It appears the community has arrived at a consensus on a few things:
Sony's trademark is stupid.
Although there is a difference between copyright and trademark, this community considers both concerns worthy of scrutiny.
Despite #1, we should let people know of the potential pitfalls of using trademarks in their projects so they can make an informed assessment of how Fair Use affects them.
If there are no objections, I'll add a notice per #3 and omit the potentially troublesome symbols, while also making them available elsewhere for users to decide their own circumstances.
P.S. it's pretty minimal as I have little discord moderating experience. Let me know if you'd like to be a moderator on the discord or brush it up a bit. I'll promote you. :)
If anyone knows of official usage guidelines, they would still be very helpful here. Since OGA has firmly established disallowing trademarks in submissions, I also agree adding a notice regarding the specific trademark is a good idea, but we'll wait a bit for xelu's input first.
@withthelove: I think that is a valid viewpoint. As far as I can tell, the complete trademark does not appear in this set. Unless new information comes to light that contradicts this, I beleive there is no issue with this submission. Thank you for correcting me in a civil and logical discussion. :)
^I mostly agree, though whether playstation legal team notices a violation here or not is irrelevant. Whether it is a violation or not is.
"it's not part of your marketing. (e.g not using it inside promotion material)."
There's the rub. CC0 tells people they can use it in promotion material and marketing campaigns. Unless we can get some official guidence clarifying this, we must assume the trademark holder does not allow that... which makes it incompatible with CC0. However, the reason I suggested removing just the ∆○×□ buttons is so each downloader can make that fair-use determination on their own, and add their own in (or not) to the set.
Yeah, I missed it at first too (see attached screenshot).
Yes, unfortunately shapes can be trademarked. Actually, all logos are basically just trademarked shapes. Some more complex than others. The main requirement is that the shape be distinct. A circle or triangle or "cross" by itself would not be distinct enough but the combination of triangle circle cross square is... and more specifically the purpse they are applied to: controller buttons.
P.S. Unfortunately, we must draw a distinction between fair use and CC0. (or any other license on OGA, for that matter). Fair use has restrictions on it that CC-* licenses do not have (and often do not even allow). Many of the fair-use restrictions are situation-specific, which is impossible for us to govern when sharing assets that game dev's want to be certain are free and clear.
I encourage all devs to take advantage of fair-use resources, but the decision about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable (regarding fair-use) must lie with the developer and their individual circumstances, not OGA.
@MvdM: that is great to hear. Are there any links or documents you could provide that offer some official usage guidance? As we both mentioned, it is obvious game devs must be allowed to use such icons in their games, but there are often still stipulations from the trademark holder.
If Sony says 'these are ok to use, but only in playstation games', then there is still an issue. These assets are licensed CC0 meaning developers can use them in any way, including sony-competing platforms.
I'm hoping with your experience developing console games you may have access to official guidelines about this. If not, well... the trademarked parts constitute a very small portion of this fantastic set of assets, so removing just those parts is not as terrible a loss. :)
@docfo4r: hmm... that is a registered trademark of Sony. I was not aware of that. I haven't been able to find usage guidelines for them either.
3rd party developers have always used exactly this kind of asset in their PS games, but that may have always been "fair use" or something similar. If anyone knows more about Sony's usage guidelines for trademarked button icons, please share. Until we know more, I have to mark this as having a licensing issue.
@xelu: these are such great assets it would be a shame to lose access to the whole set. Would you be willing to omit the "triangle", "circle", "cross", and "square" icons? That would leave the rest usable and give the developer the opportunity to fill in the blanks with their own "fair use" versions if they found that to be acceptable
It appears the community has arrived at a consensus on a few things:
If there are no objections, I'll add a notice per #3 and omit the potentially troublesome symbols, while also making them available elsewhere for users to decide their own circumstances.
Why not! https://discord.gg/d9Hr8Ns :D
P.S. it's pretty minimal as I have little discord moderating experience. Let me know if you'd like to be a moderator on the discord or brush it up a bit. I'll promote you. :)
If anyone knows of official usage guidelines, they would still be very helpful here. Since OGA has firmly established disallowing trademarks in submissions, I also agree adding a notice regarding the specific trademark is a good idea, but we'll wait a bit for xelu's input first.
@withthelove: I think that is a valid viewpoint. As far as I can tell, the complete trademark does not appear in this set. Unless new information comes to light that contradicts this, I beleive there is no issue with this submission. Thank you for correcting me in a civil and logical discussion. :)
Thanks. I honestly think this is the stupidest licensing flag I've ever issued, but Sony has a legit trademark. :(
^I mostly agree, though whether playstation legal team notices a violation here or not is irrelevant. Whether it is a violation or not is.
There's the rub. CC0 tells people they can use it in promotion material and marketing campaigns. Unless we can get some official guidence clarifying this, we must assume the trademark holder does not allow that... which makes it incompatible with CC0. However, the reason I suggested removing just the ∆○×□ buttons is so each downloader can make that fair-use determination on their own, and add their own in (or not) to the set.
Yeah, I missed it at first too (see attached screenshot).
Yes, unfortunately shapes can be trademarked. Actually, all logos are basically just trademarked shapes. Some more complex than others. The main requirement is that the shape be distinct. A circle or triangle or "cross" by itself would not be distinct enough but the combination of triangle circle cross square is... and more specifically the purpse they are applied to: controller buttons.
P.S. Unfortunately, we must draw a distinction between fair use and CC0. (or any other license on OGA, for that matter). Fair use has restrictions on it that CC-* licenses do not have (and often do not even allow). Many of the fair-use restrictions are situation-specific, which is impossible for us to govern when sharing assets that game dev's want to be certain are free and clear.
I encourage all devs to take advantage of fair-use resources, but the decision about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable (regarding fair-use) must lie with the developer and their individual circumstances, not OGA.
I know this topic was basically settled a while ago, but here is some recent relevant content from Extra Credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5zXDDMqhcw
@MvdM: that is great to hear. Are there any links or documents you could provide that offer some official usage guidance? As we both mentioned, it is obvious game devs must be allowed to use such icons in their games, but there are often still stipulations from the trademark holder.
If Sony says 'these are ok to use, but only in playstation games', then there is still an issue. These assets are licensed CC0 meaning developers can use them in any way, including sony-competing platforms.
I'm hoping with your experience developing console games you may have access to official guidelines about this. If not, well... the trademarked parts constitute a very small portion of this fantastic set of assets, so removing just those parts is not as terrible a loss. :)
@docfo4r: hmm... that is a registered trademark of Sony. I was not aware of that. I haven't been able to find usage guidelines for them either.
3rd party developers have always used exactly this kind of asset in their PS games, but that may have always been "fair use" or something similar. If anyone knows more about Sony's usage guidelines for trademarked button icons, please share. Until we know more, I have to mark this as having a licensing issue.
@xelu: these are such great assets it would be a shame to lose access to the whole set. Would you be willing to omit the "triangle", "circle", "cross", and "square" icons? That would leave the rest usable and give the developer the opportunity to fill in the blanks with their own "fair use" versions if they found that to be acceptable
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