Both "free" and "open source" licences (as defined by the FSF and OSI) allow commercial distribution. However, this is nothing to do with copyleft or releasing code - BSD code for example can be used in closed source applications. None of the licences on this site for art require you to release source code. The reason the licences allow commercial use is not because people think all games should be GPL.
Consider that non commercial licences don't just prevent use in commercial games, but also Open Source games (which are intended to allow commercial redistribution). So what is such art good for? I guess for freeware games, but it cuts out a lot of potential use. One of the problems with non commercial licences is that they are so ill defined, e.g., what about distributing on a web site with ads or a commercial magazine cover CD? And a German court interpreted it to rule out use even by a non commercial radio station ( https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140326/11405526695/german-court-says... ).
Is the GPL more restrictive than non commercial licences? The GPL art can be used for open source, freeware and commercial games, but the "source form" of the art must be provided. Maybe that's a restriction for some commercial uses, though only if they want to take things for free and not give anything back. The idea behind copyleft is that it reduces some freedom for distributors in order to preserve freedoms for end users. Meanwhile non commercial art can't be used at all for any commercial games, nor open source either, so that seems much more restrictive.
Yes there'd be a lot more art if we allowed nc licences, and it'd all be useless for commercial and open source games.
"Technically Public Domain allows relicensing to CC-BY. I've done that and it angered a few people."
The APK distributed on Google Play is the same one I distribute on standalone sites. You can use DRM on Android if you want ( https://source.android.com/devices/drm.html ) but it is not standard.
The APK format is just a zip - you can happily open the archive with any zip extractor. Whilst Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty may be unclear as to what exactly technological measures are, I don't see that opening a zip/apk file would be breaking laws like the DMCA (or if it is, then CC licences aren't safe for any archives on any platform).
Note that his article is specifically about photography, especially those with models, so in most cases won't be relevant to material on OGA.
Not that I agree with much of it anyway.
The issue in his example is that someone falsely applied Creative Commons on an image he didn't have the rights to. Whilst this is a risk, I don't see how it's specific to photography - it could happen to any creative work.
It's also not specific to Free licences. If that random 12 year old sells images he pirated from elsewhere under a commercial licence, it's still going to cause problems for people who use it.
I take his point that it's harder with photographs due to the sheer number of them, but this poses a problem with copyright and photography in general, not just CC. And photography certainly isn't unique - other obvious examples would be audio samples and fonts. Even for software, whilst there may not be billions of applications, there are billions of lines of code, and one has to be careful as to the true origin. E.g., imagine someone using BSD code in their commercial closed source application, but it turns out that the author of the BSD application swiped code in from a GPL application (or even proprietary code). Many applications are done by one person, and such a thing could happen without the community finding out about it.
It's true that photography with models is a more complex issue, but I don't see how that's just an argument against Creative Commons - that applies to any licence, or indeed the whole concept of copyright, as applied to photos with models.
I think it's absurd to suggest we should make do with fair use. Firstly many countries don't have a concept of fair use. But also my understanding is that fair use is a defence to copyright infringement - i.e., you have to admit that you infringed, but have to hope that the courts consider the fair use defence to be valid. It is not a licence that explicitly states you are allowed to use it.
Fair use also wouldn't cover model releases, or use by Big Company or Virgin Mobile in an ad.
I fail to see how CC contributes to a misunderstanding of copyright law. And the argument that many people don't care about copyright law applies to all copyright licences, proprietary ones included.
Where is the evidence that people discussing CC are the people who can't find countries on a map? I could just as well claim that his article is invalid, because he's probably one of the 50%.
The comparison to cigarette companies is hilarious.
I googled all of his "statements made by advocates for CC", and only found his website. Maybe he's paraphrasing, but these seem like straw man arguments.
He also does nothing to propose a solution or alternative. What is he proposing? That we should do away with copyright because people don't understand it and it's complicated? That people shouldn't licence their photos at all? I have no idea.
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Regarding Ignorantia juris non excusat - I agree with Rainbow Design, that typically refers to knowing what the law is. In this case, someone might know copyright law exactly, but be have had incorrect knowledge as to the licence on a particular work.
Allowing mods to be able to select the other (GPL, BSD etc) licences is a reasonable solution. I think it'd be good to have a specific place where people can post suggestions of such for mods to upload (unless it's done as capbros says - people can choose such options, but it requires a mod to approve it).
Regarding the wording on the FAQ - I think the biggest improvement would be to put this text on the "Submit art" itself. At least, put it in the "Submission guidelines" that's linked from the "Submit art" page.
I think it would be sad to disallow uploading free art unless you're the author. Aside from the practical effect of limiting the art on this site, it seems to go against one of the major benefits of Free licencing (that a clear Free licence means I can use it without having to contact the author every time).
For the problem where an incorrectly licenced art (e.g., it's a derivative work of something that isn't Free) doesn't get updated on OGA - yes, it is a problem, but I'd argue it's a problem that can occur anyway: the author might never notice; the author might notice, but forget they also uploaded to OGA. Also consider that even if OGA is uploaded, if I've already downloaded from OGA to include in a game, I may not notice whether or not OGA is updated.
Yes these problems are reduced if art only exists on one site, but then why bother with OGA at all? Much of the benefit of OGA is that it has become a go-to site for Free game art, rather than having to search the web because lots of artists have different places they like to upload to.
@Saliv: "What if you want a strong copyleft license like the GPL, but do not want credit unless the file is distributed as a resource like the zlib?"
I think the "attribution" of the GPL is that copyright messages must be left intact, but you can just leave that to be the standard gpl.txt licence without putting your name in it.
"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 .)
