@Courgarmint: In my opinion, CC-BY sounds ideal for your desires. Or possibly OGA-BY since it has no DRM restriction. I'd dual-license cc-by+oga-by, then everyone's happy.
Though I should say there is very low risk of someone flipping the license on one of your cc0 works and suing you for it. Besides the obvious "the law doesn't allow that" thing, I think it would be trivially easy to get the suit dismissed with nothing more than a motion of summary judgment showing you released it CC0 before they released it proprietary. All the judges I know would be like "WTF? Case dismissed." without you even being in a courtroom.
Edit: Also, as Clint Bellanger said, screenshots and the like are only a problem if they aren't fair use.
"So making a screenshot is a derivative art and the license applys? This is one of the most ridiculous things I heard so far..."
I agree.
"So suddenly a free open source game becomes much more restrictive than everything else? That did not work out as intended then."
I agree.
"Many of those open source licenses sound nice in theory, but in practice they sometimes become even worse than proprietary content, so where is the whole point then?"
I agree. Even in open source games I avoid using GPL or CC-BY-SA for exactly the reasons you stated. I wasn't saying this is what I would do. Only that it is something people might do.
The license doesn't always apply to the whole "work" even when art is mixed with art. If I have a cc-by asset AND a cc-by-sa assset, and I use them both in one project- depending on how the asset collections are arranged- that doesn't make both assets cc-by-sa. If I DERIVE new art from the cc-by-sa asset, yes; both the original and derived assets are cc-by-sa. I'm not trying to skirt the law or suggest you should disregard what the artist intended. I'm saying, legally, licenses can be kept separate by individual "collections" of assets, even within a single project.
If you mix art with code, yes that might make cc-by-sa apply to the output product. My scenario does not mix art with code. My hypothetical game engine remains separate from the art. One uses the other, but it does not derive one from the other. If all it takes to constitute a derivation is to have software display an asset in various ways, then whatever operating system and browser you use to display this website should be subject to CC-BY-SA. If you took a screenshot of my game, where cc-by-sa art was displayed along with other art, I suppose that screenshot might be considered a derivative. But I didn't make the screenshot. You did. I just made the game engine. That's where it gets sticky. There are a lot of fringe cases or weird scenarios where the answer changes.
There are existing cases where a cc-by-sa photo was used in a commercial photo album not licensed cc-by-sa. The courts considered the photo album to not be in violation of the photo's license. The main takeaway from this discussion (that's been going since 2012 at least) is that it is unclear.
Every situation is different and not subject to generalization. The only thing you can do to be sure is to consult a lawyer. That is exactly what I did. The lawyer specializing in intellectual property law advised me of roughly what I stated above: "art is not a derivative of game code, even if the game code uses the art". However, this was very specific to the way I used my hypothetical assets and it won't apply to everyone.
Or better yet, ask the artist(s). Clint intended his -SA art to be viral and inherited by the game engine. Out of respect for his wishes, I would license my entire game engine as -SA if I used any of his assets in my game... Or simply not use his assets.
It might not have the meaning you expect it to, but I wouldn't say it has no meaning. Yes, you could use CC-BY-SA licensed art in proprietary licensed, closed-source, commercial software... but the artwork would still have to be CC-BY-SA, and therefore freely available even if the rest of the software isn't. All derivatives of that art must also be CC-BY-SA and freely available, even if the person making the derivatives were the proprietary closed-source commercial company. My point was it is the derivatives of the asset that inherit the license. It is really unlikely anyone will adapt an art asset into computer code. They are both together in the same product, sure. But that doesn't make one a derivative of the other.
You'll note my above statement is only my opinion on the topic. I'm not a lawyer, and even small changes to the scenario can change the answer to the question. You'll also note my opinion disagrees with Clint's opinion on the topic above. He's been doing this a lot longer than I have, so keep that in mind.
That being said, I think my scenario assumes the license on the game binary is separate from the art asset collections. If you wanted to use all one license for everything, that's a different story.
I have to agree with FiveAsOne. Why post art in the forum? The Art Submission section is specifically designed for posting art, including pixel art and tags.
@VennNo: yeah, I agree with capbros; witchybizness was solid stuff. What engine/language/framework did you use, if I may ask?
@capbros: hey, thanks! I was a bit overly ambitious with the features I wanted to add in the time alloted, but your encouragement is good to hear. I think I will continue developing it and really buff all the jagged corners to a polish.
I really did enjoy a bunch of these games. Just as a passing comment, I was impressed with phantom66's Deciding Factor and the enemy AI. I was intimidated by how inadequate my own AI coding has been by comparison, until phantom tells me it was pre-captured human ghosts that match your skill level as you increase in rank... That is so freaking clever! @Phantom if you don't mind I'm stealing that idea for some of my future projects. :)
Here's good. "Show Off Your Project" as well, even though there isn't much to show off yet. :)
@Courgarmint: In my opinion, CC-BY sounds ideal for your desires. Or possibly OGA-BY since it has no DRM restriction. I'd dual-license cc-by+oga-by, then everyone's happy.
