I'm not sure if they meant "I want to write some games such as Super Mario Bros" or "I want to write a game like Super Mario Bros" (many games might be described as "like" another game, if you want to reference a game someone knows rather than describing it in more general terms, e.g., "I want to a write a 2D platform game where you have to collect items").
That seems fine to me, though a minor change I'd suggest is "Please be aware of this when submitting work and/or choosing work to use in a project." (i.e., remove "restriction") - I fear it reads like the FAQ would be trying to persuade people not to use it when we should just be stating the info, but I think not calling it a "restriction" makes it seem much more neutral :)
My game Erebus RPG has nothing to do with any MMORPG. The only references I can find for an Erebus MMORPG are Erebus: Travia Reborn - this was apparently cancelled - and Erebus 2, released 2014 (my game was first publicly released in 2012). Anyhow, there's no connection other them both coincidentally using the name. There have been various different games and mods using the name Erebus over the years, none of them particularly notable, as well as various other works. Erebus was one of the Greek gods, as well as the name sometimes given to a region of the Greek underworld, so it's not surprising that there are multiple uses of it.
Gigalomania meanwhile does have a obvious relation to Mega Lo Mania, though rules are not copyrightable; I see it as similar to Free clones like FreeCiv (Civilization), Widelands (Settlers), Lincity (Sim City). Of course I realise that doesn't help in practice if I receive a C&D, though that is a risk individual developers face with anything they release (heaven forbid one releases a game with "Candy" or "Scrolls" in the title...).
Free Software is that defined by the Free Software Foundation; Open Source is that define by the Open Source Initiative. Whilst there may be some licences not covered by both (and the different organisations may have different views), a large number of licences are both Free and Open Source. So I'm not sure there's a practical difference between the two - rather it depends what the specific licence is?
Which licences are Open Source but don't allow derivative works? (Unless you mean things like "shared source" where the source is available but not necessarily under an Open Source or Free Software licence, but I wouldn't consider that Open Source.)
Looks good. I'd also add the "no additional legal terms" clause alongside mentioning no DRM. I'd say it's simplest to base it off of creative commons's own readable summary, how about "You may not apply legal terms or technological measures (DRM) that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits".
Both "free" and "open source" licences (as defined by the FSF and OSI) allow commercial distribution. However, this is nothing to do with copyleft or releasing code - BSD code for example can be used in closed source applications. None of the licences on this site for art require you to release source code. The reason the licences allow commercial use is not because people think all games should be GPL.
Consider that non commercial licences don't just prevent use in commercial games, but also Open Source games (which are intended to allow commercial redistribution). So what is such art good for? I guess for freeware games, but it cuts out a lot of potential use. One of the problems with non commercial licences is that they are so ill defined, e.g., what about distributing on a web site with ads or a commercial magazine cover CD? And a German court interpreted it to rule out use even by a non commercial radio station ( https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140326/11405526695/german-court-says... ).
Is the GPL more restrictive than non commercial licences? The GPL art can be used for open source, freeware and commercial games, but the "source form" of the art must be provided. Maybe that's a restriction for some commercial uses, though only if they want to take things for free and not give anything back. The idea behind copyleft is that it reduces some freedom for distributors in order to preserve freedoms for end users. Meanwhile non commercial art can't be used at all for any commercial games, nor open source either, so that seems much more restrictive.
Yes there'd be a lot more art if we allowed nc licences, and it'd all be useless for commercial and open source games.
"Technically Public Domain allows relicensing to CC-BY. I've done that and it angered a few people."
The APK distributed on Google Play is the same one I distribute on standalone sites. You can use DRM on Android if you want ( https://source.android.com/devices/drm.html ) but it is not standard.
The APK format is just a zip - you can happily open the archive with any zip extractor. Whilst Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty may be unclear as to what exactly technological measures are, I don't see that opening a zip/apk file would be breaking laws like the DMCA (or if it is, then CC licences aren't safe for any archives on any platform).
