Year 0 AD does not exist.

It's gernerally considered a bit rude to rip graphics out of a programm, unless the creators give explicit permission. Of course the license allows its use, and I wouldn't hesitate to use some of the art if it would fit my project precisely.

But taking the graphics out of a programm and making a custom content pack for download out of it is a bit of a different matter. Lead artists like to have a unique graphic style for their game, and can be a bit touchy when it comes to open game art precisely because of this. In fact this is the sole reason why there are so many open-code but closed art project IMHO. Therefore we should be happy that 0.AD did not take this route and work with their content only very carefully in order to avoid and bad feeling with them or other project who might hear about it.

Rule of thumb: If the lead artist of a project himself makes a open content pack be happy about it, otherwise use the open assets to contribute to the project itself, and use it only very carefully and only selected assets for other projects.

Basicly it boils down to politics... open game art is still sadly a very difficult topic for most artists, in fact you will meet many who openly dispise even the though of it. So we should be maybe sometimes more careful than what the license itselfs might allow.

Edit: It is a different matter is you make a sort of fan or "universe" game however. I guess most artists would be cool with you using the entire graphics set to make a lets say 0AD puzzle game, but using it to create a "competing" genre game will lead to at least some bad feelings.

As a rule of thumb, out of respect for the projects in question, we ask permission first.  The FreeCiv graphics are an exception, as they were archived at Free Game Arts, which we (for the most part) mirrored at the behest of the site admin.

In general, if you'd like to post art here that's being used in another project, ask first.  It's okay to make an exception if the project in question appears to be defunct and you can't reach the project maintainer.

Bart

http://opengameart.org/content/can-i-upload-content-someone-other-me

"As a courtesy, we would prefer that you contact the original artist if possible and get their permission to post the work in question, unless they've already made it clear that it's okay to do so."

I added that wording to the FAQ question because of this discussion.  It wasn't already there. :)

I think Misha wanted to point out that technically, there's never been a year 0. The calendar jumps right from 1B.C. to 1A.D. Wikipedia has interesting details of why and so on.

I understand that it never existed, I just wanted to point out that it's exactly for this reason they named the game 0A.D.

I discovered OpenGameArt.org because someone asked permission to post some my CC-BY-SA work here.  Asking became advertising.

Also it's nice to make sure the artist understands the effect of the license they chose.  Though most of the time I get "well, of course you can reuse it" I still ask.

I don't get this - that's what CC licenses are for - so that you do not have to ask for permission for certain uses, including redistribution. I can't see anything rude or disrespectful. If anything, it helps put the artwork to use, supports creativity etc. That's the whole point of these licenses.

Am I going to get in trouble on this site if I post 0 A.D. resources without asking? I think I am going to do it, just out of principle.

EDIT: I can see someone posted the textures already (https://opengameart.org/content/0-ad-textures) - that's good. I can't see the models though, would be nice to have them accessible, they'd be tremendously useful.

Just a few additional points:

- If I were to upload the 0 A.D. assets, I'd do it from a separate account, BUT

- Packaging and redistribution is work too, so it's okay to even make money by just uploading someone else's art here. I wouldn't do it, but it's okay. If you can make money by selling something that's available next door for free, good for you.

- People need to learn this is okay. Most people have been taught by the copyright/IP propaganda that redistribution or derivative work is a shady/weird practice, we need to unlearn this. Basically the only shady practice is falsely claiming autorship.

- Proposing a rule to ask for permission to reupload a work that allows redistribution by its license means dishonoring the license. The license explicitly grants a right to the users but you'd be putting a restriction in its place that is anti-free/open culture. The site would then basically have to be renamed to SemiOpenGameArt or something.

@drummyfish you said that you would not do it, yet you say the stigma against it should be unlearned.

why? does the stigma not serve a purpose?

personally, i think it's amoral. i have absorbed maybe 2 ppm copyright/IP propaganda, full disclosure, but people who repackage and sell other people's art still stink of... cheap. it's cheap, lazy, opportunistic, disheartening, etc. it also facilitates a culture of those who use packaged art instead of learning how to do basic s*** on their own, which cultivates laziness, opportunistic behavior, jadedness, cheapness, etc. furthermore, this creates a climate of specialists who cannot think and act on their feet and must therefore depend on others, balooning project times and reducing the efficiency of everyone, individually and collectively.

p.s. i'm just saying it should be discouraged and looked down upon, and used only by those who absolutely need the side-income (which may be a lot of people, come to think of it... i do art and am broke). it's still wrong, though.

p.p.s. you may find me here in a few years offering packaged assets by other artists; these posts may be written from a laptop inside a coffeeshop whilst i charge up between trips to the bathroom to privately satisfy a drug habit ;p.

you know, it took me 10 minutes to write and edit that diatribe; i coulda made like 2 asset packs in that time to sell to idiots. 

maybe i've got this whole selling-packaged-art thing all wrong

;p

@MNDV.ecb

This is how I'd try to put it - you charge money for your work, so if you take time to package a freely available work, you can demand (ask, not require) payment for the work you added - i.e. you may have sorted the work, named the files nicely, converted them to different formats, compressed them, ...). I agree you shouldn't ask the same amount the author would ask for creating the work itself - and I think this is what you were talking about... you should ask much, much less. You should be paid approprietly to the amount of work you added. You can ask however much you want, but if it's too much for what you've done, people will see it and won't pay. I think everyone has to agree with this, right?

