I know you want to hear from other artists besides me, but... who is saying you need to show a list of credits at intervals or plastered everywhere for each instance an asset appears?
Well, I could tell you this is based on my inquery to an Intellectual Property lawyer, but I'm not a lawyer myself, and such an IP lawyer would also say that these scenarios cannot be subject to generalizations and that every situation must be assessed on it's own merits and circumstances.
This is as close as you're going to get to some solid information without actually consulting a lawyer about your specific situation like I did. Sorry.
The stage of your project is irrelevant to the license. If you aquired the asset under license-X, you may use license-X's terms throughout your life and the life of the project. Proving which license you obtained it under is usually not that difficult, especially with the archive.org method I mentioned above. Besides, legally, the author challenging you in court means they have the burden of proof to prove license-X was not available to you at the time you aquired the asset. I tend not to judge what I should do based on what will happen in court, but the concern seems to be the legal risks and burden of proof despite what may have actually happened.
Wether or not an asset was shared by someone who actually had the rights to do so is a valid point. Author-A could upload the assets of Author-C and share it as CC0 without actually having Author-C's permission to do so. That would invalidate the asset and license, and anyone who downloaded it from Author-C's page would have no legal right to use it, even if those downloaders were not at fault for the mistake. That is why we are so picky about the origin of artwork here on OGA. EVERY submission is checked and weighed against a standard of reasonable certainty that the asset's license is legitimate. Sometimes we miss one and we have to take the asset down even after people have started using the asset in their project. It sucks that they have to remove or replace those assets, but it is actually very rare.
If you're not willing to credit every author and indicate which assets were created by each author, I would strongly recommend not using the asset at all. Deciding it's just not feasible to credit properly is not a valid legal defense. The stuff I outlined above doesn't seem that infeasible to me, but I don't know the complexity of your project. However, I do know that failure to properly attribute assets under CC-BY and CC-BY-SA is a violation of the license terms and will get you in trouble. The -BY means you must credit, regardless of the author's lack of explicit request for attribution.
<----- here's where users can submit comments THAT DON'T BREAK FROM PASTED TEXT
Down here is where new submissions are shown (NOTE THE LACK OF DUPLICATE ENTRIES) ---\/
:P
That is a good point; there's not many easy ways to graphically indicate technical improvements. Is there any visual or design layout aspects of the current site you'd like to change? Just focus on those. Even an ms-paint sketch of the site layout would probably help people visualize potential changes. :)
If you downloaded an asset when it was CC-[anything], it doesn't matter if the author or source-website changes the license later. Your CC license for that asset is irrevocable. Heck, even if the asset is no longer available under a CC0 license, you could upload it to an art sharing website (like OGA) and list it as CC0 even if the author didn't want that. I would recommend AGAINST doing that, since we want to have a good relationship with authors even if we are legally allowed to piss them off. Never-the-less, once something is released under one of the CC-* licenses, it can always be used under that license, even if people try to make it unavailable.
I tend to record where, when, and under what license I got my assets. That always helps in proving they are legit, but I understand that may not always be feasible for you: It's kind of a pain, or you forgot one time, or you do that now, but didn't know to do that on assets you've obtained previously.
In those cases, you can usually prove provenance with the internet archive: https://archive.org/ shows what a website said in the past, even if it has since been changed. It doesn't always show the exact date and sub-page you are looking for, but it's worked for me enough times that I have to recommend donating to them for being such a great resource.
is it a reasonable expectation that the author of outsourced content be credited every single time their work appears in a screenshot, for every single instance of a screenshot?
Short answer: Yes. Attribute every author and asset.
Long answer: Depends on how they're appearing. If the author's content is showing up in a game, there is no need to flash an attribution message on the screen for every frame of animation that contains that asset. Just give attribution once in the credits screen/page/file. That one attribution covers all instances of the asset appearing throughout the game. If a Twitch Gamer or Lets-Player screencaps the game, that is generally considered fair use. Assuming the gamer indicates in their video or media what game it is from, the game's internal credits covers it. Another example would be a photo-art book. The publisher of the book containing a bunch of artwork doesn't need to give credit on every page where a particular art asset appears (they can if they want, though); a credit blurb once at the end of the book is sufficient.