Note that his article is specifically about photography, especially those with models, so in most cases won't be relevant to material on OGA.
Not that I agree with much of it anyway.
The issue in his example is that someone falsely applied Creative Commons on an image he didn't have the rights to. Whilst this is a risk, I don't see how it's specific to photography - it could happen to any creative work.
It's also not specific to Free licences. If that random 12 year old sells images he pirated from elsewhere under a commercial licence, it's still going to cause problems for people who use it.
I take his point that it's harder with photographs due to the sheer number of them, but this poses a problem with copyright and photography in general, not just CC. And photography certainly isn't unique - other obvious examples would be audio samples and fonts. Even for software, whilst there may not be billions of applications, there are billions of lines of code, and one has to be careful as to the true origin. E.g., imagine someone using BSD code in their commercial closed source application, but it turns out that the author of the BSD application swiped code in from a GPL application (or even proprietary code). Many applications are done by one person, and such a thing could happen without the community finding out about it.
It's true that photography with models is a more complex issue, but I don't see how that's just an argument against Creative Commons - that applies to any licence, or indeed the whole concept of copyright, as applied to photos with models.
I think it's absurd to suggest we should make do with fair use. Firstly many countries don't have a concept of fair use. But also my understanding is that fair use is a defence to copyright infringement - i.e., you have to admit that you infringed, but have to hope that the courts consider the fair use defence to be valid. It is not a licence that explicitly states you are allowed to use it.
Fair use also wouldn't cover model releases, or use by Big Company or Virgin Mobile in an ad.
I fail to see how CC contributes to a misunderstanding of copyright law. And the argument that many people don't care about copyright law applies to all copyright licences, proprietary ones included.
Where is the evidence that people discussing CC are the people who can't find countries on a map? I could just as well claim that his article is invalid, because he's probably one of the 50%.
The comparison to cigarette companies is hilarious.
I googled all of his "statements made by advocates for CC", and only found his website. Maybe he's paraphrasing, but these seem like straw man arguments.
He also does nothing to propose a solution or alternative. What is he proposing? That we should do away with copyright because people don't understand it and it's complicated? That people shouldn't licence their photos at all? I have no idea.
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Regarding Ignorantia juris non excusat - I agree with Rainbow Design, that typically refers to knowing what the law is. In this case, someone might know copyright law exactly, but be have had incorrect knowledge as to the licence on a particular work.
Allowing mods to be able to select the other (GPL, BSD etc) licences is a reasonable solution. I think it'd be good to have a specific place where people can post suggestions of such for mods to upload (unless it's done as capbros says - people can choose such options, but it requires a mod to approve it).
Regarding the wording on the FAQ - I think the biggest improvement would be to put this text on the "Submit art" itself. At least, put it in the "Submission guidelines" that's linked from the "Submit art" page.
I think it would be sad to disallow uploading free art unless you're the author. Aside from the practical effect of limiting the art on this site, it seems to go against one of the major benefits of Free licencing (that a clear Free licence means I can use it without having to contact the author every time).
For the problem where an incorrectly licenced art (e.g., it's a derivative work of something that isn't Free) doesn't get updated on OGA - yes, it is a problem, but I'd argue it's a problem that can occur anyway: the author might never notice; the author might notice, but forget they also uploaded to OGA. Also consider that even if OGA is uploaded, if I've already downloaded from OGA to include in a game, I may not notice whether or not OGA is updated.
Yes these problems are reduced if art only exists on one site, but then why bother with OGA at all? Much of the benefit of OGA is that it has become a go-to site for Free game art, rather than having to search the web because lots of artists have different places they like to upload to.
@Saliv: "What if you want a strong copyleft license like the GPL, but do not want credit unless the file is distributed as a resource like the zlib?"
I think the "attribution" of the GPL is that copyright messages must be left intact, but you can just leave that to be the standard gpl.txt licence without putting your name in it.
