"Other" has the risk of ending up with non-Free or custom licences, and would require policing to remove unsuitably licenced art from the site.
If art is labelled as CC BY 3.0 and isn't actually CC BY 3.0, then I'd say that's been wrongly categorised, and an alternative licence in the main text isn't acceptable imo. Are there examples of this? If there is demand for a licence such as BSD there's an argument for adding it as an option (I think one of the downsides is it's unclear how BSD/MIT apply to art rather than software, so people don't necessarily want to encourage that licence as a choice for new art).
From the FAQ: "some of the licenses require you to distribute the source code of your entire project for free, and allow others to distribute the source for free as well."
I think that may be just wrong in the FAQ. IIRC originally the FAQ claimed that CC BY-SA meant you had to release the source (which isn't true). I see it no longer says that under the CC BY-SA section, so I think it's been updated, but possibly that bit quoted above wasn't updated.
Regarding sites that apply additional legal or technical restrictions, this would apply for all projects (including Open Source), not just closed source or commercial ones. I'm not aware of any problems for Google Play?
"Then you need proprietary software to even download the game, it can be considered DRM."
This does not "restrict the ability of those who receive a CC-licensed work to exercise rights granted under the license" (quoting from https://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Versions#Application_of_effecti... ). As long as those who have downloaded it can exercise their right, it isn't DRM just to limit who can access it. CC even give the allowed example of access being limited to a set of people via a password. (True yes, you can't be 100% sure of how a court will interpret it, but that goes for OGA-BY too, which also has had far less in the way of coverage, overview by lawyers, or testing in the courts.)
It would make sense for the FAQ to also quote the relevant part from CC's own summary: "No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits."
The reason why it says technological measures and not DRM is because the former is the term used by Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty, however there is a link to https://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Versions#Application_of_effecti... which mentions this includes DRM and explains it (and personally I'd say that "technological measure that restricts..." is clearer than DRM because that's the explanation - I only know that DRM is a technological measure that restricts what people can do, it's interesting that people know what the acronym means, but get confused by the explanation of the acronym...). This information or the link could also be put in the FAQ.
There used to be a problem that the CC summaries said nothing on this, but now they're pretty clear.
OGA-BY also removes the clauses:
"You may not offer or impose any terms on the Work that restrict the terms of this License or the ability of the recipient of the Work to exercise the rights granted to that recipient under the terms of the License. You may not sublicense the Work."
Which makes sense - even for a game without DRM, the game could just as well have a licence saying people weren't allowed to distribute any of the context (even if it was someone else's OGA-BY content). So in capbros's example of this website disappearing, even though someone could technically get hold of the content from such a game, they wouldn't have legal rights to redistibute that version of it.
Another example might be someone taking all the OGA-BY art on this site, and putting it on their own site under a more restrictive licence. I don't think any way is right - this is just the old copyleft or GPL vs BSD debate in a different form.
Going back to Kaetemi's "ten cutouts" analogy - I'd agree with Kaetemi's later comment that it's only when the game is run that they are combined into an adapted work. To go back to the analogy, whilst distributing a landscape created from the cutouts would be an adaption, suppose instead I distribute the cutouts, along with a set of instructions for how to arrange those cutouts into a landscape?
Though yes, the lack of clarity does mean that BY-SA isn't ideal for games.
p0ss: "I really like BY-SA, I always thought its limitations pretty much limited people to using it in open source games"
There is nothing in BY-SA that suggest it can only be used for Open Source. Even if a game is considered an Adaption, that means the game (at least in binary form) has to be released as BY-SA (which would be problematic for many Open Source projects too).
Which bit are you referring to? The chart says that PD (CC0) can be relicenced in an adaption as any licence.
Note that in some countries like the US, you can't claim copyright on a copy of public domain material, but that doesn't mean you'd be sued for not marking the files as CC0, it just means you won't successfully be able to sue other people. (See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse_of_PD-Art_photographs .)
IMO OGA would only lose trust in the more straightforward case of copyright infringement - where it is someone else's work, or an edited version of it.
If someone sues because of a vague "similarity" or the copyright holder believes they own the rights to a "style", then I don't think people are going to say OGA should have known and removed the art, when it's impossible to make that judgement. If people are concerned there is a similarity, that can be discussed in the comments, and anyone deciding to use it can choose for themselves. I fear that a lot of art would end up being deleted if anything that might result in someone suing over a vague similarity was deleted.