However, let's say you are showing off some assets on your blog. If you display 20 images, 4 are by artist-A, 3 are from artist-B, 2 are from artist-C, and the rest are 1 each from artists-D through -L... you need 12 attributions. One attribution per Author, not per asset. But each author's attribution should indicate which asset(s) it corresponds to. You can have all 12 attributions in the same spot (even if the images are scattered throughout the blog) for the sake of organization, but they ALL get attributions. One attribution per author per collection. ("collection" being the group unit that is utilizing the assets: 1 blog, 1 game, 1 book, etc.)
Note that you don't need to track every instance of an asset. If you display sprite-10 a total of 44 times in your game (44 instances of 1 asset), there is no need to indicate forty four times that sprite-10 was by author-D:
Even if an asset is used multiple times, you only need to credit once for that author and indicate which assets belong to that author, not every instance of every asset that belongs to that author.
Artists may license their work (even the SAME work) in different ways on different platforms. You are allowed to pick whichever license you prefer and adhere to that one.
However, you should always download the asset from the same place that shows the license you want to adhere to. Do NOT download an asset from one site, but adhere to the license from a different site. The two works may only be very similar, but not the same. The author may have chosen to license the two differently for that reason.
If you provide specific links, I can provide a more in-depth answer. :)
Both of those were visible for several days on the front page's "latest art" section. Actually, the furniture one is still visible in "latest art" and both are visible in "popular this week" right now.
That is a reasonable concern, though. We want artists submissions to be visible for a decent period. What would you suggest as a solution? I have been encouraging submitters to consolidate thier submissions (it's better for everyone anyway, the artists tend to get more attention when their stuff is in a cohesive set) but how do we enforce that besides asking?
I know you want to hear from other artists besides me, but... who is saying you need to show a list of credits at intervals or plastered everywhere for each instance an asset appears?
Well, I could tell you this is based on my inquery to an Intellectual Property lawyer, but I'm not a lawyer myself, and such an IP lawyer would also say that these scenarios cannot be subject to generalizations and that every situation must be assessed on it's own merits and circumstances.
This is as close as you're going to get to some solid information without actually consulting a lawyer about your specific situation like I did. Sorry.
The stage of your project is irrelevant to the license. If you aquired the asset under license-X, you may use license-X's terms throughout your life and the life of the project. Proving which license you obtained it under is usually not that difficult, especially with the archive.org method I mentioned above. Besides, legally, the author challenging you in court means they have the burden of proof to prove license-X was not available to you at the time you aquired the asset. I tend not to judge what I should do based on what will happen in court, but the concern seems to be the legal risks and burden of proof despite what may have actually happened.
Wether or not an asset was shared by someone who actually had the rights to do so is a valid point. Author-A could upload the assets of Author-C and share it as CC0 without actually having Author-C's permission to do so. That would invalidate the asset and license, and anyone who downloaded it from Author-C's page would have no legal right to use it, even if those downloaders were not at fault for the mistake. That is why we are so picky about the origin of artwork here on OGA. EVERY submission is checked and weighed against a standard of reasonable certainty that the asset's license is legitimate. Sometimes we miss one and we have to take the asset down even after people have started using the asset in their project. It sucks that they have to remove or replace those assets, but it is actually very rare.
If you're not willing to credit every author and indicate which assets were created by each author, I would strongly recommend not using the asset at all. Deciding it's just not feasible to credit properly is not a valid legal defense. The stuff I outlined above doesn't seem that infeasible to me, but I don't know the complexity of your project. However, I do know that failure to properly attribute assets under CC-BY and CC-BY-SA is a violation of the license terms and will get you in trouble. The -BY means you must credit, regardless of the author's lack of explicit request for attribution.
draw a mockup and show annotations! :)
<----- here's where users can submit comments THAT DON'T BREAK FROM PASTED TEXT
Down here is where new submissions are shown (NOTE THE LACK OF DUPLICATE ENTRIES) ---\/
:P
That is a good point; there's not many easy ways to graphically indicate technical improvements. Is there any visual or design layout aspects of the current site you'd like to change? Just focus on those. Even an ms-paint sketch of the site layout would probably help people visualize potential changes. :)
^seconded
@LDAsh: The cubebrush and poliigon license changes are similar to the discusson about Josepharaoh's "fiery explosion" pixabay derivative.
