Missed a spot?  "Creative Commons does not authorize the use by either party of the term "OpenGameArt.org" or any related trademark or logo of OpenGameArt.org without the prior written consent of OpenGameArt.org.."

Sorry Bart, didn't mean to force your hand. Just wanted to bring up the DRM clause in CC licenses that are more than likely a gotcha since they're not advertised >.<

By the way, GPL is the same as CC in terms of software licenses. Don't know if you want to tackle that or not since OGA is primariliy a content host, not a software repo or software source repo. It might be in the best interest of OGA to make OGA-BY compatible with GPL and CC at the same time since neither likes to play nice with the other.

While we are at it, how about an "OGA-by-SA" that has a source requirement and is strong copyleft in the sense that it can only be used in "Free Software" compatible projects? :p

I like it. If you do produce an SA version, please consider clarifying the definition of an Adaptation in the context of games. It might be worth adding it into this one just for consistency.

If you did make an -SA version and made it agree with the FAQ then it wouldn't be so far to rewrite the FAQ to use OGA-BY-SA as the example next to GPL instead of the CC version (thus making the FAQ more accurate!)

I really would love to have two -SA licenses, one which doesn't require you to open-source your project, and one which does, both with the copyleft for direct derivatives.  But I know how difficult that is, and I know you only have so much time and energy.

So instead, I will just say: Bravo to you for OGA-By!  I will be adding it to all of my CC-By art when I get a chance.  Thanks for taking the time to do this.

As Bart says, this isn't about promoting DRM (heck no!) or Apple (ESPECIALLY not promoting Apple).  I just don't want to punish innocent devs for Apple's sins.  I want people to see FOSS as useful and welcoming.

@Redshrike

I couldn't have said it better. Innocent devs and artists shouldn't get caught in the middle of the open-source vs DRM platforms argument. Let's be the better person and extend the symbolic olive branch to all involved and be the embassy of FOSS ideals rather than their hammer.

This sounds like it'd be a bit interesting in that users can more easily assign a license, but once again I reiterate that CC-BY-SA does not force users to make their projects open source and people should really avoid using this license if they want anyone using their assets to force any projects made to be open source (and even if it did force the game to be open source, it could still be commercial anyway).

Like everyone else I hate DRM (I don't hate Apple but I disagree with some of their policies), but I'd like to be able to release games on as many platforms as possible and I know other people would, too.

An LGPL like license for content where the share alike requirment is limited to works of similar type would be best.

To be fair I think that is the best choice as Open Game Art is about the game art not free software projects.

It doesn't need restictions on what projects can be used, open source programs are very dificult to sell and game developers outside of hobbiest need to pay the bills  so they can't waste any cent.

But what game developers CAN DO is to open parts of their game and art is an obvious choice.

CC-BY is great but it doesn't help grow our art, CC-BY-SA does that but its a legal minefield.

A license that has the abilty of paralel downlad and a limited share alike to type would be perfect.

Lets take LPC sets, a game company can use the art for their game and any derivates of type would be shared back, and can still be used on app store or steam or whatever.

Furthermore since they use the same style any new tilesets are compatible with LPC and they could share it back.

For the characters this doubles so since there would be even more derivative.

We could have free sets that could match RPG Maker in quality and quantity and this can be freely used for open source projects.

Limiting only to open source projects is foolish.

Instead of a new license option why not just add an option to append a standard DRM waiver to any relevant license?

I'm with  surt on this one. If  the only major change is omission of the anti drm clause, then I'd just put a non mandatory checkbox with a little description below it, just like the 'allow later license versions' option.

I know you are trying to make the submission page less complicated, but it's one checkbox more either way. And I think the whole issue would be more exposed this way, everyone submiting art would see it, otherwise new people coming from outside might just choose CC-BY as it's familiar to them, not looking into OGA-BY at all.

