OK, this is very handy.  I  am, like everyone ever, not a big fan of DRM.  It's generally a messy system that doesn't let people do what they shoudl be able to do, while not stopping people from doing what they ortent.  But we all know it's often unavoidable, so:

For all of my CC-By licensed assets I waive the Anti-DRM clause.  You may freely use these assets on platforms like iOS or Steam provided you give credit as specified.  If you have any further questions on that, just contact me through the form on my profile and I can give more specific permissions.

I waive the DRM clause on all of my own CC-BY licensed assets, as well as all CC-BY licensed assets commissioned by OGA.

I, and APIStudios, waive the DRM clause for all our CC-BY licensed assets on OpenGameArt.org

I see a trend appearing so I'll say this now: the anti-DRM clause is not just present in CC-BY, it's present in all CC licenses except CC0. It would be most useful to waive the anti-DRM clause for all CC licenses, not just CC-BY if you're willing. Thank you.

Allowing DRM kind of defeats the purpose of an -SA license, since it allows people to do an end run around the requirement that the content be shared.  I wouldn't personally recommend waiving the anti-DRM clause on CC-BY-SA.

I AM SPARTACUS.

..I hereby grant a waiver of the anti-DRM clause on any current or future CC-By assets I post here of which I am the original author, or otherwise have legal right to.

(kind of a moot point in my case, since surt has inspired me to go CC0 on everything lately, but I have a few hanging around that I haven't relicensed yet)

On a related note, I notice they updated the tl;dr version of the license text on creativecommons.org to explicitly include the anti-DRM clause sometime last November.  Doesn't make me like it any more, but it at least addresses the criticism that it was buried way down in the legal fine print, resulting in many licensors being unaware that they were agreeing to it.

I think what Bart meant is that vaiving the DRM clause is opening doors to stuff like Tivoization ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization ) on -SA assets.

Unrelated to that... why is tolerating DRM a good thing now? It can be and should be avoided on Steam. And iOS?... well lets just not support those control-freaks at all, MKEY?

Just a quick note regarding my previous comment - If you understand the implications of waiving the anti-DRM clause on CC-BY-SA, I'm not trying to stop anyone from doing that (nor could I if I wanted to).  Just be sure you understand what you're doing before you do it. :)

Same goes for me; I'm happy to make a blanket exception to waive the DRM clause on any of my CC-BY / GPL artwork.

In my opinion open-art isn't about allowing others to make a quick buck on totally closed systems (which then in turn makes the creators of those systems also a nice profit).

Sure, at first thought it sounds nice to promote OGA like that (and a little vanity that everyone has when "their art" shows up somewhere prominent), but what is your ultimate goal then? Just having a bunch of free (as in beer, but with attribution) stuff on a prominent website? That seems kind of pointless to me.

Open-art is like Free Software about Freedom to use and modify, and preserving that freedom. Having it *not* be compatible with iOS is actually a good thing that raises awareness of just how much Apple f**** you over with their closed systems.

*rant out*

Edit: I am totally fine with commercial use, as long as that commercial use respects my basic freedoms as a human being.

Edit2: I am also fine with *some* DRM as long as it isn't forced on me in a vendor-lockin like fashion. Steam or Android is a somewhat good example, iOS is a bad one. We also need to stand up for our rights as developers and customers.

Well, I don't even want to emphasis the "others make profit" point too much; heck... good for them if they manage to make some money with the stuff I made.

But what is the point of "expanding the market" as you put it, when you neither make a profit nor advocate/promote certain basic usage rights?

It's not like people are not aware that there is such a thing as creative commons licensed artwork. They just choose for one reason or another not to use it (or the license). Also fine for them, but then they are on their own and can't expect *us* to provide them with nice and easy to use assets (for free).

William,

Being in the exact same position as you before.. I had a little bit of time to reflect on my DRM experience...

When people give you the right to use their artwork under CC-BY-3.0 (not SA).. they want you to use their artwork and give them credit.  They are saying, "Use my artwork, just give me credit like this:".  NOT "Here is my artwork.. credit me.. but I really wanted this Ant-DRM clause in there so you can't put it on Steam or iOS."  Honestly, when people feel like the later, they'll always list their art as CC-BY-SA instead.  You shouldn't have resistance from Apple on the anti-DRM clause in CC-BY-3.0.  I've seen iOS games use RPG Maker graphics and make it onto the App Store...  (which is completely illegal).  I feel the whole DRM issue pretty silly, and isn't something you necessarily have to worry about.. especially with how small of a developer you and I are.  I have put hundreds of hours into my iOS game and expect to get hardly any money in return. 