Should all the art submitted as part of http://itch.io/jam/candyjam be deleted? I mean, this was a jam actively encouraging developers to create games which King believes would be infringing. That was trademark issues rather than copyright, though a similar principle applied, plus "the art looks a similar style" may often end up being a trademark issue rather than a copyright one - should the art be deleted, because someone might use a candy image from OGA, that King then decide to sue them for?
"I believe if you place your art on your site under OGA-compatible license, anyone else can submit them here, right?"
Legally this is correct, if someone releases something under a licence, one can't retroactively revoke that.
I don't know what OGA's deletion policy is, but in my opinion, I would hope the deletion requests are only acted upon if there is a good reason, say a licensing issue (such as it using copyrighted material from elsewhere without appropriate licences, or uploaded without permission).
Whilst it might seem nice to honour an author's request to delete, it causes problems if various games are using it, and link to a webpage here that then gets deleted. (Well, it's not a problem legally - but it helps as evidence that things are properly licenced, if the originating URLs are not dead.) As Demetrius points out, someone can just come along an re-add it, but it's less hassle to not have to do that, and to avoid changing the URL; it also seems stronger legally if the uploaded is the author.
Fair enough if OGA prefers to always honour deletion request, but just putting my thoughts out there for debate :)
http://opengameart.org/content/faq#q-takedown says that OGA honors requests to take down if it was uploaded without permission, but that seems to be more a case of erring on the side of caution when it comes to licencing - if someone claims it was uploaded without permission, you don't want to risk a court battle even if it seems that it was released elsewhere under a free licence. In this case though, someone can't claim it was uploaded without permission when they uploaded it!
I can play music from OGA in the browser no problem (including from search results).
It's possible to "favourite" music tracks to give feedback, as well as adding to collections in order for people to keep track of ones that they like. OGA also now keeps track of your downloads.
I don't think a "music player" is needed, because unlike Jamendo, the intention isn't to provide a music streaming service where people listen to music (e.g., in the background), it's to provide music for game developers to download and integrate into their games. So as long as I can easily listen to it when I find it, that's fine, I don't need things like playlists.
I don't see how a music player would make it easier to find music. Whilst the OGA search could do with improving, this is something that is being worked on. Is Jamendo easier find music? At a quick test, it seems similar in that you type terms, then get a list of hits, and can play from the list of results.
Whilst Jamendo is another good place for people to distribute or find music, I don't think OGA should encourage people to go there instead. OGA has the advantage that music uploaded is geared towards being used in games, meaning you don't have to wade through other kinds of music. Also Jamendo allows non-Free licences like non-commercial and no-derivatives. And the advanced search only allows limiting it to one licence - I can't select a list of licences to search for (which OGA does, incidentally).
Technical modifications are allowed in the GPL too (I can put it into a zip file). CC BY 4 is just more explicit about the difference between a technical modification and Effective Technological Measure.
It's good if they've changed the terms to allow Open Source, I believe Microsoft for the Windows Store (which also originally had similar problems IIRC) does a similar thing. So if DRM is no longer enforced, it may be that this issue is out of date anyway (and interesting to note that actually it is worth fighting these things). Are there any news articles on this?
These things do have the possible problem that although licences like CC BY are seen as "compatible" with, or the art equivalents of Free and Open Source software, I don't think any CC licences are OSI approved (http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical ) - probably because they weren't written with source code in mind. So it may be that the mandatory licence for non-Open Source means that CC BY etc still can't be used in non-Open Source products, so those people should still stick with OGA BY or CC0. Also it's not uncommon for Open Source games to be multiple-licenced, i.e., source/binary under an Open Source licence, and different licence(s) for the art, so who knows what it means if another licence says "you can't do any of this, except for bits which are Open Source".
* I agree with complete packs. Of course that's quite an undertaking, but it doesn't have to be "complete" - just having a set of art that's consistent (rather than just single one off pieces), and it's then easier to full in the gaps as required. Or maybe artists can look at existing art, and add something to complement it. I don't know if maybe people might think this would be seen as copying/plagiarising - I mean, obviously the art here explicitly allows copying, but people often have an artistic drive to be original, or a fear of being accused of just using someone else's work even if it's legal. But it's worth making the point that here, that really is a good thing for games! FLARE and LPC have shown that there are artists out there willing to create art for an existing set - more of that please :) Perhaps we need another LPC-style competition - or maybe it doesn't have to be a competition with prizes, I think the important thing about LPC was providing an initial set of graphics that artists then built on.
