Site FAQ/Submission Guidelines Updates/Changes - PART 1
In order to keep discussion a bit orginized, I am splitting my drafts for the updates outlined in http://opengameart.org/forumtopic/site-faqsubmission-guidelines-updatesc... into several parts.
This part addresses the following two changes:
> Add/link short form license description to submission guidelines/site faq. Something like what is currently at: http://opengameart.org/content/faq#q-proprietary but tweaked to include all available licenses on OGA.
> Add explicit mention of anti-DRM clause in descriptions of CC-BY and CC-SA licenses.
The FAQ contains two sections that describe the licenses on the site:
'Explanation of the licenses allowed on OpenGameArt.org'
http://opengameart.org/content/faq#q-licenses
and
'What do the licenses mean? I'm a commercial (closed-source) game developer. Can I use this art?'
http://opengameart.org/content/faq#q-proprietary
The first appears to be a dead link.
I suggest two sections:
'What do the licenses mean? Explanation of the licenses allowed on OpenGameArt.org'
and
'I'm a commercial (closed-source) game developer. Can I use this art?'
For:
'What do the licenses mean? Explanation of the licenses allowed on OpenGameArt.org'
I suggest the following text:
Below are summary descriptions of the licenses supported by OGA. These are provided to help artists and developers familiarize themselves with the broad outlines of each license. Nothing written here is gaurenteed to be correct or intended to be used as legal advice. Please read the complete text of each license before using it for a submission or using a work submitted under that license.
Creative Commons 0 (CC0)
This license is the creative commons team's equivalent of public domain. Works released under this license maybe copied, modified, distributed, performed or otherwise used in anyway without asking, crediting or notifying the creating artist.
If you are using art, that means commercial use is ok.
If your submitting art, that means you are giving the work to the public domain.
Full license text available here (link to http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC-BY 3.0)
Works released under this license maybe copied, modified, distributed, performed or otherwise used in anyway without asking, subject to following restrictions:
1) You must state that you have used the work and credit the original artist
Approriate credit includes providing the title of the work, the name of the creator and attribution parties, a copyright notice, a license notice, a disclaimer notice, and a link to the material.
2) You must indicate if you have made changes to the work
3) You may not impose any additional restrictions on the redistribution of the work
In practice, this means the work may not be not used on distribution networks that use some form of 'Digital Rights Management' (DRM).
If you are using art, that means commercial use is ok, so long as you provide appropriate credit and don't distribute the work in a way that includes DRM.
If you are submitting work, this licenses means people are free to use your work but must credit you as it's author and can not use it on platforms that impose some form of DRM.
Note that many popular game distribution networks do use DRM (ie. Apple iOS, Xbox Live, Sony PSN) and others may or may not use DRM depending on how a particular game is pacakged (ex. Steam, Google Android).
Full license text available here (link to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (CC-SA-3.0)
This license is an extension to CC-BY 3.0 which includes provisions stating that derivative works must also be distributed under the same license. Works released under this license maybe copied, modified, distributed, performed or otherwise used in anyway without asking, subject to following restrictions:
1) You must obey all of the restrictions of the CC-BY 3.0 license (enumerated above (link))
2) If you make derivative works, you must distribute them under the same license (CC-SA-3.0)
Derivative works inlcude modifications of the original work, but do not include entire projects or games which merely use the work in it's original form.
If you are using art, that means commercial use is ok, so long as you provide appropriate credit, don't distribute the work in a way that includes DRM, and release any derivative works as CC-SA 3.0.
If you are submitting work, this licenses means people are free to use your work but must credit you as it's author, can not use it on platforms that impose some form of DRM, and must distribute any changes they make under the same license.
Full license text available here (link to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
OGA-BY 3.0
This license is a deravitive of CC-BY 3.0 which removes the restriction on placing 'additional restictions' (ie. DRM) on the redistribution of the work. It was created to provide an option for artists wishing to be credited for their work but not wanting to restrict it's distribution on DRM using platforms.
Works released under this license maybe copied, modified, distributed, performed or otherwise used in anyway without asking, subject to following restrictions:
1) You must state that you have used the work and credit the original artist
Approriate credit includes providing the title of the work, the name of the creator and attribution parties, a copyright notice, a license notice, a disclaimer notice, and a link to the material.
2) You must indicate if you have made changes to the work
If you are using art, that means commercial use is ok, so long as you provide appropriate credit.