@William: If your goal is to get more art commissions, then not allowing iOS use unless you get paid for it can also be beneficial.

I do see your point, but I think it is short-sighted. Your game-theory argument can just as well be used to support my argument that by insisting on and enforcing minimum usage rights everyone is better off in the longer term.

@Curt: Not sure if that is really the case. I can easily imaging someone saying: here feel free to use it (if you attribute me) but not in a way that is morally objectionable. Not supporting Apple like DRM is quite close to the latter.

I don't know if there is a grudge against Apple in here or what, but a tiny website like OGA isn't going to do anything about how Apple handles their licensing.  Infact, the only people that the anti-DRM affects are small indie developers who do games usually for a hobby, usually making little to nothing.  As far as morally objectionable.. the anti-DRM clause is a fine print technicallity that many people disagree with/didn't even know about when they posted their artwork.  It is a little parisite that noone wants on their artwork, except for a few artists who had donators remorse.

If you want your artwork to sit on a website, have no one use it, and absolutely not used for commercial use.. then use CC-BY-NC-SA.  CC-BY, on the other-hand had a much different intent.

EDIT:  I'm also saying this after I've personally gone and gotten my game art assets anti-DRM waived... and donated a lot of my own art on this website under CC-BY.

@Julius: Expanding the market has value by engaging new users who might not yet embrace open-source philosophy, but potentially could after being exposed to and educated about it.  I'd argue that there are plenty of people out there who either don't know of open licensing, or have misconceptions about it that dissuade them from using it.

I can't help but be reminded of the IPv6 NAT debate.  The designers of IPv6 functionality in the Linux kernel have historically been dead-set against allowing any implementation of NAT, because IPv6 is better without it, and in theory they're right.  NAT is a stumbling block and introduces all sorts of networking headaches, and most everything would work better without it.  But there are enough users who rely on it - businesses and home users with statically-assigned printers/servers/etc. who don't want to reconfigure their entire network every time they change ISPs, multihomed-setups, 'walled garden' networks which rely on packet redirection, and so on - that without it, very few are willing to make the jump cold turkey, and adoption has thus far been abysmal.

Having principles is a great thing, but concessions are sometimes necessary to gain traction for the cause.  A good principle widely adopted is better than a perfect principle shunned, and provides a wider audience for us to educate as to why free-as-in-freedom is better.  Baby steps, friend - you have to get them in the pool before you can teach them to swim.

@William: What you describe would be a perfectly fine strategy for a "roality free" (or CC0/public domain site) to maximize potential commissions; although one might as well argue that restricting certain commercial uses unless getting paid is an equally viable strategy.

But I feel OGA wasn't created solely for the purpose of maximizing the art commisions of its users!

Sure as you have pointed out it helps funding Free art also, but insisting on certain principles and trading off some (mostly theoretical) profit for it is what I believe one of the core ideas of OGA. At least that is what distinguishes it from other "free assets" sites.

@Others: Usage rights of stuff posted on OGA are already very welcoming of new users and commercial use (notice how NC isn't even an option; a good thing in my opinion). It is also not about trading off between the "perfect" and "still good enough" solutions.

I see it as a question of preserving the most minimal rights of the creators and users/customers.

It's amazing how even those basic right are slowly taken away from us by the likes of Apple and people still make excuses and justifing it. I guess I am an old fart, but as little as 20 years ago, people would have been in utter disbelief about the usage conditions people acept these days without question.

The way I see it, if you care about how your art is used or licensed, you would be using a share-alike license.  If a developer isn't willing to pay it forward, then I say to Hell with them.  They can make or commission their own assets.  That's why I don't use a plain attribution license.  If I were to use CC-By, I'd intend for everyone to use it however they want so long as I receive credit for it, which is how the license is normally explained.  In my opinion, including an anti-DRM clause in CC-By is a mistake that undermines the purpose of that particular license (to be very permissive and to only require attribution).

@johndh: My thoughts exactly, couldn't have said it better myself.

Well, here's my blanket waiving of the anti-DRM for my CC-By stuff.  I agree, if I'm feeling particular about how it's to be used I'll use a CC-BY-SA licence.

"-BY-SA doesn't protect anything any more than -BY, it only requires derivative works to maintain original author information along side the modifying authors info. It doesn't force people to release derivatives either, that's still at the modifying author's discression"

See section 4.b from the license:

"You may Distribute or Publicly Perform an Adaptation only under the terms of: (i) this License; (ii) a later version of this License with the same License Elements as this License;"

It seems pretty clear to me. IF you release an adaptation (or publicly create an adaption) it must be released under the same license.