Though I should say there is very low risk of someone flipping the license on one of your cc0 works and suing you for it. Besides the obvious "the law doesn't allow that" thing, I think it would be trivially easy to get the suit dismissed with nothing more than a motion of summary judgment showing you released it CC0 before they released it proprietary. All the judges I know would be like "WTF? Case dismissed." without you even being in a courtroom.
Edit: Also, as Clint Bellanger said, screenshots and the like are only a problem if they aren't fair use.
I agree.
I agree.
I agree. Even in open source games I avoid using GPL or CC-BY-SA for exactly the reasons you stated. I wasn't saying this is what I would do. Only that it is something people might do.
The license doesn't always apply to the whole "work" even when art is mixed with art. If I have a cc-by asset AND a cc-by-sa assset, and I use them both in one project- depending on how the asset collections are arranged- that doesn't make both assets cc-by-sa. If I DERIVE new art from the cc-by-sa asset, yes; both the original and derived assets are cc-by-sa. I'm not trying to skirt the law or suggest you should disregard what the artist intended. I'm saying, legally, licenses can be kept separate by individual "collections" of assets, even within a single project.
If you mix art with code, yes that might make cc-by-sa apply to the output product. My scenario does not mix art with code. My hypothetical game engine remains separate from the art. One uses the other, but it does not derive one from the other. If all it takes to constitute a derivation is to have software display an asset in various ways, then whatever operating system and browser you use to display this website should be subject to CC-BY-SA. If you took a screenshot of my game, where cc-by-sa art was displayed along with other art, I suppose that screenshot might be considered a derivative. But I didn't make the screenshot. You did. I just made the game engine. That's where it gets sticky. There are a lot of fringe cases or weird scenarios where the answer changes.
There are existing cases where a cc-by-sa photo was used in a commercial photo album not licensed cc-by-sa. The courts considered the photo album to not be in violation of the photo's license. The main takeaway from this discussion (that's been going since 2012 at least) is that it is unclear.
Every situation is different and not subject to generalization. The only thing you can do to be sure is to consult a lawyer. That is exactly what I did. The lawyer specializing in intellectual property law advised me of roughly what I stated above: "art is not a derivative of game code, even if the game code uses the art". However, this was very specific to the way I used my hypothetical assets and it won't apply to everyone.
Or better yet, ask the artist(s). Clint intended his -SA art to be viral and inherited by the game engine. Out of respect for his wishes, I would license my entire game engine as -SA if I used any of his assets in my game... Or simply not use his assets.
It might not have the meaning you expect it to, but I wouldn't say it has no meaning. Yes, you could use CC-BY-SA licensed art in proprietary licensed, closed-source, commercial software... but the artwork would still have to be CC-BY-SA, and therefore freely available even if the rest of the software isn't. All derivatives of that art must also be CC-BY-SA and freely available, even if the person making the derivatives were the proprietary closed-source commercial company. My point was it is the derivatives of the asset that inherit the license. It is really unlikely anyone will adapt an art asset into computer code. They are both together in the same product, sure. But that doesn't make one a derivative of the other.
You'll note my above statement is only my opinion on the topic. I'm not a lawyer, and even small changes to the scenario can change the answer to the question. You'll also note my opinion disagrees with Clint's opinion on the topic above. He's been doing this a lot longer than I have, so keep that in mind.
That being said, I think my scenario assumes the license on the game binary is separate from the art asset collections. If you wanted to use all one license for everything, that's a different story.
No. The software is not a derivative of the art so the software is not subject to the Share Alike clause.
No more than usual. But yes you should mark them as spam.
nope! you've done nothing wrong. :) We were just confused as to what you wanted to accomplish.
I have to agree with FiveAsOne. Why post art in the forum? The Art Submission section is specifically designed for posting art, including pixel art and tags.
@VennNo: yeah, I agree with capbros; witchybizness was solid stuff. What engine/language/framework did you use, if I may ask?
@capbros: hey, thanks! I was a bit overly ambitious with the features I wanted to add in the time alloted, but your encouragement is good to hear. I think I will continue developing it and really buff all the jagged corners to a polish.
I really did enjoy a bunch of these games. Just as a passing comment, I was impressed with phantom66's Deciding Factor and the enemy AI. I was intimidated by how inadequate my own AI coding has been by comparison, until phantom tells me it was pre-captured human ghosts that match your skill level as you increase in rank... That is so freaking clever! @Phantom if you don't mind I'm stealing that idea for some of my future projects. :)
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