If you are submitting work, this licenses means people are free to use your work but must credit you as it's author.
Full license text available here (link to http://opengameart.org/content/oga-by-30-faq)
GNU GPL 2.0 and GNU GPL 3.0
These licenses were written with source code in mind, and are included on OGA for compatibility with projects that use GPL licenses.
If you are using art, commercial use maybe ok depending on how the work is loaded but generally should only be considered if you are also willing to release your entire project under a GPL license.
If you are submitting art, you should use these licenses only if it is part of a bigger project that uses a GPL license and/or you have read the full license and know what you are doing.
Full license texts available here (link to http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html and http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html)
For:
'I'm a commercial (closed-source) game developer. Can I use this art?'
I suggest the following text:
This depends on the license under which it is submitted. Please see ''What do the licenses mean? Explanation of the licenses allowed on OpenGameArt.org' (link) above for a summary of the supported licenses as well as links to their full text.
Note that if a work is submitted under mutliple licenses you may choose which of the selected licenses you wish to use it under.
-----
Well, I think they run a little long, so any help shortening them would be welcome. It does seem slightly redundant with the summaries already provided by the Creative Commons folks. On the otherhand, I tried to make sure everything was spelled out pretty clearly and that I addressed most of the really common license questions/issues that we see pop up again and again. So in that sense, I think it's ok to run a bit long, as long as it accomplishes the goal of helping clarify things for submitters and developers.
Trying to do that now, but the issue I'm running into is the suggested changes for that section still add confusion and often do not answer the question being asked. I agree the new language adds some important details, but until it answers more questions than it creates, it has no business in the FAQ section.
The old version says:
The new version says
This, IMO, is overly verbose. We already disclaim this FAQ as not being legal advice and recommend reading the full text and/or consulting a lawyer. This extra specificity prompts the questions "under what circumstances would my entire project be required to be released under the same license?" and "what constitutes a derivative work?"
The old language doesn't address these questions, but neither does the new language, so what is it adding? I do beleive we should work toward answering those additional questions, but until we can answer them, there is no point in listing details that only affect a minority of circumstances. The FAQ should be general recommendations, not an enumeration of edge cases.
Given our current understanding, does CC BY-SA require projects to be fully released -SA given the most common set of circumstances for said projects? Unless most projects would be required to be Shared Alike, then saying users must be prepared to do so is not general guidelines, it's niche. Nothing more than "Some projects as a whole may be considered derivatives of the artwork. See full license text" need be added. For GPL art, however, the extra warning may be warranted since the majority of projects could be strangely affected by the license GPL given the typical methods of packaging artwork in game projects.
I will continue to update that section of the FAQ, omitting the parts I mention above. I recognize those parts are important, but the changes so far will be no worse than the current version yet will not add undue confusion while we work out those details.
--Medicine Storm> Trying to do that now
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply the proposed text was perfect or come off as pushy about getting these changes in. I was thinking more like 'let's not jump down the next wormhole until we're out of this one'.
But yeah, I agree, let's get this right before we make any changes.
> This, IMO, is overly verbose.
Agree 100%.
> 'This license requires you to release any modifications you make to the art work in question under the same license.'
While sound, this response seems more targeted at /artists/ than /developers/. It also substitutes the less ambiguous word 'modification' for the terms 'adaptation' and 'derivative' which is what the license actually uses. If I read this, I would never think in a million years that the license obligated a developer to release an entire game under CC-SA, and yet here we are discussing it and find that CC themselves can't say if that's true or not.
Interestingly, in writing this response I did a quick check and see that the license summary for CC-SA 3.0 actually says 'If you remix, transform, or build upon the material' and 'build upon' definitely sounds like 'if you made a game with these sprites' to me, although the license itself does not use that language at all.
Also interestingly, I notice that the license text for CC-SA 4.0 drops the term 'derivative'.
> "what constitutes a derivative work?"
Yup, that's the million dollar question, isn't it? And per our discussion both internally and now with both CC and FSF, the answer is: nobody knows.
> Given our current understanding, does CC BY-SA require projects to be fully released -SA given the most common set of circumstances for said projects?
I don't know. If you are using CC-BY-SA sound effects in a game, then the answer is almost certainly yes thanks to the specific clause in the lincense regarding that, but other than that, I don't think anybody knows. The language in the license doesn't give any guideance and neither do the people who wrote it. It'll have to be settled in court.