An adaptation/derivative has nothing to do with things like including an asset inside an application, though. Its only a derivative if you directly modify or extend the asset.

Take the LPC character sprites for an example. If you create a new clothes or weapon addition, its a derivative of the LPC character spritesheet. If you take the LPC character sprites and add a new animation, such as running sprites (which I'm planning on doing eventually, or if I don't do it myself I'll commission someone to do it), that is also a derivative.

Creating a magic animation intended to be used with the LPC sprites would not be a derivative unless its directly based on the LPC sprites. A magic animation would be something that could be used for multiple things, and ultimately, although it could work with LPC it doesn't necessarily have to be.

Licensing was one of my major concerns and I did a ton of research last autumn about this subject. One thing that was made pretty clear everywhere I looked is that derivatives only count if modifying or extending an asset directly and it definitely does not extend to code (at least the SA license does not; I've heard that GPL might).

Oh, and on another note... Although I don't have much yet, and most of my assets will be modifications to LPC sprites (the only thing I have up was some LPC mods I made Guarav actually posted up here before I joined myself):

I waive the anti-drm clause in all assets I have legal right to on OpenGameArt.org released under any form of Creative Commons license or GNU General Public License unless explicitly stated otherwise in the asset listing.

As others have stated, I hate DRM, but anything I'd make I'd want to be able to put on as many devices as I possibly could, and I'm sure other people would want to as well.

What's most important imo is that people individually choose what their art is licenced under, and as long as it's a Free/Open license, it's okay for OGA. I don't think there should be a need to try to persuade everyone to use more permissive licences, or waive clauses.

However this isn't just about the DRM clause, but also the "no additional restrictions" on "legal terms" too. From the human readable page on CC BY 3.0:

"No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits."

Firstly, waiving the DRM clause isn't enough if IOS also requires additional terms that prevent distribution(?). More generally, I'd argue it doesn't seem consistent to waive the "technological measures", and not the no additional "legal terms" clause (similar to the point people are making about doing so for CC BY SA - you don't want me putting additional legal terms that prevent people from using CC BY, but it's okay to use DRM to do the same thing?)

But given that CC BY has the "No additional restrictions", it's not clear to me that CC BY was ever meant to be a "permissive" licence (in the same sense as say BSD). It's also clear that Creative Commons seem very against DRM ( https://creativecommons.org/tag/drm ) so it's not like this was some mistake (or "fine print technicallity" as Curt says) that slipped in. Also remember that Creative Commons was created for far more than just games, and the issue of DRM exists on many fronts (music, video, books).

As William.Thompsonj notes, the only extra protection of CC BY SA is that it also extends to derivative works. Indeed, could this mean that CC BY _can_ be used on DRM platforms after all, if people create a derivative work of the art, e.g., creatively modifying the art for their game (since that can then be relicenced)? Though the catch I guess is it may be unclear what counts as a derivative work, rather than simply being the original.

So I'd argue that CC BY is actually a copyleft licence (that limits its use for developers, but is intended to use copyright law to preserve freedom for users), albeit "weak copyleft" (since not all derived works inherit the copyleft licence), as opposed to CC BY SA which is the "strong copyleft" version.

I think much of the problem is that, as MoikMellah notes, until recently the human readable summary didn't mention the "No additional restrictions", so people (myself included) thought of it as a very permissive (BSD-style) licence. As I say, this isn't just about the DRM clause - the requirement for no additional legal restrictions also makes it a form of (weak) copyleft.

It's also a problem if there isn't a BSD-style licence for art - one that requires attribution, but otherwise doesn't prevent people from putting additional restrictions (legal or technological). Are there any existing licences out there that would fit this, I wonder?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I note that William.Thompsonj - I think - seems to be talking about what "OGA" or "we" should do - in my opinion, OGA is a site to host art under Free licences, but otherwise it's up to the authors to choose what licences there are. There is no need to come to a consensus here (which clearly isn't going to happen anyway). I think supporting licences that are Free/Open (as defined by FSF/OSI) is a good thing, but the copyleft-vs-permissive debate should be left to individual artists to choose.

@William.Thompsonj: "If the content isn't usable in a closed-source environment like iOS and Steam it's not available for anyone outside the open-source community."

Not sure if I misunderstand you, but it's available for use for anyone as long as they abide by the terms, and most platforms do not have this requirement where DRM or additional terms are enforced on users. Indeed, as you say yourself later on, there are a long list of platforms where people could use CC BY art in closed source games. (Also consider than an Open Source IOS developer still _couldn't_ use CC BY art.)

The point about "No additional terms" is not to keep the work to Open Source, it's to preserve the freedom for the art.

(Does Steam force DRM upon developers, or is this a choice?)

