This thread prompted someone to ask me (in private) to clarify the situation with respect to my LPC artwork. I answer them here, so that the next person does not have to go through the trouble of private contact again.
First off, I am not a lawyer and all that I write here is not legal advice; it is merely my personal opinion. And one opinion I have is that, as soon as someone grants a license, their opinion about what that license means does not matter anymore. What matters is what a court would decide what the license means. So there is no legal need to contact authors. If you think they might have been misled about the license, it is still courteous, though.
A propos asking for permission: Most of my LPC artwork is based on prior work. So if you think you have to ask me, you might also want to ask further upstream. And with some LPC base assets having a copyright no more specific than by 11 authors, you have a can of worms...
I have not read CC-BY-SA 3.0 in detail. My intention when using that license was to provide the derivative under the same licenses as the original. My understanding of the license was based on the short summary at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. The essence of which was that CC-BY-SA is not more restrictive that GPL.
I have read GPL 3.0 in detail. I do not think that using the art in a game would trigger the copyleft (i.e. make the game a derivative of the art). In normal cases, that is.
So if you want to use the art without publishing the source of your game engine:
- Read the CC-BY-SA 3.0 and judge for yourself,
- or just use the GPL 3.0. After all you have the option to accept either license.
If you use the art under the GPL, you have to make sure, though, to publish the source code of the art. That's no big deal, really. When I put art under the GPL I usually specify what I consider to be the source form.
I can understand why you wanted clarifications. Thanks for asking.
As to sorting, I think you as a maintainer should have the ability to rearrange the order as you see fit. ("Should" in the sense that I think it would be a natural feature. Not in the sense that I think it is possible already.)
And yes, you do deserve points. Maintaining a collection is work just like creating art is (except that the former is an ongoing commitment). It deserves the same acknowledgement.
Speaking of which, your collection does not show under my favourites, only art does. Hence another suggestion: Show favourized collections among users' favourites. Or make them otherwise accessible, e.g. by listing them under users' collections.
In a nutshell, xpm is an image format for making pixel art in a text editor. If your application can't handle it natively, you can convert it with gimp or imagemagick.
First off, I am not a lawyer and nothing I write is legal advice.
I disagree about some of the comments regarding the GPL. At the bottom of this post I quote the relevant parts of the GPL.
It's all about whether art can be licensed under the GPL, how meaningful that is and what consequences the source requirement has. Speaking as one who has deliberately used the GPL for game art (independent from the LPC), I use one of mine as an example: http://opengameart.org/content/cuyo-levels-balls-at-easefrightened-balls... which is vector art produced by a program written in OCaml.
First, applicability of the GPL: Yes, the GPL is applicable to any copyrightable work. It prefers to call that work "program" throughout the license, but it makes it very clear that that is just a name.
Putting the work under the GPL triggers the famous consequences: Copyleft (derived works must be licensed the same way) and distribution in source form. Now what is the source form? By definition it is "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it". If in doubt, the preferred form is the form that the author used for her own editing. In my example it would be the OCaml code. (Let me clarify: The program is not a general vector art editor. Its functionality consists only of rendering these specific images. To produce other images, I wrote different programs using the same libraries. And no, this has not been an exercise in creating GPL corner cases. This was the actual work flow that made sense for that particular project.) Other examples of source code for visual art are:
- layered images like Gimp's xcf format
- files in Blender's or Inkscape's format (whatever that is)
- Povray sources
- the images themselves. A png might very well be its own source.
Most importantly: It does make sense to license art under the GPL. As much as it does for programs. It's about letting others benefit from one's work under the condition that they return the favour (with respect to their derived works). And that only works as long as the source forms are commited.
As a side note, I am not a full fan of the GPL. I does have issues, its apparent inapplicablility to art being one of them. My personal response has been to switch to my own license.
bart:
> The GPL is a license that is intended for computer source code, and
> certain parts of the GPL (such as references to the source code of a work)
> have no legally consistent meaning with respect to art.
Yes, the GPL was created with only programs in mind, but I contest the second part of your statement.
Blender:
> Since GPL does not apply to art assets, only code, if an artist on here
> were to license their art under the GPL, then the result is, only the
> parts of their artwork that contain code (none of it has code usually)
> is what applies as I carry it into my game project.
I hope I managed to defeat that assumption. I agree about the no-impact-on-engine part.
William.Thompsonj:
> GNU clarified (very clearly) on their site that graphics, fonts, and
> geographic data are not considered software, they are static resources
> that are linked by software. GPL does not apply itself to graphics,
> font, or geographic data when included as part of a software package that
> is contained by GPL.
