Intellectual Property, Identity & Artificial Intelligence

Notice of Rights, Attribution and Unauthorised Use

Last updated: August 2026

Melissasterry.com is the personal website and professional intellectual property repository of scientist, designer, futurist, founder, writer, and speaker Dr.Melissa Sterry. The materials presented on this website represent the work, research, intellectual contributions, professional history and identity of Dr.Sterry. They are not an open-source dataset.They are not an invitation to appropriate, reproduce, imitate, synthesise or commercially exploit her work, identity or intellectual property.

1. Ownership and authorship

Unless expressly stated otherwise, the original written, visual, photographic, audiovisual, graphic, research and design materials published on this website are created by, commissioned by, or otherwise controlled by Dr.Sterry or the relevant rights holder.

This includes, without limitation:

  • Original written content, essays, articles, research, analyses and commentary.

  • Original concepts, theories, methodologies, frameworks and design propositions.

  • Academic and professional research.

  • Terminology, nomenclature and conceptual systems developed by Dr.Sterry.

  • Diagrams, illustrations, presentations and other original visual materials.

  • Photographs, portraits and other images in which rights are held or controlled by Dr.Sterry.

  • Biographies, professional descriptions and other authored representations of her work.

  • Publications and unpublished research made available through this website.

  • Material relating to:

    • Panarchic Codex®, Panarchistic Architecture, Pyrophytic Architecture™, Bioratorium®, Bionic City®, Firescape Lab™, Design for Wildfire school™, and Biotique®.

    • and associated research and intellectual frameworks, where applicable rights are held by Dr.Sterry or the relevant entity.

  • The selection, arrangement and presentation of these materials as a body of professional and intellectual work.

The fact that material is publicly accessible does not mean that it is free to copy, reproduce, ingest, train upon, commercially exploit, republish, adapt or attribute to another person. Copyright and other intellectual property rights may subsist in individual works irrespective of whether a copyright notice appears alongside them. UK Government guidance confirms that copyright owners generally control use of copyright material subject to applicable statutory exceptions.

2. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and automated systems

The content of this website is expressly not provided as an unrestricted training dataset for artificial intelligence or machine-learning systems. Unless permission has been expressly granted in writing, no person or organisation is authorised by Dr.Sterry to:

  • Scrape, harvest, crawl or systematically reproduce this website or its contents for the purpose of developing, training, fine-tuning, testing, validating or improving an artificial intelligence or machine-learning system.

  • Ingest or incorporate substantial portions of this website into a training, retrieval, embedding, knowledge or other machine-readable dataset.

  • Reproduce her original research, writing, terminology, frameworks, methodologies or other intellectual property within an AI system.

  • Use her work to generate derivative commercial products, services, research, publications, datasets or other outputs.

  • Use her name, biography, professional history, publications, research or intellectual property to construct a synthetic professional profile representing her.

  • Generate content that purports or appears to originate from Dr.Sterry when it has not been authored, approved or supplied by her.

  • Generate an AI representation, digital replica, synthetic persona or simulated professional identity of Dr.Sterry without her express permission.

  • Use her photographs, likeness, voice recordings, written work or other identifying material for the creation of a synthetic representation of her.

  • Imply that Dr.Sterry has endorsed, collaborated with, supplied information to, licensed material to, or otherwise authorised an AI company, model, product or service when she has not done so.

  • Use AI-generated material based upon her work or identity in a manner that falsely suggests authorship, provenance, affiliation or endorsement.

Nothing in this notice is intended to override a statutory exception or other right that may lawfully apply. It is instead an explicit statement that no broader permission, licence or implied consent should be inferred from the public availability of this website. The legal position surrounding AI training and intellectual property is developing rapidly. UK Government materials recognise that copyright and moral rights can govern the use of works in AI training, and that unauthorised digital replicas and synthetic representations raise additional questions concerning identity, reputation and passing off.

3. Dr. Melissa Sterry’s identity is not an AI resource

Dr.Melissa Sterry is a real person, not a fictional character, brand archetype or freely reproducible AI persona. Her name, professional identity, biography, career history, research history, publications, photographs, recorded appearances, written voice and associated professional reputation have been developed over many years.

They must not be appropriated to manufacture the appearance of an association, endorsement, authorship or professional authority that does not exist. In particular, no organisation or individual may knowingly create or deploy a synthetic representation that could reasonably cause a member of the public to believe that it is:

  • Dr.Melissa Sterry

  • An authorised representative of Dr.Melissa Sterry.

  • A service operated or endorsed by Dr.Melissa Sterry.

  • An authorised reproduction of her professional expertise or intellectual work.

  • A collaboration between Dr.Sterry and the organisation or system concerned, where no such relationship exists.

4. False attributioN and misrepresentation

Dr.Sterry expressly reserves her right to object to the false attribution of authorship, false representation of endorsement or affiliation, and other forms of misrepresentation concerning her work or professional identity. This is particularly important in relation to generative AI systems, which can produce apparently authoritative text that may combine information from multiple sources, reproduce distinctive language or concepts, invent associations, or incorrectly attribute ideas to individuals.

An AI system’s assertion that information originated from, was created by, or was endorsed by Dr.Melissa Sterry does not constitute evidence that it did. Where an AI-generated output attributes an idea, quotation, research finding, methodology, concept, publication or professional position to Dr Sterry, that attribution should be independently verified against an authoritative source. Where an AI-generated representation materially misstates Dr.Sterry’s work, identity, qualifications, professional history or views, Dr.Sterry reserves all rights available to her to challenge and seek correction of that representation.

