's bylaws, published policies, and Articles of Incorporation.

(b) H-Net considers any posting to its discussion forums or website to be a form of publication. "Publication" means the public display or distribution of content through whatever medium H-Net owns, controls, or licenses, at H-Net's sole discretion. Subscribers should not submit a message, document, or image to an H-Net network that contains material the subscriber does not, or in the future would not, want publicly available, unless the subscriber clearly indicates to the network editor in writing before publication what portions are not to be published.

(c) H-Net's edited networks do not publish anonymous material. Messages to our discussion forums must be signed with the author's name and applicable contact information.

(d) H-Net's editors and staff exercise sole discretion in determining what and when to publish, and may decline to publish content submitted to them. There is no automatic right of access to H-Net's audiences through H-Net's servers, and access to our site may be restricted or otherwise prohibited to individuals who violate H-Net's terms of use, at H-Net's discretion.

(e) The publication of content by H-Net does not alter the rights of the copyright holder, unless specific agreement has been made with H-Net.

(f) Submitting material to us for publication perpetually licenses H-Net to distribute and permanently archive that material for nonprofit, educational, or scholarly purposes through whatever media it owns, controls, or licenses.  Any further use of such material beyond H-Net requires the permission of the copyright holder, subject to the statutory exclusions defined by fair use, including quoting, citing, or excerpting for nonprofit, educational, or scholarly purposes with proper attribution to the author and H-Net. It is the responsibility of the copyright holder to preserve and enforce the copyrights.

(g) H-Net exclusively owns its discussion logs, the web displays of the discussion logs, the names of its networks, its subscription lists, and reviews commissioned by H-Net that are not otherwise licensed.

(h) H-Net considers the logs or records of its discussion forums, (or web displays of those records), to be a permanent archive to be maintained perpetually for use by scholars and the public. Although requests for removal or retroactive editing of material from this archive will be considered by H-Net, only material that presents a clear and present danger to an individual, that is legally libelous or defamatory as determined by H-Net or competent legal authority, or that is a violation of applicable copyright, can be removed, edited, or otherwise altered once it has been posted or published, at H-Net's sole discretion.

(i) Individuals may not use H-Net's media or the content we publish to harass, intimidate, spam, or otherwise abuse members or nonmembers.  H-Net reserves the right to prosecute individuals who misuse its servers or services.

(j) H-Net's editors and officers will make a good faith effort to publish content that is consistent with our nonprofit, educational mission, and will not alter submissions without the consent of their authors (beyond reformatting and cosmetic changes to prepare for publication), but H-Net assumes no liability for the specific content of material to which it does not own copyright.  Authors assume liability for the content of their messages and postings.

By using the H-Net Commons users verify that they are authorized by copyright holders to submit content to H-Net for publication according to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Please follow this link for more information about the Creative Commons License H-Net uses.

For more information on both the copyright policy and H-Net’s terms of use, see the H-Net Executive Council Policies.