I'm not sure if they meant "I want to write some games such as Super Mario Bros" or "I want to write a game like Super Mario Bros" (many games might be described as "like" another game, if you want to reference a game someone knows rather than describing it in more general terms, e.g., "I want to a write a 2D platform game where you have to collect items").
That seems fine to me, though a minor change I'd suggest is "Please be aware of this when submitting work and/or choosing work to use in a project." (i.e., remove "restriction") - I fear it reads like the FAQ would be trying to persuade people not to use it when we should just be stating the info, but I think not calling it a "restriction" makes it seem much more neutral :)
My game Erebus RPG has nothing to do with any MMORPG. The only references I can find for an Erebus MMORPG are Erebus: Travia Reborn - this was apparently cancelled - and Erebus 2, released 2014 (my game was first publicly released in 2012). Anyhow, there's no connection other them both coincidentally using the name. There have been various different games and mods using the name Erebus over the years, none of them particularly notable, as well as various other works. Erebus was one of the Greek gods, as well as the name sometimes given to a region of the Greek underworld, so it's not surprising that there are multiple uses of it.
Gigalomania meanwhile does have a obvious relation to Mega Lo Mania, though rules are not copyrightable; I see it as similar to Free clones like FreeCiv (Civilization), Widelands (Settlers), Lincity (Sim City). Of course I realise that doesn't help in practice if I receive a C&D, though that is a risk individual developers face with anything they release (heaven forbid one releases a game with "Candy" or "Scrolls" in the title...).
Free Software is that defined by the Free Software Foundation; Open Source is that define by the Open Source Initiative. Whilst there may be some licences not covered by both (and the different organisations may have different views), a large number of licences are both Free and Open Source. So I'm not sure there's a practical difference between the two - rather it depends what the specific licence is?
Which licences are Open Source but don't allow derivative works? (Unless you mean things like "shared source" where the source is available but not necessarily under an Open Source or Free Software licence, but I wouldn't consider that Open Source.)
Looks good. I'd also add the "no additional legal terms" clause alongside mentioning no DRM. I'd say it's simplest to base it off of creative commons's own readable summary, how about "You may not apply legal terms or technological measures (DRM) that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits".
Both "free" and "open source" licences (as defined by the FSF and OSI) allow commercial distribution. However, this is nothing to do with copyleft or releasing code - BSD code for example can be used in closed source applications. None of the licences on this site for art require you to release source code. The reason the licences allow commercial use is not because people think all games should be GPL.
Consider that non commercial licences don't just prevent use in commercial games, but also Open Source games (which are intended to allow commercial redistribution). So what is such art good for? I guess for freeware games, but it cuts out a lot of potential use. One of the problems with non commercial licences is that they are so ill defined, e.g., what about distributing on a web site with ads or a commercial magazine cover CD? And a German court interpreted it to rule out use even by a non commercial radio station ( https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140326/11405526695/german-court-says... ).
Is the GPL more restrictive than non commercial licences? The GPL art can be used for open source, freeware and commercial games, but the "source form" of the art must be provided. Maybe that's a restriction for some commercial uses, though only if they want to take things for free and not give anything back. The idea behind copyleft is that it reduces some freedom for distributors in order to preserve freedoms for end users. Meanwhile non commercial art can't be used at all for any commercial games, nor open source either, so that seems much more restrictive.
Yes there'd be a lot more art if we allowed nc licences, and it'd all be useless for commercial and open source games.
"Technically Public Domain allows relicensing to CC-BY. I've done that and it angered a few people."
Also note in the US, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp. ruled that public domain copies can't be protected by copyright.
The APK distributed on Google Play is the same one I distribute on standalone sites. You can use DRM on Android if you want ( https://source.android.com/devices/drm.html ) but it is not standard.
The APK format is just a zip - you can happily open the archive with any zip extractor. Whilst Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty may be unclear as to what exactly technological measures are, I don't see that opening a zip/apk file would be breaking laws like the DMCA (or if it is, then CC licences aren't safe for any archives on any platform).