> Unless most projects would be required to be Shared Alike, then saying users must be prepared to do so is not general guidelines, it's niche.
Maybe it's all the boy scout meetings I've attended in recent years but I just see 'Be Prepared' as good advice. In this case, there is no easy answer so I think 'Be Prepared' really is the best thing we can give people.
I do think I see what you are getting at here though. We don't want the text to sound scary or ominous in a way that unnecissarily biases people away from using CC-SA artwork. But then the converse is also true, we don't want to imply that it's ok to use CC-SA artwork in ways that it's not. I'm going to take another crack at it below, but given the ambiguity of it all, I think it's going to be hard to come up with language that satisfies both sides of that coin.
> "Some projects as a whole may be considered derivatives of the artwork. See full license text"
I get this is more succint, but it begs all the same questions and seeing the full license will not answer the derivative question. If it did, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
> For GPL art, however, the extra warning may be warranted
Agree here.
Alright, how's this for another go at the CC-SA write up?
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike Licenses (CC-BY-SA 3.0 and CC-BY-SA 4.0)
These licenses are extensions of the CC-BY licenses (CC-BY 3.0 and CC-BY 4.0) which include provisions stating that derivative works must also be distributed under the same license. Works released under these licenses maybe copied, modified, distributed, performed or otherwise used in anyway without asking, subject to following restrictions:
1) You must obey all of the restrictions of the corresponding CC-BY license (enumerated above (link))
2) If you make derivative works, you must distribute them under the same license (CC-BY-SA 3.0/CC-BY-SA 4.0)
The CC-BY-SA licenses clearly define altering, translating, remixing, re-arraning, or otherwise modifying a CC-BY-SA work as making a derivative work.
Additionally, the licenses specifically define syncronizing a CC-SA-BY licensed sound or music work to a moving image as creating a derivative work.
Beyond this, different readings of the licenses may produce more or less expansive definitions of what consititutes a derivative work. As of this writing there is no settled case law regarding what constitutes a derivative work when using CC-SA-BY licensed artwork in a video game context.
If you are using art, that means commercial use is ok, so long as you provide appropriate credit, don't distribute the work in a way that includes DRM, and are prepared (and able) to release your project or parts of it as CC-SA-BY should they be deemed to constitute a derivative of the original work.
If you are submitting work, this licenses means people are free to use your work but must credit you as it's author, can not use it on platforms that impose some form of DRM, and must distribute any changes or otherwise derivative works they make under the same license.
Full license text available here CC-SA-3.0 (link to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), CC-SA-4.0 (link to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
hmmm...
Well that''s not too much shorter. Probably longer actually, :)
My thought was to state what is clearly a defined as a derivative under the licenses and then state that beyond that it's undefined. I guess that makes it more verbose but maybe it helps clarify things a bit more?
An alternate, shorter phrasing would be like this:
...
2) If you make derivative works, you must distribute them under the same license (CC-BY-SA 3.0/CC-BY-SA 4.0)
If you are using art, that means commercial use is ok, so long as you provide appropriate credit, don't distribute the work in a way that includes DRM, and are prepared (and able) to release your project or parts of it as CC-SA-BY should they be deemed to constitute a derivative of the original work. Developers should also be aware that as of this writing there is no settled case law regarding what constitutes a derivative work when using CC-SA-BY licensed artwork in a video game context.
If you are submitting work, this licenses means people are free to use your work but must credit you as it's author, can not use it on platforms that impose some form of DRM, and must distribute any changes or otherwise derivative works they make under the same license.
...
Maybe another approach would be to add a seprate 'Is my work/game a derivative work under CC-BY-SA?' section.
This section then becomes:
...
2) If you make derivative works, you must distribute them under the same license (CC-BY-SA 3.0/CC-BY-SA 4.0)
If you are using art, that means commercial use is ok, so long as you provide appropriate credit, don't distribute the work in a way that includes DRM, and are prepared (and able) to release your project or parts of it as CC-SA-BY should they be deemed to constitute a derivative of the original work.
If you are submitting work, this licenses means people are free to use your work but must credit you as it's author, can not use it on platforms that impose some form of DRM, and must distribute any changes or otherwise derivative works they make under the same license.
For information on what constitutes a derivative work under CC-BY-SA licenses see 'Is my work/game a derivative work under CC-BY-SA?' (link)
...
And below we have:
Is my work/game a derivative work under CC-BY-SA?