"The entire idea behind waving the anti-DRM clause in CC and GPL is to sanitize our free assets so major developers can use them."

Well for GPL, there's no point waiving just the DRM clause imo, since that still has copyleft provisions such as "No additional restrictions", and would limit use in other ways (such as requirement to release source code of derivative works). Developers who want their work to see maximum usage would pick LGPL (if its a library) or something like BSD (otherwise). But I guess this is part of the issue - for developers, they have these options, but it's not clear if there are permissive licences for art, other than CC0.

"Wouldn't you be proud if you made something awesome and you saw it show up in the #1 game on facebook?"

Well, different people have different motivation, plus this may vary depending on the work. From my own point of view as a developer, if I write code I want to be useful to other developers, I would go for a BSD-style licence, but for larger projects I go for GPL. If some BSD code/library I wrote was used, I'd be happy whatever platform it was on; but if my GPL code was ported and distributed on Apple's site, they'd get a takedown notice. People should pick the licence they want, there isn't a right licence for every case.

Remember if all you want is to maximise the chances of it being used, and say "I made that" if it's used in something popular, there is CC0 (whilst they don't have to attribute you, this doesn't mean people can falsely claim they made instead - you're still the creator, even if copyright law no longer applies).

But really, this is just the age-old GPL-vs-BSD debate, but for artists. There are points of view for both sides, and you're not going to get a consensus. The difference is that whilst more permissive licences maximise freedom for developers, copyleft licences are meant to preserve freedom for users. The paradox is that you can't have both - which means we cannot resolve this.

So for someone who wants to preserve freedom of the art, saying "But it could be the #1 game on X" doesn't mean much, if on X means that the art is no longer free.

"If we allow a blanket exception to the CC and GPL for Apple apps we aren't just doing it out of pride; we're expanding our market into the biggest and widest possible list of users around the world."

I think if one doesn't believe in the No Additional Restrictions, just waive that for all - it shouln't be a special exception for one company (N.B. IOS isn't the biggest number of users, never has been - Android and Windows are the largest platforms. Although even if it was Android or Windows enforcing the DRM, I don't think that really matters - one could just as well argue that if DRM is being enforced on large amounts of software, that's all the more reason to support the platforms that don't do this.)

@Curt: "I don't know if there is a grudge against Apple in here or what, but a tiny website like OGA isn't going to do anything about how Apple handles their licensing. Infact, the only people that the anti-DRM affects are small indie developers who do games usually for a hobby, usually making little to nothing."

I don't see any evidence of a grudge, that to me implies people dislike Apple for other reasons, and are choosing CC BY just to prevent the use on IOS, which seems unlikely. It's the people who dislike these restrictions who are bringing up IOS. And if someone doesn't like Apple because of their restrictions, then it's entirely consistent to be supporting for the anti-DRM clauses even if it limits the use for IOS.

It's Apple's restrictions which hurts IOS developers. Indeed, the fact that Apple isn't going to change makes me confused - developers who choose to develop for IOS know full well that these restrictions exist, and aren't going to go away, so I don't see why it's a surprise that they the can't use other people's work in a way that they don't want. If you want permissive, go with CC0 - I mean, I could say "I don't want to give attribution to anyone, and your CC BY licence isn't going to ever make me change my mind, so therefore you're hurting me if you don't licence as CC0".

"It is a little parisite that noone wants on their artwork"

I think that's a question for Creative Commons - I can't believe no one wants those clauses. Creative Commons seem to strongly believe in those clauses - if everyone else disagrees, they probably shouldn't be using CC licences.

"If you want your artwork to sit on a website, have no one use it, and absolutely not used for commercial use.. then use CC-BY-NC-SA. CC-BY, on the other-hand had a much different intent."

This is not what anyone is saying. Available for 100% of PC platforms and 80% or so of mobile platforms isn't "have no one use it", rather it's the debate about maximising use for developers, or preserving freedom for users. If all you care about is maximising use to the fullest extent, you don't need CC BY, since there's CC0. I don't know where your "absolutely not used for commercial use" comes from, since copyleft Free licences have always allowed commercial usage. It's just that copyleft is about preserving that freedom.

Consider that with a "permissive" CC licence (e.g., CC BY without the No additional terms), I could create a website hosting such material, but slap a new licence of them saying, e.g., "Not for commercial use" (or, use DRM to limit its use). I assume that Creative Commons knew what the intent of the CC BY licence was, when they wrote the No additional terms clauses :)

Well, it got long - there're a lot of points already raised in the discussion, and I wanted to do a single post instead of several replies :)

My biggest points are probably:
* It's not just about anti-DRM, see the "No additional restrictions" clause.
* I don't think this is a small technicality, but a core part of CC BY (albeit unfortunately not widely publicised until recently).
* Artists should choose what they like, and there's no need for us or OGA to have any kind of consensus. This is the age-old "GPL vs BSD" debate in a different form I think - it's not something that I think there will ever be a consensus on in the Free/Open community :)

Lol ninja'd. I had written up a summarized explanation that was a couple paragraphs long.

