Revoked art notification
Revoked art notification
Friday, April 13, 2012 - 14:33
Should an artist request a take down, and it is granted AND I have downloaded that art for my game, do I receive a notice that something I downloaded should no longer be used?
Not properly uploaded art that grants continue use after a take down (because certain licenses provide for this). I'm just asking about the art that is uploaded when it never should have been.
I don't know how often it happens and so maybe this is a nit. Just seems I could potentially get into trouble by innocently using what happens to be discovered unlicensed/improperlly licensed art.
That's logistically difficult, since OGA doesn't track who downloads what (except possibly by IP address). You could post a comment on a downloaded asset with a link to your project, or some way to contact you; that way if the asset is taken down, the copyright holder would have a way to contact you and let you know of the change. That, and most of the artists here really enjoy seeing their work in the wild.
-mm
My project: Bits & Bots
Thanks MoikMellah!
I figured as much. At least knowing about this in advance, it could be possible to keep record on your own. If your game ever starts making serious money (not likely for me I think!) you could worry about checking the licensing on your art, or have a minon do that (bwhaahahaha!).
Still it would be nice if they did track your username as you downloaded and fire off an email if something you downloaded was "de-listed".
Could imagine that there could be a warning message regarding favorites which have been banned - this may be logistically straight forward. Besides there could be some mechanism like subscribing to submissions like: "Inform me about submission changes".
In my opinion the current mechanism of news only about new submissions inhibits updating art anyway and promotes posting updates as completely new submissions without connections to the prior submission.
A related issue is that it's dangerous in my opinion to accept anonymous art submissions (even or especially for CC0) without suficient artist contact information. Just the blank name isn't enough. Who can tell that it isn't ripped art? With nobody responsible for the submission? This may even fall back to OGA being held responsible for distribution.
So there is a (as I would call it) copyright injection vulnerability similar to the problem the linux kernel had before they built a chain of trust.
A related issue is that it's dangerous in my opinion to accept anonymous art submissions (even or especially for CC0) without suficient artist contact information. Just the blank name isn't enough. Who can tell that it isn't ripped art? With nobody responsible for the submission? This may even fall back to OGA being held responsible for distribution.
I'm not a big fan of the DMCA, but the Safe Harbor provision does in fact protect us from that. I'm not saying that we should stop attempting to verify the legality of content, or knowingly allow unlicensed content until we receive a DMCA notice, mind you. It's just that OGA being held legally responsible isn't among the concerns, due to safe harbor. In fact, the responsibility for that lies with the uploader, and, if subpoenaed by a court, OGA would be legally required to provide the upload time and IP address, which are stored with the art submission.
So no legal threat to you or OGA but still a threat to OGA and projects filling with doubtful content and no way to check or to trust. And possibly I should have said "no way to trace back the origins of the art" than "nobody responsible for the art".
I just consider this case doubtful: Anonymous submitter, author name stated, CC0, no link (+no description of origin-ator).
Sounds strange...but still may be really all ok(!).
Of course there may be cases where there really isn't any link possible but in those cases I possibly would expect a description like: "I found these on an old cd with public domain art".