While I agree with the statement, I believe it is irrelevant how GNU interprets the GPL. What matters is what the GPL actually says. And maybe how the licensor interprets it.
William.Thompsonj:
> I agree that GPL *can* be applied to non-software, it just doesn't serve
> much functional purpose outside of requiring attribution and stopping DRM.
It provides copyleft and a source requirement.
As promised, here are the relevant parts of the GPL. First version 2:
| 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
| a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
| under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
| refers to any such program or work, [...]
| 3. [...]
| The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
| making modifications to it. [...]
Now version 3:
| 0. Definitions.
| [...]
| "The Program" refers to any copyrightable work licensed under this
| License. [...]
| 1. Source Code.
| The "source code" for a work means the preferred form of the work
| for making modifications to it. [...]
Disabling rich text always produces a text with HTML paragraph tags.
On the other hand, pure-text paragraph formatting (line feeds and double line feeds) are removed by the enable-disable rich text cycle.
This is really annoying when re-editing submissions: Entering the EDIT form has an implicit "enable rich text" and after disabling that, one has to spend some time fixing the broken formatting.
I did some hairstyle maintenance for the universal sprite sheet a long time ago and at that time I was annoyed that the "default" palette had only 5 colours. So when I saw your work I suspected you repeat the mistake. And I only checked the jewfro style, not the topknot one. Sorry for that.
No need to change anything. It is fine to use only 5 colour where it makes sense and the jewfro looks fine in dark-blonde without the lightest colour.
I notice you use a 5-colour colour ramp for your hairstyles.
I beg you to switch to a 6-colour one, such as dark-blonde (at least it is called that in my old copy of the universal sprite sheet). The reason is, it is easy to convert from 6-colour to 5-colour (or even 4-colour like raven), but not the other way around.
Besides, the dark-blonde ramp is a beautifully made natural hair ramp, so it is fun to work with anyway.
As for artistic feedback, your work looks fine to me. But that's just your fellow programmer talking.
I see your website (subpage wang/blob.html) still states
"We can pack the complete tileset into an 7x8 array. I'm fairly certain a smaller 7x7 array is not possible."
So let me mention http://opengameart.org/content/seamless-tileset-template-ii
For the Oakenheart, you could use the Wose portrait from Battle for Wesnoth (wesnoth.org).
This thread prompted someone to ask me (in private) to clarify the situation with respect to my LPC artwork. I answer them here, so that the next person does not have to go through the trouble of private contact again.
First off, I am not a lawyer and all that I write here is not legal advice; it is merely my personal opinion. And one opinion I have is that, as soon as someone grants a license, their opinion about what that license means does not matter anymore. What matters is what a court would decide what the license means. So there is no legal need to contact authors. If you think they might have been misled about the license, it is still courteous, though.
A propos asking for permission: Most of my LPC artwork is based on prior work. So if you think you have to ask me, you might also want to ask further upstream. And with some LPC base assets having a copyright no more specific than by 11 authors, you have a can of worms...
I have not read CC-BY-SA 3.0 in detail. My intention when using that license was to provide the derivative under the same licenses as the original. My understanding of the license was based on the short summary at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. The essence of which was that CC-BY-SA is not more restrictive that GPL.
I have read GPL 3.0 in detail. I do not think that using the art in a game would trigger the copyleft (i.e. make the game a derivative of the art). In normal cases, that is.
So if you want to use the art without publishing the source of your game engine:
- Read the CC-BY-SA 3.0 and judge for yourself,
- or just use the GPL 3.0. After all you have the option to accept either license.
If you use the art under the GPL, you have to make sure, though, to publish the source code of the art. That's no big deal, really. When I put art under the GPL I usually specify what I consider to be the source form.
I can understand why you wanted clarifications. Thanks for asking.
As to sorting, I think you as a maintainer should have the ability to rearrange the order as you see fit. ("Should" in the sense that I think it would be a natural feature. Not in the sense that I think it is possible already.)
And yes, you do deserve points. Maintaining a collection is work just like creating art is (except that the former is an ongoing commitment). It deserves the same acknowledgement.
Speaking of which, your collection does not show under my favourites, only art does. Hence another suggestion: Show favourized collections among users' favourites. Or make them otherwise accessible, e.g. by listing them under users' collections.
In a nutshell, xpm is an image format for making pixel art in a text editor. If your application can't handle it natively, you can convert it with gimp or imagemagick.
For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_PixMap or my post http://opengameart.org/forumtopic/feature-request-allow-xpm-file-format.
Hope this helps.
First off, I am not a lawyer and nothing I write is legal advice.
