Asset copyright clarity

OpenMW's very own demo, template and game to show off everything that OpenMW is capable of.

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DestinedToDie
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Asset copyright clarity

Post by DestinedToDie »

Whenever I´ve uploaded an asset, I have so far clarified that I´m releasing it as CC BY 3.0. However we recently got 2 submissions that had no such clarification. What do you think, is it even necessary to say what license you are publishing your work with when you´re uploading it to a CC-BY--SA-3.0 project? Can we safely assume that any asset uploaded to Redmine is automatically CC-BY-SA-3.0?

Edit: So it´s been decided. I´ve made this sticky so it should have better visiblity. Also the bugtracker where we track our project progress lists it as CC-BY https://bugs.openmw.org/projects/examplesuite and also my personal guide tells you this viewtopic.php?f=33&t=3330 There are also various threads where this is mentioned.

IF YOU UPLOAD AN ASSET YOU CREATED ON THE CC-BY-LICENSED OPEMW EXAMPLE SUITE PROJECT'S BUGTRACKER THEN YOU ARE THEREBY EXPRESSING YOUR INTENT TO UPLOAD IT AS A CC-BY-SA-3.0 ASSET AND IT WILL BE REGARDED AS SUCH. WE HAVE DONE OUR BEST TO COMMUNICATE THIS AND IF BY ANY CHANCE YOU STILL REMAIN IGNORANT, THEN YOU HAVE NO ONE BUT YOURSELF TO BLAME.

Phew. Now that that´s off the way, let´s get to modeling those assets.
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psi29a
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Re: Asset copyright clarity

Post by psi29a »

As far as I'm concerned: if it was created by the user and the user uploads it, they automatically give it over to the project.

We should probably do our best to make that clear.

If the asset is uploaded and isn't created by the user, they have to source it. I remember writing about this somewhere in the forums about what is required when posting content in redmine.

Update: Asset upload requirements.
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2522&hilit=templat ... =20#p36883
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DestinedToDie
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Re: Asset copyright clarity

Post by DestinedToDie »

Any ideas on how to make this more clear? It should be obvious with the bugtracker page stating that this project is fully CC-BY licensed: https://bugs.openmw.org/projects/examplesuite

However I sense that this came as a surprise for someone thinking of volunteering work. It only became a discussion because I explicitly hinted at how CC-BY assets are going to work. At any rate, I´m going to sticky this thread for better visibility, but we all know there´s going to be a lot of people who glance over sticky threads and get surprised later.
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PeterBitt
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Re: Asset copyright clarity

Post by PeterBitt »

I just saw the thread and yeah it might be a good idea to make this very clear to anyone planning to make assets. I am really surprised about this license thing. I know many artists who are rather protective about their work, was this license invented only by coders or both?

I read that you want to use Morrowind graphics mods for this example suite, would that make them suddenly be free to use for everyone too? Maybe I am just uninformed and the same license is true for Morrowind mods anyways and everybody can use them in their monetized games? I guess I should read about this.

Is the same true for mods released for OpenMW?
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DestinedToDie
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Re: Asset copyright clarity

Post by DestinedToDie »

Never heard of any plans to use Morrowind graphic mods. We will not use them.

To address your question of Morrowind mods - they are not free. Bethesda owns them according to the EULA that you agree to when installing the Construction Set. Even your Scamp is owned by Bethesda due to it being a derivative of their work. You are still the author of it, of course, and own it and at the same time do not, it´s Bethesda´s intellectual property.
PeterBitt wrote:Is the same true for mods released for OpenMW?
The OpenMW-CS does not have an EULA, last I checked. This means that assets you put into OpenMW-CS are not automatically owned by Bethesda via the EULA. However if you make a mod using vanilla Morrowind CS and run it in OpenMW engine, then they are still owned by Bethesda.
PeterBitt wrote: I know many artists who are rather protective about their work, was this license invented only by coders or both?
It´s not for coders at all. Open or open source, GNU GPL and MIT licenses are for code.

It´s more for art. From wiki:"This allows Creative Commons licenses to be applied to all work falling under copyright, including: books, plays, movies, music, articles, photographs, blogs, and websites."

And used specifically with game assets. Check out http://opengameart.org/ for CC BY assets, as well as assets with a different license.

I realise some artists may be very protective about their work, but this is a free project, not some contract work where there´s an iron grip on who can use the assets and how. Just like the game engine, anyone can use it as they see fit so long as they abide by the license.
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PeterBitt
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Re: Asset copyright clarity

Post by PeterBitt »

My post was rushed, I was obviously confused :D

Thanks for the clearification.

It was a while back that I think I read here that someone saying something about Morrowind mods, guess I was wrong!

I am going to read about this, curious how widespread it is and if there are actually many high quality assets available.
Sorry for the confusion!

Oh and I dont talk about doing contract work or monetization or such things. I simply dont want litterally anybody doing anything to my precious little models ;)
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DestinedToDie
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Re: Asset copyright clarity

Post by DestinedToDie »

PeterBitt wrote:I am going to read about this, curious how widespread it is and if there are actually many high quality assets available.
Check out Yo Frankie! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7RRaEvWqJc

Also check out Sintel: The Game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNYq1WbULs4

Btw we don´t necessarily have to make all of our own assets. Any asset CC-BY-3.0 licensed we can utilize for our own purpose without going through the trouble of emailing the author, asking permission for use and modification and then waiting 3 months for a reply saying "no u cant touch my precious!" :lol:
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johndh
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Re: Asset copyright clarity

Post by johndh »

Just for perspective, Wikipedia is Creative Commons licensed (CC-By-SA, specifically). So yeah, it's a well-established thing. :)
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AnyOldName3
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Re: Asset copyright clarity

Post by AnyOldName3 »

Both of those (Sintel and Yo Frankie! - the wikipedia post arrived while I was writing) were made to show off another open-source project, Blender, so they're good examples of others being in the same position as OpenMW and getting stuff made, but it's not the best example of something that's been made for its own sake that uses this licence. An example of something like that is the popular webcomic xkcd, which is released under the very similar CC-BY-NC licence, which has the added distinction that you can't sell anything including an xkcd comic. That's not really an option here, as it'd actually be beneficial if a game made in OpenMW was sold commercially - the developers of that game would inevitably want extra features (e.g. a better scripting language or more modern graphical effects), and as the engine itself is GPL licenced, those changes they made would have to make it back to OpenMW. If we make the barrier to entry higher by not allowing them to use the example suite as a base, that's just making the scenario less likely.
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psi29a
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Re: Asset copyright clarity

Post by psi29a »

The whole point for me was that CC-BY and CC-BY-SA 3.0 are Debian friendly licenses, so we can effectively ship this in Debian (also Ubuntu) and OpenMW finally comes a first-class citizen going from contrib to main.

With the template as CC-BY, it comes people the ability to make their own game and some legal wiggle room with the license. This would be similar to how the BSD, Apache and MIT licenses work.

The ES on the other hand would be CC-BY-SA to enforce that the ES can be forked/modified/remixed but under the same license so that the forks could be merged back into the original ES. This would be the content equivalent of the GPL.
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