If you downloaded an asset when it was CC-[anything], it doesn't matter if the author or source-website changes the license later. Your CC license for that asset is irrevocable. Heck, even if the asset is no longer available under a CC0 license, you could upload it to an art sharing website (like OGA) and list it as CC0 even if the author didn't want that. I would recommend AGAINST doing that, since we want to have a good relationship with authors even if we are legally allowed to piss them off. Never-the-less, once something is released under one of the CC-* licenses, it can always be used under that license, even if people try to make it unavailable.
I tend to record where, when, and under what license I got my assets. That always helps in proving they are legit, but I understand that may not always be feasible for you: It's kind of a pain, or you forgot one time, or you do that now, but didn't know to do that on assets you've obtained previously.
In those cases, you can usually prove provenance with the internet archive: https://archive.org/ shows what a website said in the past, even if it has since been changed. It doesn't always show the exact date and sub-page you are looking for, but it's worked for me enough times that I have to recommend donating to them for being such a great resource.
Short answer: Yes. Attribute every author and asset.
Long answer: Depends on how they're appearing. If the author's content is showing up in a game, there is no need to flash an attribution message on the screen for every frame of animation that contains that asset. Just give attribution once in the credits screen/page/file. That one attribution covers all instances of the asset appearing throughout the game. If a Twitch Gamer or Lets-Player screencaps the game, that is generally considered fair use. Assuming the gamer indicates in their video or media what game it is from, the game's internal credits covers it. Another example would be a photo-art book. The publisher of the book containing a bunch of artwork doesn't need to give credit on every page where a particular art asset appears (they can if they want, though); a credit blurb once at the end of the book is sufficient.
However, let's say you are showing off some assets on your blog. If you display 20 images, 4 are by artist-A, 3 are from artist-B, 2 are from artist-C, and the rest are 1 each from artists-D through -L... you need 12 attributions. One attribution per Author, not per asset. But each author's attribution should indicate which asset(s) it corresponds to. You can have all 12 attributions in the same spot (even if the images are scattered throughout the blog) for the sake of organization, but they ALL get attributions. One attribution per author per collection. ("collection" being the group unit that is utilizing the assets: 1 blog, 1 game, 1 book, etc.)
Note that you don't need to track every instance of an asset. If you display sprite-10 a total of 44 times in your game (44 instances of 1 asset), there is no need to indicate forty four times that sprite-10 was by author-D:
EXAMPLE CREDITS PAGE:
Even if an asset is used multiple times, you only need to credit once for that author and indicate which assets belong to that author, not every instance of every asset that belongs to that author.
Artists may license their work (even the SAME work) in different ways on different platforms. You are allowed to pick whichever license you prefer and adhere to that one.
However, you should always download the asset from the same place that shows the license you want to adhere to. Do NOT download an asset from one site, but adhere to the license from a different site. The two works may only be very similar, but not the same. The author may have chosen to license the two differently for that reason.
If you provide specific links, I can provide a more in-depth answer. :)
Wow. I think that fits the art pretty darn well! Nicely done. I like it.
This is close to that, Joth, but with Newly Submitted at the top instead of the bottom. Is that what you're thinking of possibly?
I like this idea! What does this sound like?
https://opengameart.org/content/swamp-dryad
??
Both of those were visible for several days on the front page's "latest art" section. Actually, the furniture one is still visible in "latest art" and both are visible in "popular this week" right now.
That is a reasonable concern, though. We want artists submissions to be visible for a decent period. What would you suggest as a solution? I have been encouraging submitters to consolidate thier submissions (it's better for everyone anyway, the artists tend to get more attention when their stuff is in a cohesive set) but how do we enforce that besides asking?
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