I disagree about some of the comments regarding the GPL. At the bottom of this post I quote the relevant parts of the GPL.
It's all about whether art can be licensed under the GPL, how meaningful that is and what consequences the source requirement has. Speaking as one who has deliberately used the GPL for game art (independent from the LPC), I use one of mine as an example: http://opengameart.org/content/cuyo-levels-balls-at-easefrightened-balls... which is vector art produced by a program written in OCaml.
First, applicability of the GPL: Yes, the GPL is applicable to any copyrightable work. It prefers to call that work "program" throughout the license, but it makes it very clear that that is just a name.
Putting the work under the GPL triggers the famous consequences: Copyleft (derived works must be licensed the same way) and distribution in source form. Now what is the source form? By definition it is "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it". If in doubt, the preferred form is the form that the author used for her own editing. In my example it would be the OCaml code. (Let me clarify: The program is not a general vector art editor. Its functionality consists only of rendering these specific images. To produce other images, I wrote different programs using the same libraries. And no, this has not been an exercise in creating GPL corner cases. This was the actual work flow that made sense for that particular project.) Other examples of source code for visual art are:
- layered images like Gimp's xcf format
- files in Blender's or Inkscape's format (whatever that is)
- Povray sources
- the images themselves. A png might very well be its own source.
Most importantly: It does make sense to license art under the GPL. As much as it does for programs. It's about letting others benefit from one's work under the condition that they return the favour (with respect to their derived works). And that only works as long as the source forms are commited.
As a side note, I am not a full fan of the GPL. I does have issues, its apparent inapplicablility to art being one of them. My personal response has been to switch to my own license.
bart:
> The GPL is a license that is intended for computer source code, and
> certain parts of the GPL (such as references to the source code of a work)
> have no legally consistent meaning with respect to art.
Yes, the GPL was created with only programs in mind, but I contest the second part of your statement.
Blender:
> Since GPL does not apply to art assets, only code, if an artist on here
> were to license their art under the GPL, then the result is, only the
> parts of their artwork that contain code (none of it has code usually)
> is what applies as I carry it into my game project.
I hope I managed to defeat that assumption. I agree about the no-impact-on-engine part.
William.Thompsonj:
> GNU clarified (very clearly) on their site that graphics, fonts, and
> geographic data are not considered software, they are static resources
> that are linked by software. GPL does not apply itself to graphics,
> font, or geographic data when included as part of a software package that
> is contained by GPL.
While I agree with the statement, I believe it is irrelevant how GNU interprets the GPL. What matters is what the GPL actually says. And maybe how the licensor interprets it.
William.Thompsonj:
> I agree that GPL *can* be applied to non-software, it just doesn't serve
> much functional purpose outside of requiring attribution and stopping DRM.
It provides copyleft and a source requirement.
As promised, here are the relevant parts of the GPL. First version 2:
| 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
| a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
| under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
| refers to any such program or work, [...]
| 3. [...]
| The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
| making modifications to it. [...]
Now version 3:
| 0. Definitions.
| [...]
| "The Program" refers to any copyrightable work licensed under this
| License. [...]
| 1. Source Code.
| The "source code" for a work means the preferred form of the work
| for making modifications to it. [...]
Disabling rich text always produces a text with HTML paragraph tags.
On the other hand, pure-text paragraph formatting (line feeds and double line feeds) are removed by the enable-disable rich text cycle.
This is really annoying when re-editing submissions: Entering the EDIT form has an implicit "enable rich text" and after disabling that, one has to spend some time fixing the broken formatting.
Ah I see.
I did some hairstyle maintenance for the universal sprite sheet a long time ago and at that time I was annoyed that the "default" palette had only 5 colours. So when I saw your work I suspected you repeat the mistake. And I only checked the jewfro style, not the topknot one. Sorry for that.
No need to change anything. It is fine to use only 5 colour where it makes sense and the jewfro looks fine in dark-blonde without the lightest colour.
I just noticed that the parser for attribution instructions bails out on the letter "<".
This was when checking my collection http://opengameart.org/content/cuyo-levels. We have a lot of "Copyright <=2001", for example in http://opengameart.org/content/cuyo-level-maze.
I notice you use a 5-colour colour ramp for your hairstyles.
I beg you to switch to a 6-colour one, such as dark-blonde (at least it is called that in my old copy of the universal sprite sheet). The reason is, it is easy to convert from 6-colour to 5-colour (or even 4-colour like raven), but not the other way around.
Besides, the dark-blonde ramp is a beautifully made natural hair ramp, so it is fun to work with anyway.
As for artistic feedback, your work looks fine to me. But that's just your fellow programmer talking.
Pages