Both "free" and "open source" licences (as defined by the FSF and OSI) allow commercial distribution. However, this is nothing to do with copyleft or releasing code - BSD code for example can be used in closed source applications. None of the licences on this site for art require you to release source code. The reason the licences allow commercial use is not because people think all games should be GPL.
Consider that non commercial licences don't just prevent use in commercial games, but also Open Source games (which are intended to allow commercial redistribution). So what is such art good for? I guess for freeware games, but it cuts out a lot of potential use. One of the problems with non commercial licences is that they are so ill defined, e.g., what about distributing on a web site with ads or a commercial magazine cover CD? And a German court interpreted it to rule out use even by a non commercial radio station ( https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140326/11405526695/german-court-says... ).
Is the GPL more restrictive than non commercial licences? The GPL art can be used for open source, freeware and commercial games, but the "source form" of the art must be provided. Maybe that's a restriction for some commercial uses, though only if they want to take things for free and not give anything back. The idea behind copyleft is that it reduces some freedom for distributors in order to preserve freedoms for end users. Meanwhile non commercial art can't be used at all for any commercial games, nor open source either, so that seems much more restrictive.
Yes there'd be a lot more art if we allowed nc licences, and it'd all be useless for commercial and open source games.
"Technically Public Domain allows relicensing to CC-BY. I've done that and it angered a few people."
Also note in the US, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp. ruled that public domain copies can't be protected by copyright.
The APK distributed on Google Play is the same one I distribute on standalone sites. You can use DRM on Android if you want ( https://source.android.com/devices/drm.html ) but it is not standard.
The APK format is just a zip - you can happily open the archive with any zip extractor. Whilst Article 11 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty may be unclear as to what exactly technological measures are, I don't see that opening a zip/apk file would be breaking laws like the DMCA (or if it is, then CC licences aren't safe for any archives on any platform).
Note that his article is specifically about photography, especially those with models, so in most cases won't be relevant to material on OGA.
Not that I agree with much of it anyway.
The issue in his example is that someone falsely applied Creative Commons on an image he didn't have the rights to. Whilst this is a risk, I don't see how it's specific to photography - it could happen to any creative work.
It's also not specific to Free licences. If that random 12 year old sells images he pirated from elsewhere under a commercial licence, it's still going to cause problems for people who use it.
I take his point that it's harder with photographs due to the sheer number of them, but this poses a problem with copyright and photography in general, not just CC. And photography certainly isn't unique - other obvious examples would be audio samples and fonts. Even for software, whilst there may not be billions of applications, there are billions of lines of code, and one has to be careful as to the true origin. E.g., imagine someone using BSD code in their commercial closed source application, but it turns out that the author of the BSD application swiped code in from a GPL application (or even proprietary code). Many applications are done by one person, and such a thing could happen without the community finding out about it.
It's true that photography with models is a more complex issue, but I don't see how that's just an argument against Creative Commons - that applies to any licence, or indeed the whole concept of copyright, as applied to photos with models.
I think it's absurd to suggest we should make do with fair use. Firstly many countries don't have a concept of fair use. But also my understanding is that fair use is a defence to copyright infringement - i.e., you have to admit that you infringed, but have to hope that the courts consider the fair use defence to be valid. It is not a licence that explicitly states you are allowed to use it.
Fair use also wouldn't cover model releases, or use by Big Company or Virgin Mobile in an ad.
I fail to see how CC contributes to a misunderstanding of copyright law. And the argument that many people don't care about copyright law applies to all copyright licences, proprietary ones included.
Where is the evidence that people discussing CC are the people who can't find countries on a map? I could just as well claim that his article is invalid, because he's probably one of the 50%.
The comparison to cigarette companies is hilarious.
I googled all of his "statements made by advocates for CC", and only found his website. Maybe he's paraphrasing, but these seem like straw man arguments.
He also does nothing to propose a solution or alternative. What is he proposing? That we should do away with copyright because people don't understand it and it's complicated? That people shouldn't licence their photos at all? I have no idea.
---
Regarding Ignorantia juris non excusat - I agree with Rainbow Design, that typically refers to knowing what the law is. In this case, someone might know copyright law exactly, but be have had incorrect knowledge as to the licence on a particular work.
Allowing mods to be able to select the other (GPL, BSD etc) licences is a reasonable solution. I think it'd be good to have a specific place where people can post suggestions of such for mods to upload (unless it's done as capbros says - people can choose such options, but it requires a mod to approve it).
Regarding the wording on the FAQ - I think the biggest improvement would be to put this text on the "Submit art" itself. At least, put it in the "Submission guidelines" that's linked from the "Submit art" page.
I think it would be sad to disallow uploading free art unless you're the author. Aside from the practical effect of limiting the art on this site, it seems to go against one of the major benefits of Free licencing (that a clear Free licence means I can use it without having to contact the author every time).
For the problem where an incorrectly licenced art (e.g., it's a derivative work of something that isn't Free) doesn't get updated on OGA - yes, it is a problem, but I'd argue it's a problem that can occur anyway: the author might never notice; the author might notice, but forget they also uploaded to OGA. Also consider that even if OGA is uploaded, if I've already downloaded from OGA to include in a game, I may not notice whether or not OGA is updated.
Yes these problems are reduced if art only exists on one site, but then why bother with OGA at all? Much of the benefit of OGA is that it has become a go-to site for Free game art, rather than having to search the web because lots of artists have different places they like to upload to.
@section31 - doesn't CC0 ( https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) fulfil that?
@Saliv: "What if you want a strong copyleft license like the GPL, but do not want credit unless the file is distributed as a resource like the zlib?"
I think the "attribution" of the GPL is that copyright messages must be left intact, but you can just leave that to be the standard gpl.txt licence without putting your name in it.
"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 .)
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