* More character art with animation - static images are fine for scenery, but it's not uncommon to see people release a game character which may look great, but being a single static image makes it unusable in many styles of game (well, they could still be used say as an NPC who just stands there, but not if you want them for a player character or movable enemy). The LPC set, and the FLARE graphics, are great not just for being a consistent set, but also having animation.
* High resolution graphics would also benefit Android, Windows etc. Though I'd say the gap is not just a lack of very high resolution, but a dominance of low resolution graphics. Much of the 2D art seems to have a retro early-90s feel (not that that's a bad thing, but this topic is what there seems to be a lack of), and is below the resolution capabilities of any device today. But having said that, I imagine there's the point that 2D game art becomes harder at higher resolutions (I saw someone making the point that doubling the resolution in each dimension is four times the pixels, and if you're doing pixel art, that matters). In practice my understanding is that most in-game graphics that are higher resolutions tend to be created in 3D, and then pre-rendered if 2D sprites are desired. There are a fair amount of 3D characters on OGA, though often not in a pre-rendered format. Still, in the case of very simple vector art like the balloons example, these restrictions don't apply, so I guess vector art (that can be scaled to any resolution) is something there's not much of.
On the note of 3D models used for rendering sprites, is there demand for taking some of these 3D models, and generating sprite sheets? I'm a programmer but did learn enough Blender to be able to render a static model in isometric (Clint's tutorial at http://clintbellanger.net/articles/isometric_tiles/ was a great help), though animation is currently beyond me. Or has anyone had luck with Blender scripts that claim to automate this? (a quick Google reveals http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Render/Spritify ). I wonder if some programmers skip by the 3D models altogether, in which case generating spritesheets from 3D models (especially those with animations) might be an easy (albeit tedious) way to increase the amount of higher-resolution game-ready art.
"Other" has the risk of ending up with non-Free or custom licences, and would require policing to remove unsuitably licenced art from the site.
If art is labelled as CC BY 3.0 and isn't actually CC BY 3.0, then I'd say that's been wrongly categorised, and an alternative licence in the main text isn't acceptable imo. Are there examples of this? If there is demand for a licence such as BSD there's an argument for adding it as an option (I think one of the downsides is it's unclear how BSD/MIT apply to art rather than software, so people don't necessarily want to encourage that licence as a choice for new art).
From the FAQ: "some of the licenses require you to distribute the source code of your entire project for free, and allow others to distribute the source for free as well."
I think that may be just wrong in the FAQ. IIRC originally the FAQ claimed that CC BY-SA meant you had to release the source (which isn't true). I see it no longer says that under the CC BY-SA section, so I think it's been updated, but possibly that bit quoted above wasn't updated.
Regarding sites that apply additional legal or technical restrictions, this would apply for all projects (including Open Source), not just closed source or commercial ones. I'm not aware of any problems for Google Play?
"Then you need proprietary software to even download the game, it can be considered DRM."
This does not "restrict the ability of those who receive a CC-licensed work to exercise rights granted under the license" (quoting from https://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Versions#Application_of_effecti... ). As long as those who have downloaded it can exercise their right, it isn't DRM just to limit who can access it. CC even give the allowed example of access being limited to a set of people via a password. (True yes, you can't be 100% sure of how a court will interpret it, but that goes for OGA-BY too, which also has had far less in the way of coverage, overview by lawyers, or testing in the courts.)
It would make sense for the FAQ to also quote the relevant part from CC's own summary: "No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits."
The reason why it says technological measures and not DRM is because the former is the term used by Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty, however there is a link to https://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Versions#Application_of_effecti... which mentions this includes DRM and explains it (and personally I'd say that "technological measure that restricts..." is clearer than DRM because that's the explanation - I only know that DRM is a technological measure that restricts what people can do, it's interesting that people know what the acronym means, but get confused by the explanation of the acronym...). This information or the link could also be put in the FAQ.
There used to be a problem that the CC summaries said nothing on this, but now they're pretty clear.
