New License For LPC Tile Atlas, Please?
Saturday, September 3, 2016 - 13:54
http://opengameart.org/content/lpc-tile-atlas
Any chance of getting this tile atlas licensed to CC0 or CC-CY? I've been reading about the available licenses CC-BY-SA and GPL3, and I actually am a former lawyer, and I still don't have a clear answer on whether I can use it commercially without being forced to release the entire game for free. As far as I know it's a community-made asset intended to be freely available, so it'd help if the license were made less vague and scary.
Addendum: Hello; I'm new to the site and I don't really know the law on this topic. I figure it's been hashed out a lot already; I just don't see a clear statement on this beyond remarks like "you can use non-GPL art in a game that's GPL," which is not the same situation at all as wanting to use GPL material in a non-open-source project.
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You can use CC By 3.0 materials in a commercial game- however you must accredit the original creators of the artwork in your product.
CC By 3.0 SA is the same except you must also release any edits and remixes to the art online for others to use.
I'm surprised that you, an ex-lawyer, wouldn't be able to understand this- it's laid out very simply.
Unfortunately it's not entirely that straightforward. The question (with CC-BY-SA) is whether or not the game itself is a derivative of the artwork, and there is no clear answer, including when Capbros actually contacted the folks at CC. I think the consensus is you should err on the side of caution, and if you really want to useable asset, you should contact it's original author to ask what kind of use they are okay with, and try to respect that. I have seen some authors explicitly state that they only want it used in a game which is released under a comparable free license, and others that take Kemono's interpretation.
The one area the license is clear is that if you synchronize a -SA asset with something else, the combination counts as a derivative and must be released -SA as well. So -SA sound effects which accompany animations (like a sword slash) would fall under this.
Regarding LPC, there is no feasible way to relicense that whole atlas, as it has several authors that would have to agree. For what it's worth, I know at least Sharm lets people use her LPC assets under CC-BY, and she has made fantastic time sets.