I wouldn't try to make money on this at this moment for two reasons:

1. I personally don't care about money. If I was starving and this was a way to make money, I would do it with clear conscience though.

2. At this moment I'd like to focus on the issue of redistribution to show people it is okay to do, so I'd be doing just redistribution, without involving money. Involving money would be okay, but it suddenly becomes a broader question, so basically I want to address first things first.

If you're ever unclear on how an artist wants their art used or distributed (or not), it's always a good idea to ask. Even if the license doesn't requrie it. The important part is "unclear". Sometimes artists share their work not fully understanding the implications of the license, as Clint hinted at. Legally, you have no obligation to ask them anything. Ethically, it's a good idea to preserve good will with artists by being sure you (and they) understand their desires for the art. If artists are sharing work with unusual stipulations or something that hints at not really understanding what the license means, maybe asking some clarifying questions is a good idea.

"Use this for whatever, I don't care! Just don't sell it or repackage it" stipulations that conflict with the chosen license = ask anyway. Another good time to ask anyway is unusual situations that can be interpreted multiple ways. CC-BY-SA for example says you have to share derivatives under the same license. Is the game a derivative? Legally, no. But a lot of artists assume it is and they selected the CC-BY-SA license because they intend any project that uses their art be opensource. Best to double-check if it looks like they're making this assumption.

On the other hand, I don't want to be bugged every time someone uses my art. That's the whole point of the license, as drummyfish indicated. You don't need to ask me. I already said yes. Stop annoying me. I uploaded it to OGA so you'd all know the answer to that question and use it without having to ask every time. If the artist doesn't seem confused about licenses and clearly indicated a FOSS license... use the art, credit the artist, and move on. :)

Notice I've indicated a separaton of what is LEGALLY ok and what is ETHICALLY ok. It is always legally ok to sell CC assets. It is often ethically ok to sell them, too. My general response is "I don't know why someone would buy this asset from you when they can get it here for free, but you're still allowed to sell it." Sometimes, it's just legal, but not ethical. Scraping all the CC0 art on OGA, putting it in a .zip file, and selling it as a "royalty free mega asset pack! $49.95" is weird. The artists intend for it to be enjoyed for free. By selling it without adding any value to it is taking away that part of the artists intent.

Lets say the EPA gives out free water bottles after an earthquake to help the disaster victims. I come up, tell them I need 400 bottles. They give it to me for free. I put a rubber band around every 2 bottles and move closer to the epicenter and set up a shop selling "duluxe water 2-packs! $80.00 each!" Is it legal? Sure. The bottles are legally my property. The EPA gave them to me to do with what I want. But it sure seems rotten to take advantage of desperate people that don't know there's free water just a few more meters up the road.

Adding value, on the other hand, is fine. Great, even! If you take free art, modify it, polish it, really round out the missing pieces to make it a cohesive set and format it so it is easy to consume by game engines, then sell it? No problem. Legal + Ethical. You're profiting from the work you put into it to make it better! You've enriched it. (this assumes the free art being enriched has no questions about how the artist intended to share it.)

It's not about how much work it took you to repackage it, though. Its about how much work you saved someone else. If it takes you 13 hours to repackage and organize free art, but doesn't save the customer any work compared to the original free version... then the new package isn't worthy of a pricetag.

...IMHO. :)

@drummyfish yes, yes, yes, i understand, ja ja ja w/e

@medicinestorm exactly! well-said! you hit all the points

Someone has posted some Ryzom assets as well so it really should be okay - you can even make it to display the original author and you're only displayed underneath as the poster, so I wouldn't even make a separate account.

I've started to look into the 0 A.D. models and they're not super easy to pull out of the repository - many of the final models are assembled from other submodels based on XML definitions and many textures are in weird formats, so it can actually be difficult to do for an artist. Just extracting some of the models and packing them in a ready-to-use way is a real job to be done here that will take several hours. I think that is why the assets are not reused so much.

So... I am now working on assembling a pack of selected 0 A.D. models that I'd really like to post in a few days. And to not be so rebellious after all, I will at least try to inform the game developers about this :)