5. Intellectual property is not relinquished by publication

Publication is not abandonment.The decision to publish research, ideas, writing, images or other intellectual work online does not constitute a transfer of ownership. Nor does the fact that a search engine, automated system, AI model or other technology can technically access publicly available material establish that the owner has consented to every subsequent use of that material. Where permission is required, permission must be obtained from the relevant rights holder. Where a licence is required, the terms of that licence must be agreed before use.

6. Research, concepts and terminology

Particular care should be taken with original research concepts, frameworks, terminology and methodological propositions developed by Dr.Sterry. Ideas in the abstract may not always be protected by copyright. However, the specific expression, documentation, presentation and associated intellectual materials through which research is communicated may attract intellectual property protection.

The unauthorised appropriation of distinctive terminology, original written expression, diagrams, frameworks, sequences of propositions or other identifiable elements of a body of research may therefore raise intellectual property, attribution or other legal issues depending upon the circumstances. This notice should not be interpreted as asserting that every individual word, idea or factual statement appearing on this website is exclusively owned by Dr.Sterry. Rather, it establishes that the original intellectual work and its particular expression remain subject to whatever rights arise under applicable law.

7. Attribution

Where material is lawfully quoted, reproduced or referred to, appropriate attribution should be provided. Attribution should identify Dr.Melissa Sterry and, where appropriate, the relevant publication, project, research work or website from which the material originated. Attribution must not be presented in a manner that implies endorsement, partnership or approval where none exists.

UK copyright law provides authors with certain moral rights, including rights concerning identification as the author of qualifying works and protection against certain forms of false attribution.

8. Commercial use and licensing

Commercial use of copyright works, research materials, images, recordings, presentations, written content, designs or other protected material may require permission or a licence. Requests for licensing, republication, syndication, research use, commercial use, reproduction or other authorised use should be made directly to Dr.Sterry before the proposed use takes place. A request for permission is not permission. Silence is not permission.The absence of a technical restriction preventing copying is not permission.

9. AI companies, developers and data intermediaries

This notice applies in particular to companies and organisations developing or operating:

  • Generative AI systems

  • Large language models

  • Multimodal foundation models

  • Machine-learning systems

  • Automated knowledge systems

  • Synthetic-media systems

  • Digital-replica technologies

  • Search and retrieval systems

  • Data-aggregation services

  • AI training datasets

  • Model-evaluation datasets

  • Products or services derived from such systems.

Any organisation seeking to use material from this website for purposes beyond ordinary human browsing, lawful indexing or another legally permitted activity should undertake its own rights assessment and obtain permission where required.

No AI company should assume that because content is available online, it has been made available for unrestricted model training, commercial exploitation or synthetic reproduction.

10. Evidence and preservation of rights

Dr.Sterry reserves the right to document, preserve and investigate instances in which her identity, work, research, intellectual property or professional reputation appears to have been reproduced, appropriated, misrepresented or incorporated into an AI system or AI-generated output without appropriate authorisation. This may include preserving:

  • screenshots

  • webpages

  • model outputs

  • prompts and responses

  • metadata

  • publication dates

  • archived versions of webpages

  • source material

  • comparative textual or visual analysis

  • records of attribution

  • evidence of commercial use

  • other material relevant to establishing provenance, authorship, chronology or unauthorised use.

11. Enforcement

Where Dr.Sterry considers that her rights have been infringed, her identity has been misrepresented, or her intellectual property has been used without appropriate authorisation, she reserves the right to pursue any remedies available under applicable law. This may include requests for removal; correction; attribution; cessation of use; disclosure of relevant information; preservation of evidence; licensing negotiations; compensation or damages where legally available; and/or further legal action. Nothing in this notice constitutes a waiver of any right, remedy or cause of action available to Dr.Sterry.

12. No implied endorsement

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, Dr.Melissa Sterry has no affiliation with, endorsement of, partnership with, or commercial relationship with any artificial intelligence company, AI model, AI-generated persona, AI platform or AI service that may refer to her, reproduce information about her, or generate material concerning her. The appearance of information about Dr.Sterry within an AI-generated response does not establish that Dr.Sterry supplied, approved, licensed or endorsed that information.

13. A simple principle

There is a fundamental distinction between learning from a person’s published work as a human reader and commercially appropriating that person’s body of work, identity or professional reputation as computational raw material. Dr.Sterry welcomes legitimate scholarship, criticism, citation, discussion and engagement with her published work. She does not, however, grant blanket permission for her intellectual labour, professional identity or creative output to be appropriated, repackaged, simulated or commercially exploited by automated systems.

If you wish to use her work, ask.
If you wish to reproduce it, seek permission.
If you wish to build upon it, attribute it.
If you wish to represent her, obtain her consent.

14. Reservation of rights

All rights are expressly reserved. Nothing on this website should be construed as granting an express or implied licence except where a licence is expressly stated. This notice applies to material currently published on this website and, where legally applicable, to material subsequently published here. It is intended to sit alongside, and not replace, the specific intellectual property notices, copyright statements, licences, contractual terms and legal rights that may apply to individual works or projects.

Legal note

This page is a statement of rights, authorship, permissions and policy. It is not intended to constitute a complete statement of the law in every jurisdiction or a substitute for jurisdiction-specific legal advice. The legal treatment of artificial intelligence, model training, automated scraping, digital replicas, personality and identity is developing rapidly. Different rights and legal tests may apply depending upon the nature of the material, the conduct complained of, the parties involved and the jurisdiction in which relevant acts occur. Nothing in this notice is intended to assert rights that cannot lawfully arise, nor to exclude any statutory exception or other lawful use. Where a dispute arises, the applicable law and the specific facts of the matter will determine the rights and remedies available.