OGA-BY also removes the clauses:
"You may not offer or impose any terms on the Work that restrict the terms of this License or the ability of the recipient of the Work to exercise the rights granted to that recipient under the terms of the License. You may not sublicense the Work."
Which makes sense - even for a game without DRM, the game could just as well have a licence saying people weren't allowed to distribute any of the context (even if it was someone else's OGA-BY content). So in capbros's example of this website disappearing, even though someone could technically get hold of the content from such a game, they wouldn't have legal rights to redistibute that version of it.
Another example might be someone taking all the OGA-BY art on this site, and putting it on their own site under a more restrictive licence. I don't think any way is right - this is just the old copyleft or GPL vs BSD debate in a different form.
Going back to Kaetemi's "ten cutouts" analogy - I'd agree with Kaetemi's later comment that it's only when the game is run that they are combined into an adapted work. To go back to the analogy, whilst distributing a landscape created from the cutouts would be an adaption, suppose instead I distribute the cutouts, along with a set of instructions for how to arrange those cutouts into a landscape?
Though yes, the lack of clarity does mean that BY-SA isn't ideal for games.
p0ss: "I really like BY-SA, I always thought its limitations pretty much limited people to using it in open source games"
There is nothing in BY-SA that suggest it can only be used for Open Source. Even if a game is considered an Adaption, that means the game (at least in binary form) has to be released as BY-SA (which would be problematic for many Open Source projects too).
Teken: "I thought any CC0 were obliged to be redistributed as CC0 at least see here https://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#If_I_derive_or_adapt_material_offer..."
Which bit are you referring to? The chart says that PD (CC0) can be relicenced in an adaption as any licence.
Note that in some countries like the US, you can't claim copyright on a copy of public domain material, but that doesn't mean you'd be sued for not marking the files as CC0, it just means you won't successfully be able to sue other people. (See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse_of_PD-Art_photographs .)
IMO OGA would only lose trust in the more straightforward case of copyright infringement - where it is someone else's work, or an edited version of it.
If someone sues because of a vague "similarity" or the copyright holder believes they own the rights to a "style", then I don't think people are going to say OGA should have known and removed the art, when it's impossible to make that judgement. If people are concerned there is a similarity, that can be discussed in the comments, and anyone deciding to use it can choose for themselves. I fear that a lot of art would end up being deleted if anything that might result in someone suing over a vague similarity was deleted.
Should all the art submitted as part of http://itch.io/jam/candyjam be deleted? I mean, this was a jam actively encouraging developers to create games which King believes would be infringing. That was trademark issues rather than copyright, though a similar principle applied, plus "the art looks a similar style" may often end up being a trademark issue rather than a copyright one - should the art be deleted, because someone might use a candy image from OGA, that King then decide to sue them for?
"I believe if you place your art on your site under OGA-compatible license, anyone else can submit them here, right?"
Legally this is correct, if someone releases something under a licence, one can't retroactively revoke that.
I don't know what OGA's deletion policy is, but in my opinion, I would hope the deletion requests are only acted upon if there is a good reason, say a licensing issue (such as it using copyrighted material from elsewhere without appropriate licences, or uploaded without permission).
Whilst it might seem nice to honour an author's request to delete, it causes problems if various games are using it, and link to a webpage here that then gets deleted. (Well, it's not a problem legally - but it helps as evidence that things are properly licenced, if the originating URLs are not dead.) As Demetrius points out, someone can just come along an re-add it, but it's less hassle to not have to do that, and to avoid changing the URL; it also seems stronger legally if the uploaded is the author.
Fair enough if OGA prefers to always honour deletion request, but just putting my thoughts out there for debate :)
http://opengameart.org/content/faq#q-takedown says that OGA honors requests to take down if it was uploaded without permission, but that seems to be more a case of erring on the side of caution when it comes to licencing - if someone claims it was uploaded without permission, you don't want to risk a court battle even if it seems that it was released elsewhere under a free licence. In this case though, someone can't claim it was uploaded without permission when they uploaded it!
Also of relevance perhaps: http://opengameart.org/content/faq#q-changelicense
I can play music from OGA in the browser no problem (including from search results).
It's possible to "favourite" music tracks to give feedback, as well as adding to collections in order for people to keep track of ones that they like. OGA also now keeps track of your downloads.