I agree on both accounts. I don't think that anyone is trying to force other users to waive the anti-DRM clause, though. I think its just a suggestion as it would help users be able to release games on more platforms. iOS is not the biggest platform, but it is DEFINITELY one of the biggest out there and that's a huge market lost.

But really, its up to each individual user to decide. My alternative idea than to just release an app directly on iOS is to make it a web app instead. The only issue is it won't appear in the iPhone store, and that would only work for HTML5 games. Which is what I plan to make anyway.

To maximize the number of people that could benefit from my creations, and to minimize their hassle if they choose to use them, I release all my stuff as CC0 - the ONLY true anti-DRM waiver in my opinion as every other license is a form of DRM in itself.

I'm a game developer, doing big 3D games. In my previous project I had ~4000 assets, where many sounds and textures were remixed from multiple sources. Often I would tweak these assets, removing one source or adding another. This can quickly turn into an attribution logistics nightmare, that's why I generally stay away from anything other than CC0. (except for music, because I use it as is, so it's easy to keep track).

I use CC licenses, and while I never waived the DRM clause, I would definitely allow my work to be used in DRM-enabled projects.  It really comes down to the artist's preference, anyway.

Sorry for being late to the party, but wanted to add a few thoughts and questions:

As a game developer, just want to say that it would be virtually impossible to use any of the art on OGA w/o creating some sort of derivative work.  This is because every game has it's own unique art needs, maybe you can use some of the work on OGA as a baseline, but you will almost assuredly find you need to add or tweak something before all is said and done.   Additionally, the CC licenses have a very broad definition of 'Adaptation' to where it's not clear you can even use art unmodified w/o creating a derived work (ex. synchonizing music/audio to an image counts as an adapation/derived work).  

Since there seems to a demand for it, should we create a new license that requires attribution but does not include a 'no DRM or other legal restrictions' clause?  

What about a license that allowed distribution w/ DRM as long as the work was also available w/o DRM?  Or a license that specifically allowed distribution as part of a 'combined work'/'application'/ or 'game'? eg. something written specifically with game assets in mind (as the point has been made that CC is really written for a much broader range of works).

As a simplier measure, what about adding a 'CC-BY, DRM WAIVED' license icon that folks can select when uploading their art to OGA?

Agreed on the part of "next-to-impossible" not to create derivative works. You'll pretty much always have to make derivatives no matter what. Although its notable that palette changes are NOT derivatives; this I can confirm. I read up online that changing palettes is not extensive enough to be considered a derivative and palettes cannot be copyrighted or trademarked either (no one mentioned this, but I thought I should clarify regardless).

A new license would be an interesting idea, but it seems a bit off at the same time. I'm not sure how well that'd work.

that's good to know about fonts, I actually almost cited changing color on a font as a simple change that it'd be hard to make a game w/o.  I would say in the spirit of share-alike, if you did a really cool color job on a font, it'd be nice to share it back, but good to know it's not mandatory to clutter up the site with alot of basic color shifts.

Ninja'd. I was writing a reply and Will beat me to it.

I wasn't talking about fonts at all, I was only talking about palettes for regular graphics. Fonts are vectors; the ability to change the color and freely resize them is built into them and completely misses the point of what I was trying to say.

Granted, sometimes fonts have static colors in them. If a font has a static color and you edit it so that the color is dynamic (e.g. can be changed in the software you're using) that WOULD be a derivative, as that'd be adding a feature the original font did not have.

I wouldn't even consider recolors an option at all for displaying as a separate entry. If I made a good recolor I'd share it on my personal blogs/sites, or maybe I'd post a comment on the original entry saying I think this is a good look.

When you create a derivative, you own that derivative and you can re-license said derivative however you want as long as it doesn't conflict with the license of the original asset. For example, CC-BY-SA forces derivative assets to be released under CC-BY-SA. You can add other licenses if you wish (as long as they don't conflict with CC-BY-SA), but CC-BY-SA must always be added.

> Fonts are vectors; the ability to change the color and freely resize them is built into them and completely misses the point of what I was trying to say.

Speak for yourself, I only use bitmap fonts over here, guess I'm still just an Amiga game maker at heart after all these years! ;)