Announcements/RE: Please Read: Regarding Ambleside Online's Copyright Policy
11-04-2018, 04:57 PM
Cheryl, it's morning for me, but Sunday morning, so I don't have a lot of time, either.
I genuinely hope your questions are not asked for the purpose of finding some kind of loophole to do something that we don't want anyone to do. Even if a legal loophole is out there (and there probably is), it isn't in keeping with the ethics and spirit that is AmblesideOnline. I know that's difficult sometimes for people who don't share our vision, but all we can do is try to help you see the vision.
We love Charlotte Mason's methods philosophy and methods. When our kids were small, there was no Charlotte Mason curriculum available at all, anywhere, and every one of us who liked CM's ideas had to patch together a curriculum plan or try to massage an existing curriculum and use it is a CM way. The idea for writing a curriculum based on the PNEU programs was born (that's a whole story in itself). We originally thought it would mostly be a guideline--"This is what a CM curriculum looks like" (we only had years 1-6)--but to our surprise, people started using it as written. Right then, the possibility of turning our enterprise into a for-profit venture was also born. We looked at that innocent-seeming little thing, and let it die. AO was going to be a free curriculum, always, so that anyone, anywhere, in any financial situation, could have access to a CM education. We took CM's vision for "a liberal education for all" a little further than she did herself.
We have been repaid a thousand-fold with blessings that money could never buy. We're not sorry we kept AO free, and we invested even more time and energy into extending the curriculum to a full 12 years. Plus extras, like the riches, the HELP plan, holiday book suggestions, and more. Most of us, with the help of some additional volunteers and a host of experienced, willing AO moms, are still here, providing CM knowledge to newcomers and giving free consulting on the forum and on facebook so that families can make AO work for them. All for no compensation of the monetary sort.
We just love CM and we want everyone to enjoy her ideas.
But, we have learned the hard way, it's not just that simple. AO has grown and to many it represents, not just a community of learners, but a potential market. People have wanted to make study guides, audio materials, and I don't know what all, to "help" people do AO, and those things might even do that--help--but they have wanted to sell. It simply doesn't fit our paradigm. If you want to help the AO community use the curriculum (which is given for free), then the help must be free or it is jarring, a note struck out of tune. And many people have given freely and enhanced the curriculum. We are grateful for them--we wouldn't force anyone to do anything--and are convinced that they will be blessed as we have been.
We know that "stuff" is different from resources--merchandise such as AO mugs, totes, pencils, stickers, notebooks, hats, keychains, magnets, t-shirts, and who knows what else can't be free. But the right to create and distribute or sell that stuff belongs to the AmblesideOnline Educational Foundation, and no one else. It doesn't mean you can't use the word "AmblesideOnline" in a blog post. That's not the same thing at all.
The bottom line is, if it were your work, would you want somebody to do the thing you are proposing to do? That's the golden rule, right? You treat others as you would want to be treated, and that standard, and not heaps of legal protection about minutia (this word, that variation) is our standard.
I genuinely hope your questions are not asked for the purpose of finding some kind of loophole to do something that we don't want anyone to do. Even if a legal loophole is out there (and there probably is), it isn't in keeping with the ethics and spirit that is AmblesideOnline. I know that's difficult sometimes for people who don't share our vision, but all we can do is try to help you see the vision.
We love Charlotte Mason's methods philosophy and methods. When our kids were small, there was no Charlotte Mason curriculum available at all, anywhere, and every one of us who liked CM's ideas had to patch together a curriculum plan or try to massage an existing curriculum and use it is a CM way. The idea for writing a curriculum based on the PNEU programs was born (that's a whole story in itself). We originally thought it would mostly be a guideline--"This is what a CM curriculum looks like" (we only had years 1-6)--but to our surprise, people started using it as written. Right then, the possibility of turning our enterprise into a for-profit venture was also born. We looked at that innocent-seeming little thing, and let it die. AO was going to be a free curriculum, always, so that anyone, anywhere, in any financial situation, could have access to a CM education. We took CM's vision for "a liberal education for all" a little further than she did herself.
We have been repaid a thousand-fold with blessings that money could never buy. We're not sorry we kept AO free, and we invested even more time and energy into extending the curriculum to a full 12 years. Plus extras, like the riches, the HELP plan, holiday book suggestions, and more. Most of us, with the help of some additional volunteers and a host of experienced, willing AO moms, are still here, providing CM knowledge to newcomers and giving free consulting on the forum and on facebook so that families can make AO work for them. All for no compensation of the monetary sort.
We just love CM and we want everyone to enjoy her ideas.
But, we have learned the hard way, it's not just that simple. AO has grown and to many it represents, not just a community of learners, but a potential market. People have wanted to make study guides, audio materials, and I don't know what all, to "help" people do AO, and those things might even do that--help--but they have wanted to sell. It simply doesn't fit our paradigm. If you want to help the AO community use the curriculum (which is given for free), then the help must be free or it is jarring, a note struck out of tune. And many people have given freely and enhanced the curriculum. We are grateful for them--we wouldn't force anyone to do anything--and are convinced that they will be blessed as we have been.
We know that "stuff" is different from resources--merchandise such as AO mugs, totes, pencils, stickers, notebooks, hats, keychains, magnets, t-shirts, and who knows what else can't be free. But the right to create and distribute or sell that stuff belongs to the AmblesideOnline Educational Foundation, and no one else. It doesn't mean you can't use the word "AmblesideOnline" in a blog post. That's not the same thing at all.
The bottom line is, if it were your work, would you want somebody to do the thing you are proposing to do? That's the golden rule, right? You treat others as you would want to be treated, and that standard, and not heaps of legal protection about minutia (this word, that variation) is our standard.
Karen Glass, mom of four with only one daughter left at home.
Author of Consider This and Mind to Mind , Know and Tell , and In Vital Harmony.
Author of Consider This and Mind to Mind , Know and Tell , and In Vital Harmony.