-edit:

I think people first need to get more educated about their choices, before being given more of them. (this includes myself)

Also naming it OGA-BY could suggest that it is in some way the official or preferred license option.

Gonna have to agree with surt on this. Having a check box that's separate from the licenses that allows waiving the DRM clause would solve the problem completely. It could be assumed (or in the FAQ) that by waiving the DRM clause you do so for all possible licenses chosen. Making a whole new license might confuse people and encourage them to believe it's the preferred license for OGA.

Just my two cents, I would prefer a new license (OGA-BY) to just a check box for waiving DRM clause.  Just seems cleaner, I'd feel better knowing I was using an asset that was explicitly licensed to allow DRM, rather than licensed in a way that prohibts DRM but author waives that portion of the license agreement.  It's just nicer to point to a single license agreement, rather than license agreement plus rider.  Especially if the point of the rider is to negate things in the license agreement.

I do see the point that calling the OGA-BY may make it seem like that's the preferred license for this site, but that's also a lot in how you present it, eg. if it's the first license listed, then yeah it will look like that's the one you are 'supposed' to use, if it's the last one listed, not as much.   I think the important thing is to present things in a way that gets the author thinking about what license is right for the work they're posting. 

I rather like the idea of having a separate license.  Putting it in one package makes it more portable than having two separate things.

Of course OGA-BY should be the prefered license, it's a fix to CC-BY

OGA-BY-SA can be as fix to CC-BY-SA

@adrix89

I don't think the OGA site should have a preferred license.  It's up to the individual creator to decide how they want to share their work with the rest of us.

@Adrix89: It is not a fix per se, it is a modification.  While it makes the license closer to how I want it to work, that isn't necessarily the case for everyone.  Which is preferred is up to the individual.

I see that anything related to No Additional Terms has been removed - e.g., the bit about not imposing additional terms that restrict the terms, not just the DRM bit. And this is a good thing - this makes it a true "permissive" licence, and makes it a useful and distinct licence to CC-BY. Licence proliferation is indeed a bad thing, but I agree this really does seem to be a gap in the available choice of licences. It's also better than people simply offering waivers to CC-BY, since it's vague which bits of the legal licence have actually been removed. This is why I'd also oppose a tickbox - a legal licence needs to be explicit, and any modifications must be explicit about how it's changed, not just a vague description of waiving terms (and simply waiving the DRM bit doesn't remove the other restrictions).

I agree that an OGA-BY-SA is pointless, as someone can just use DRM to get round the licence. Indeed, I'd argue it's actively bad, as it effectively rewards people for using DRM. There is also the issue that breaking DRM to regain those freedoms is in some countries a criminal offence, whilst legal terms would be a civil issue. I'm not sure why artists would want such a licence, or what it would be useful for(?)

So I'm in entire agreement.

Ideally we'd want any new licence to be acknowledged by the FSF and OSI as a Free licence (and preferably Debian too, though they are always very picky...) One of the issues as an Open Source developer is that even if a licence looks fine for me, it's useful to be something that is accepted as "Free" to ensure distribution on Free channels.

Though as you note, OGA-BY can trivially be relicenced as CC-BY, so perhaps this isn't an issue anyway.

I'm in agreement with part of this. I think it feels more official for it to not just "be a checkbox." The only problem I see is it needs to be accurately clarified what exactly the license does.

I'm still trying to figure out what "removing" the "anti-DRM" clause would have in ruining CC-BY-SA. What does CC-BY-SA do that would affect it? Removing the anti-DRM clause still forces any derivatives of the asset to be released under the same license, or are you under the impression that CC-BY-SA extends to source code? Which it does not, only GPL does.

CC-BY-SA simply means that if you take that asset and make an extension of it or alter it a bit it that update must be released under the same license. It doesn't say that if you use those assets in an application the whole application must also be released under the same license, code and assets are separate and can be licensed separately. Its often easier to license the whole project the same, but that's not a requirement.