Note that his article is specifically about photography, especially those with models, so in most cases won't be relevant to material on OGA.
Not that I agree with much of it anyway.
The issue in his example is that someone falsely applied Creative Commons on an image he didn't have the rights to. Whilst this is a risk, I don't see how it's specific to photography - it could happen to any creative work.
It's also not specific to Free licences. If that random 12 year old sells images he pirated from elsewhere under a commercial licence, it's still going to cause problems for people who use it.
I take his point that it's harder with photographs due to the sheer number of them, but this poses a problem with copyright and photography in general, not just CC. And photography certainly isn't unique - other obvious examples would be audio samples and fonts. Even for software, whilst there may not be billions of applications, there are billions of lines of code, and one has to be careful as to the true origin. E.g., imagine someone using BSD code in their commercial closed source application, but it turns out that the author of the BSD application swiped code in from a GPL application (or even proprietary code). Many applications are done by one person, and such a thing could happen without the community finding out about it.
It's true that photography with models is a more complex issue, but I don't see how that's just an argument against Creative Commons - that applies to any licence, or indeed the whole concept of copyright, as applied to photos with models.
I think it's absurd to suggest we should make do with fair use. Firstly many countries don't have a concept of fair use. But also my understanding is that fair use is a defence to copyright infringement - i.e., you have to admit that you infringed, but have to hope that the courts consider the fair use defence to be valid. It is not a licence that explicitly states you are allowed to use it.
Fair use also wouldn't cover model releases, or use by Big Company or Virgin Mobile in an ad.
I fail to see how CC contributes to a misunderstanding of copyright law. And the argument that many people don't care about copyright law applies to all copyright licences, proprietary ones included.
Where is the evidence that people discussing CC are the people who can't find countries on a map? I could just as well claim that his article is invalid, because he's probably one of the 50%.
The comparison to cigarette companies is hilarious.
I googled all of his "statements made by advocates for CC", and only found his website. Maybe he's paraphrasing, but these seem like straw man arguments.
He also does nothing to propose a solution or alternative. What is he proposing? That we should do away with copyright because people don't understand it and it's complicated? That people shouldn't licence their photos at all? I have no idea.
---
Regarding Ignorantia juris non excusat - I agree with Rainbow Design, that typically refers to knowing what the law is. In this case, someone might know copyright law exactly, but be have had incorrect knowledge as to the licence on a particular work.
Allowing mods to be able to select the other (GPL, BSD etc) licences is a reasonable solution. I think it'd be good to have a specific place where people can post suggestions of such for mods to upload (unless it's done as capbros says - people can choose such options, but it requires a mod to approve it).
Regarding the wording on the FAQ - I think the biggest improvement would be to put this text on the "Submit art" itself. At least, put it in the "Submission guidelines" that's linked from the "Submit art" page.
I think it would be sad to disallow uploading free art unless you're the author. Aside from the practical effect of limiting the art on this site, it seems to go against one of the major benefits of Free licencing (that a clear Free licence means I can use it without having to contact the author every time).
For the problem where an incorrectly licenced art (e.g., it's a derivative work of something that isn't Free) doesn't get updated on OGA - yes, it is a problem, but I'd argue it's a problem that can occur anyway: the author might never notice; the author might notice, but forget they also uploaded to OGA. Also consider that even if OGA is uploaded, if I've already downloaded from OGA to include in a game, I may not notice whether or not OGA is updated.
Yes these problems are reduced if art only exists on one site, but then why bother with OGA at all? Much of the benefit of OGA is that it has become a go-to site for Free game art, rather than having to search the web because lots of artists have different places they like to upload to.
@section31 - doesn't CC0 ( https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) fulfil that?
@Saliv: "What if you want a strong copyleft license like the GPL, but do not want credit unless the file is distributed as a resource like the zlib?"
I think the "attribution" of the GPL is that copyright messages must be left intact, but you can just leave that to be the standard gpl.txt licence without putting your name in it.
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