I don't think a "music player" is needed, because unlike Jamendo, the intention isn't to provide a music streaming service where people listen to music (e.g., in the background), it's to provide music for game developers to download and integrate into their games. So as long as I can easily listen to it when I find it, that's fine, I don't need things like playlists.
I don't see how a music player would make it easier to find music. Whilst the OGA search could do with improving, this is something that is being worked on. Is Jamendo easier find music? At a quick test, it seems similar in that you type terms, then get a list of hits, and can play from the list of results.
Whilst Jamendo is another good place for people to distribute or find music, I don't think OGA should encourage people to go there instead. OGA has the advantage that music uploaded is geared towards being used in games, meaning you don't have to wade through other kinds of music. Also Jamendo allows non-Free licences like non-commercial and no-derivatives. And the advanced search only allows limiting it to one licence - I can't select a list of licences to search for (which OGA does, incidentally).
Technical modifications are allowed in the GPL too (I can put it into a zip file). CC BY 4 is just more explicit about the difference between a technical modification and Effective Technological Measure.
It's good if they've changed the terms to allow Open Source, I believe Microsoft for the Windows Store (which also originally had similar problems IIRC) does a similar thing. So if DRM is no longer enforced, it may be that this issue is out of date anyway (and interesting to note that actually it is worth fighting these things). Are there any news articles on this?
These things do have the possible problem that although licences like CC BY are seen as "compatible" with, or the art equivalents of Free and Open Source software, I don't think any CC licences are OSI approved (http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical ) - probably because they weren't written with source code in mind. So it may be that the mandatory licence for non-Open Source means that CC BY etc still can't be used in non-Open Source products, so those people should still stick with OGA BY or CC0. Also it's not uncommon for Open Source games to be multiple-licenced, i.e., source/binary under an Open Source licence, and different licence(s) for the art, so who knows what it means if another licence says "you can't do any of this, except for bits which are Open Source".
* I agree with complete packs. Of course that's quite an undertaking, but it doesn't have to be "complete" - just having a set of art that's consistent (rather than just single one off pieces), and it's then easier to full in the gaps as required. Or maybe artists can look at existing art, and add something to complement it. I don't know if maybe people might think this would be seen as copying/plagiarising - I mean, obviously the art here explicitly allows copying, but people often have an artistic drive to be original, or a fear of being accused of just using someone else's work even if it's legal. But it's worth making the point that here, that really is a good thing for games! FLARE and LPC have shown that there are artists out there willing to create art for an existing set - more of that please :) Perhaps we need another LPC-style competition - or maybe it doesn't have to be a competition with prizes, I think the important thing about LPC was providing an initial set of graphics that artists then built on.
* More character art with animation - static images are fine for scenery, but it's not uncommon to see people release a game character which may look great, but being a single static image makes it unusable in many styles of game (well, they could still be used say as an NPC who just stands there, but not if you want them for a player character or movable enemy). The LPC set, and the FLARE graphics, are great not just for being a consistent set, but also having animation.
* High resolution graphics would also benefit Android, Windows etc. Though I'd say the gap is not just a lack of very high resolution, but a dominance of low resolution graphics. Much of the 2D art seems to have a retro early-90s feel (not that that's a bad thing, but this topic is what there seems to be a lack of), and is below the resolution capabilities of any device today. But having said that, I imagine there's the point that 2D game art becomes harder at higher resolutions (I saw someone making the point that doubling the resolution in each dimension is four times the pixels, and if you're doing pixel art, that matters). In practice my understanding is that most in-game graphics that are higher resolutions tend to be created in 3D, and then pre-rendered if 2D sprites are desired. There are a fair amount of 3D characters on OGA, though often not in a pre-rendered format. Still, in the case of very simple vector art like the balloons example, these restrictions don't apply, so I guess vector art (that can be scaled to any resolution) is something there's not much of.
On the note of 3D models used for rendering sprites, is there demand for taking some of these 3D models, and generating sprite sheets? I'm a programmer but did learn enough Blender to be able to render a static model in isometric (Clint's tutorial at http://clintbellanger.net/articles/isometric_tiles/ was a great help), though animation is currently beyond me. Or has anyone had luck with Blender scripts that claim to automate this? (a quick Google reveals http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Render/Spritify ). I wonder if some programmers skip by the 3D models altogether, in which case generating spritesheets from 3D models (especially those with animations) might be an easy (albeit tedious) way to increase the amount of higher-resolution game-ready art.
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