GPL strictly states that if you use something that is GPL in your project, the whole project must be GPL. CC-BY-SA makes no such distinction and derivatives do not extend as far as a lot of people seem to believe.

There is a questionable line on what is a derivative and what isn't, but making a game using certain assets does not make a game a derivative of those assets. If you make a game using an existing engine, said game is a derivative of that engine, though (the game's source code anyway).

Random thoughts on dual licencing:

* If OGA went with a tick box, I would hope it's made clear that the recipient can choose whether to accept the waiver? (At first you might say, why would anyone want the more restrictive version? The answer is, if I want to distribute an Open Source game with a straightforward CC BY asset, rather than some modified licence.)

* Whilst I think the proposed OGA BY licence should be relicencable as CC BY, to be sure, perhaps to be explicit, it could be set up that choosing OGA BY also automatically selects CC BY, as a dual licence.

"Removing the anti-DRM clause still forces any derivatives of the asset to be released under the same license"

But if I distributed my derivative of that asset in a DRM game where it wasn't possible to redistribute/edit/get-hold-of that asset, then users have lost the rights they were supposed to have under the original CC BY-SA licence.

It's not a useless licence as such, GPL v2 managed fine for years - but it does give a loophole to those using DRM. I'm not sure why an artist would want to choose a version of CC BY-SA without the DRM clause, but still wanting the strong copyleft clauses?

I agree that CC BY-SA shouldn't apply to a whole game (indeed, therefore I think it ought to be fine if someone puts DRM on the binary, so long as it doesn't restrict the derived asset in question).

"But if I distributed my derivative of that asset in a DRM game where it wasn't possible to redistribute/edit/get-hold-of that asset, then users have lost the rights they were supposed to have under the original CC BY-SA licence."

No because that'd be illegal. You have to release the asset separately regardless of whether the game is DRM or not. If you don't follow the license, e.g., allow the derived asset to be available for public use outside of the game itself, you are in violation of the license and have no right to use that asset.

COULD people do that? Yes, but they'd be in violation of the license. The derived asset must be released separately to the public under the same license.

OGA-BY-SA

Would have the parallel downlaod abilty.

The assets would be shared even if not in the app so the share alike still stands but in another form.

Stop saying tis pointles to relicens CC-BY-SA, it is a mess and another license would be better and more clear.

 I think the legally hairy part is authorizing distrubtion in DRM from contigent upon non-DRM being available.   Especially when you consider the party doing the DRM-form distributing will most likely not be the same as the party handling the DRM-free distribution.

GPL handles this by distinguishing between compiled executables/libraries and source code.   With software, source code is what you really care about being free, so distribution of compiled binaries is pretty much unrestricted so long as the corresponding source is freely available.  

Perhaps, a similar distinction is needed for game assets, unfortunately, there isn't a convient analog to the source/binary distinction.  I guess you could think of it as bundled vs. unbundled.  I think this is why Bart was warning the OGA-BY is a simple change, but the 'dual distribution' solution would take alot more work to put together.

Bart, still planning to add this license or did we talk it to death on this thread?

• Mod-CC-BY
• Free-BY
• Open-BY
• OGA-BY

PD-BY

NT-BY (Non-technical attribution)

OGA-BY sounds fine to me.  For someone who hasn't heard of it, it should be immediately obvious that it's an attribution license.  If they have any familiarity with OGA then they'll know that it's a libre license that allows both commercial and non-commercial sharing and modification.  It's intuitive with little room for confusion.

I personally am less charmed by the name OGA-BY because it sounds like it's site-specific, which there's no real reason why it has to be. I liked surt's suggestion: NT-BY.

On the other hand, I'm mostly in favor of what was discussed earlier, instead of a new license there should be a "restriction waivers" option that gives the same effect.

Bart, I agree with you. I just hate to be forced into creating another license. You've already expressed your hesitance to do that, but I think there's a legitimate case to introduce something new. 

