Terms & Conditions (last updated: July 27, 2015)

By submitting your contribution, you grant a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to The Washington University to preserve, reproduce, and distribute your work as part of the Documenting Ferguson Project. This permission includes the right to modify your material to conform to the goals of the Project, to reformat it as necessary to preserve its perceptibility and usefulness, and to make it available for educational, research, and promotional purposes outside of the Project, in perpetuity and in all media formats. This license does not authorize exploitation of your contribution for profit or commercial use.

Material you submit must have been created by you, wholly original, and shall not be copied from or based upon any other photographic, literary, or other material, except to the extent that such material is in the public domain, or you have permission of the copyright owner, or its use is allowed by "Fair Use" as prescribed by the terms of United States copyright law (cf. Title 17 of the U.S. Code).

In granting this permission, you warrant that you are 18 years of age or older and have the full power and authority to consent to this agreement, that your submission does not infringe any existing copyright or contain any libelous matter, nor invade any third party rights of privacy or publicity. You further agree to defend and hold harmless Washington University, its Washington University Libraries, its board of trustees, and its officers, employees, and agents against all claims, demands, costs, and expenses including attorney's fees incurred for any and all claims of copyright infringement or any other legal or regulatory course of action arising from the use of your material.

The Project has no obligation to use or publish your contribution. You retain ownership of and copyright in the material you share.

Contributors who elect to provide their contact information in the Email Contact field within the Contribution form agree to the public display of such contact information in connection with the materials submitted under that form.

Third-Party Use

Washington University does not hold copyright in the material in the Documenting Ferguson archive. As such, University Libraries is not positioned to grant licenses to or “approve” requests from third parties to make use of content in the collection. Contributors may elect to display contact information, and it is the user’s responsibility to obtain any necessary permission from the copyright holder(s).

Contact Digital Library Services for other rights-related questions or, in certain cases, referral to the original contributor regarding use of his or her content.

Approval Criteria

  1. Content is related to the events surrounding the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO on August 9, 2014.
  2. File size of contributed content does not exceed 30 MB.
  3. Metadata submitted is deemed to be accurate by the administrator.
  4. Users have the right to submit content and submission does not infringe any existing copyright.
  5. Content does not provide personal information of the contributor or any other individual, including addresses, phone numbers, etc.
  6. Content does not endorse any commercial product.
  7. Content does not pose a risk of damage to the network, computers, or servers of Washington University.