Effective date: July 1, 2026
Except where otherwise noted, the text contributed to The Open Lore Network (OLN) is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).
This page explains what that means for contributing to, and reusing, OLN content.
Contributing to OLN
To grow the commons of free knowledge and free culture, all users who edit or otherwise contribute text to OLN agree to grant broad permissions to the general public to redistribute and reuse their contributions freely for any purpose, including commercial use, in accordance with CC BY-SA 4.0. Such reuse is allowed where attribution is given and the same freedom to reuse and redistribute applies to any derivative works.
By editing or otherwise contributing text to OLN, you agree to license any text you change or contribute under CC BY-SA 4.0. You also represent that you have the right to do so — see "Importing text" below.
Discussions, comments, and chat
Content submitted to discussions, comments, chat, or similar interactive features is not licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. As set forth in our Terms of Service, that content is subject to a separate license grant to OLN which allows OLN to use such content as described there.
Importing text
If you want to contribute text in which you do not own or control the copyright, you may only do so if you originally received it under terms compatible with CC BY-SA 4.0 (for example, text that is itself under CC BY-SA, or in the public domain). You may not import text that is incompatible with CC BY-SA 4.0.
If you import text under a compatible license that requires attribution, you must credit the author(s) in a reasonable fashion (see "Attribution"). Where credit is commonly given through page histories (such as copying within OLN), it is sufficient to give attribution in the edit summary, which is recorded in the page history.
Attribution
As a contributor, you agree that being attributed in any of the following ways satisfies the attribution requirement of CC BY-SA 4.0: (a) attribution through a hyperlink or URL to the OLN article(s) you contributed to; (b) attribution through a hyperlink or URL to a stable, freely accessible online copy that conforms with the license and credits the authors equivalently; or (c) attribution through a list of all authors. Any author list may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions.
Non-text media (images and files)
Freely licensed or public-domain media is strongly preferred on OLN.
Non-text media should not be assumed to be available under the same license as the surrounding text — check the media's description for its specific license. If you upload a file, you should cite its source, attribute the author(s), and note any applicable copyright or license information. Individual franchises may add further requirements for file uploads.
Reusing OLN content
OLN text is available for reuse under CC BY-SA 4.0. When you reuse it, you must attribute the authors using one of the methods described under "Attribution," and you must license any derivative works under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 terms.
Example attribution when reusing OLN content on your own website:
This article uses material from the "Endor" article on The Open Lore Network (theopenlore.net) and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Off-site content (for example, emails, chats, or off-site forums) should not be assumed to be released under this license unless that is explicitly stated.
Translations and precedence
These licensing terms are not to be modified. If there is any inconsistency between these terms and a translation into another language, the English-language version takes precedence.
These terms are adapted from the licensing terms of other Creative Commons BY-SA projects and are themselves made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.