Plus, I'm a web developer myself; if anyone understands the nightmare it would be to code out the strange license exceptions check box, it's me. I hadn't taken that into consideration and it's one of the most legitimate reasons I can think of.

I think I like 'Open-BY' of the suggestions so far.

Regarding NT by, what does non-technical refer to?

Good-BY

Couldn't resist.

To me, the name should accomplish the following things, in order of importance:

1. The intent of the license must be clear
2. The connection/similarity to CC-By should be clear
3. It should communicate the spirit of the license, OGA, and its community
4. It would be nice to have some association to OGA

NT-BY is not intuitive to me.  I'm assuming that "non-technical" refers to not having restrictions against technical DRM measures, but that has got to be way down on the list of all the potential meanings of "technical".  There's no way that someone unfamiliar with the license is going to guess what it's for based on that name.  Someone might guess that it has some relationship to CC-BY, but wouldn't really know what it's about or what it's for or why it exists.  Thus, it fails on #1 and #3.

I don't think that the "site-specific" name of OGA-BY would be a problem necessarily, as licenses like zlib and BSD aren't just used for zlib or BSD, and it would give a clear connection to the site (#4) while also standing more generically for "open game art", which is the main purpose of the license.  However, it is less intuitive for anyone not already familiar with OGA, so it's not very strong on #1 or #3.  I can see why one would want it to be more generic than that, though, since presumably it should also be a good license for other copyrightable works outside of games, in which case Open-BY would be the best so far.

Free-BY misses all of the points except #2, primarily because of the ambiguity between libre and gratis in the English definition of "free".  Many people seeing the name would assume it's a noncommercial license like CC-By-NC.

PD-BY misses all of the points except #2 and is also factually incorrect (assuming by PD you mean Public Domain, which this license is not).

Mod-CC-By kinda works on #1 and #2 just with having CC-By in the name.  However, to the best of my knowledge, nobody here represents Creative Commons or has the authority to use their name in a license.  Plus, there are already like a dozen licenses containing "CC-By" in the name, so there's no need to add one more to the glut.

Open-BY passes the first three with flying colors and somewhat touches on #4.  In my opinion, Open-BY is the strongest contender listed thus far.

OGA-BY sounds good to me - and it seems common that licences are named after the organisation/site/product that introduced it.

Free-BY and Open-BY may imply endorsement/creation by the FSF or OSI respectively (Okay, I don't think that organisations should be able to "own" the words "Free" or "Open", but in the context of Free Software and Open Source, these phrases have been created and promoted by those organisations, and it's probably better to be more specific.)

On NT-BY, the licence hasn't just removed the no technological restrictions, it's also removed no legal additional restrictions (so me putting CC BY art on a distribution platform with a TOS saying "you can't redistribute this" is disallowed, just the same as using DRM to achieve that effect; but both would be okay with OGA-BY). Although a lot of discussion here has focused on the DRM aspect, I don't feel that's more important for the name than the bit about legal restrictions. Also I find the negative "non" confusing - I mean, it's CC BY which says "no legal or technological restrictions", whilst this new licence says no "no legal or technological restrictions", i.e., you can apply those restrictions, so it seems odd to name the licence with a negative.

"I just hate to be forced into creating another license."

Although I'd say a waiver is still another licence - in both cases (checkbox or OGA-BY), it's a modification of an existing licence.

Awesome news. This addresses a big question area regarding the use of art.

OGA also sounds fine. CC is tied to an organization, as is GPL/LGPL.

For the record I have added OGA-By as a license everywhere I am allowed.  In some cases, of course, derivative works require the permission of other authors as well.

All my stuff has OGA-BY as an option (that I can control anyway)

I've added OGA-By to all of my stuff that's completely original and isn't comissioned.  For anyone who I collaborated with you have my permission to add the licence.

I wish there was a bulk way to update all CC-By licenses to OGA-By ones, that will take some time, traditionally which I dont have.