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How to submit art using the 3-clause BSD license?

congusbongus
Sunday, August 3, 2014 - 21:57
congusbongus's picture

Recently I came across a neat 3x5 bitmap font, and wanted to share it on OGA (plus my derivative too). Unfortunately it's using the 3-clause BSD which is not a license OGA supports.

I guess I can try to contact the authors to see if they're willing to use a more appropriate license*, but is it possible to submit this art anyway, and how?

Should I submit it under GPL, seeing as 3-clause BSD is compatible with it?

Can I submit it under the next most permissive license (CC0? CC-BY?) but include a custom attribution requirement to include the license text, thereby satisfying the license?

*- what's the most appropriate permissive bitmap font license anyway?

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Clint Bellanger
joined 15 years 9 months ago
Monday, August 4, 2014 - 00:36
Clint Bellanger's picture

It's a great bitmap font! I'm impressed.

BSD isn't an option I see in the current interface, even from moderator view. That license is really meant for code -- it specifically mentions source code and binaries.

We could request BartK add BSD as an art license option. Personally I don't want to encourage using code licenses for art, and I think it would be best if it weren't an option.

I'd encourage you to contact that artist directly and ask if they'd be interested in additionally licensing the art under a more game-art friendly license like CC-BY 3.0. That's basically how I first found out about OpenGameArt too.

 

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Redshrike
joined 15 years 10 months ago
Monday, August 4, 2014 - 06:58
Redshrike's picture

More importantly, fonts aren't even copyrightable most places (US, etc), so licensing a font is actually counterproductive since it isn't actually valid in those places.

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Clint Bellanger
joined 15 years 9 months ago
Monday, August 4, 2014 - 09:48
Clint Bellanger's picture

Bitmap fonts may not copyrightable in the US -- but we still want the artist's full permission in these situations.

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swetland
joined 10 years 10 months ago
Wednesday, August 6, 2014 - 07:58

(reproducing my email response here)

I'm puzzled as to why the 3-clause BSD license is an issue here.

Both licenses:- allow unlimited use (including commercial)- require some level of attribution- disallow use of the author's name to promote works based on the licensed material without permission- disclaim liability http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clausehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In fact, if you look at the *text* of CC-BY, which is much more involved than the very simple language of the BSD license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode

  1. Attribution.

    1. If You Share the Licensed Material (including in modified form), You must:

      1. retain the following if it is supplied by the Licensor with the Licensed Material:
        1. identification of the creator(s) of the Licensed Material and any others designated to receive attribution, in any reasonable manner requested by the Licensor (including by pseudonym if designated);
        2. a copyright notice;
        3. a notice that refers to this Public License;
        4. a notice that refers to the disclaimer of warranties;
        5. a URI or hyperlink to the Licensed Material to the extent reasonably practicable;
      2. indicate if You modified the Licensed Material and retain an indication of any previous modifications; and
      3. indicate the Licensed Material is licensed under this Public License, and include the text of, or the URI or hyperlink to, this Public License.
    2. You may satisfy the conditions in Section 3(a)(1) in any reasonable manner based on the medium, means, and context in which You Share the Licensed Material. For example, it may be reasonable to satisfy the conditions by providing a URI or hyperlink to a resource that includes the required information.
    3. If requested by the Licensor, You must remove any of the information required by Section 3(a)(1)(A) to the extent reasonably practicable.
    4. If You Share Adapted Material You produce, the Adapter's License You apply must not prevent recipients of the Adapted Material from complying with this Public License.

Your obligation under CC-BY is still that you must retain the copyright, etc, but you're *further* required to do so "in any reasonable manner requested by the Licensor", and assorted other restrictions, rather than the simpler terms in BSD.
I'd rather not re-license something I've released under an incredibly simple and straightforward license under something much more complicated.  The CC-BY terms are longer, more complex, and impose stronger limitations on what users of the work can do (which is not something I wish to do).

However, given the simplicity of the font content, the fact that he made a number of significant changes (relative to the tiny size of the work), the fact that to the best of my understanding there's limited protection for the content of bitmap fonts under US copyright law anyway (though I'm not a lawyer and not offering legal advice), I have absolutely no objection if Robey would like to distribute his font under different terms than I distributed mine.

 

 

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marko
joined 14 years 1 week ago
Wednesday, August 6, 2014 - 10:35

CC0 is the most permissive, but it's too permissive - BSD couldn't be relicenced as CC0, because being public domain there would be no requirement to include the required licence text. OGA-BY could be suitable, and is more permissive than CC-BY (CC-BY has "no additional restrictions" clauses that would add copyleft-like restrictions, that BSD doesn't have; OGA-BY removes these clauses).

 

Some previous discussion at: http://opengameart.org/forumtopic/other-licenses . In particular, see qubodup's reply:

 

"There were mit/bsd licensing options but they were not used.

 

"Feel free to state such additional licensing inside of the description and pick licenses that are compatible."

 

So it's still possible to let people know that they can licence under BSD in the description. But if the author is willing to dual licence under something like OGA-BY or CC-BY, then that option could be ticked (and is probably a good thing anyway - more licence choice helps reduce licence incompatibility problems).

 

BSD is less ideal for art, as it talks about "software", "source" and "binary", but then the same is true of the GPL and that still gets used for art (and is an available option).

 

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