The CC-BY-SA licenses clearly define altering, translating, remixing, re-arraning, or otherwise modifying a CC-BY-SA work as making a derivative work.
Additionally, the licenses specifically define syncronizing a CC-SA-BY licensed sound or music work to a moving image as creating a derivative work.
Beyond this, different readings of the licenses may produce more or less expansive definitions of what consititutes a derivative work. By some readings an entire game could be considered a derivative work.
Creative Commons has attempted to provide some guidance on the issue here (link to https://wiki.creativecommons.org/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Wh...)
Creative Commons has also clarified that simply using an unmodified sprite or graphic in a game would not, in their view, create a derivative work. However, they have also stated that if a given sprite or graphic came with a developed character or story line then a game using those character or story elements would be considered a derivative work.
Unfortunately, further guidance cannot be provided as there is, as of this writing, no settled case law regarding what constitutes a derivative work when using CC-SA-BY licensed artwork in a video game context.
...
Sorry for all the thinking out loud here but maybe that last approach is the best one. Keep the license description bit short and sweet and use a separate section to get into the weeds of it all.
Final thought, should add a blurb in there somewhere about being careful about mixing CC-BY-SA and non-CC-BY-SA assets? Maybe that's a separate question, since it could be a problem more generally (eg mixing assets of different licenses).
https://withthelove.itch.io/
Certainly! Sorry for introducing all the other questions; I agree that the "what do the licenses mean" and "I'm a commercial (closed-source) game developer. Can I use this art?" should be addressed first. However, I'll suggest a slightly different way of looking at this issue. Overall, I pretty much agree with everything withthelove says in the post above. Thanks by the way for all your work on this so far.
I agree that "what do the licenses mean" and "I'm a commercial/closed source developer; can I use this?" should be two different questions, because even though they'll contain overlapping information, they can be written with different (specific) audiences in mind. Sure, if someone perfectly understood what the licenses meant, they wouldn't need this FAQ. At some point, anyone using these assets for a big project will probably need to read the license text, but we can help them by providing some general information. Further, there are good resources (like the CC license summaries or the FSF's extensive FAQ page about the GPL) that describe the features of the licenses in general. We don't need to reproduce that guidance in its entirety here, but we can point people towards it. What we can do here is provide context and guidance that might help people who are specifically interested in creating and/or using the art here for games.
To that end, it might even make sense to have four questions:
Separating the answers to these different audiences would mean we could keep the descriptions of each license shorter, more like the current FAQ, while providing clearer guidance in each scenario that is more conceptual and less of a laundry list.
MedicineStorm probably won't like question #4, but I think it's helpful. Even though we seem to agree its impossible to provide hard-and-fast advice on this, I think it would be worth giving some general guidance/resources about this issue, as withthelove has proposed. We don't have to account for every possible scenario or answer questions that are unsettled copyright case law (like, "what is a derivative work").
With all that in mind, in subsequent posts I'll propose answers to these questions. I find myself most interested in #3, #4, and #2, and I think after those are written, it will be easier to trim down the answer to #1.
I think this is a separate question; I've drafted an answer to "I want to combine two assets under different licenses; is this allowed?" but per your request I'll save that for now to stay on topic.
I'm a commercial (closed-source) game developer. Can I use this art?
Short answer: Yes, you can use this art, even in commercial projects, as long as your follow the terms of the license. You cannot use the GPL for closed-source projects that you intend to distribute.
All of the licenses on this site allow use in commercial products. However, you still need to comply with the terms of the specific license. See #q-licenses for a brief description of the licenses on this site. If an asset is released under multiple licenses (#q-multilicense), you can choose any one of them and follow the terms of that license; for example, if an asset is available under both CC-BY 3.0 and GPL 3.0, you don't need to worry about the terms of the GPL---you can just follow the term of the more lax CC-BY 3.0.
In general, there are four issues your need to consider as a developer:
1) Attribution (credits): all licenses here except CC0/public domain require you to provide proper credit to the author (see #q-how-to-credit).
2) "Copyleft"/"Share-alike": the GPL and CC-BY-SA licenses require that "adaptations" (CC-BY-SA calls them "adaptations") be made available under the same license as the original work (i.e. the artwork you are using from this site); this is known as a "copyleft" or "share-alike" provision. What constitutes a "derivative work" is not determined by the license, but rather by applicable copyright law; therefore it is hard to say, in every case, whether using artwork in your game makes your game a derivative work. (see #q-why-conflicting-advice) The best way to be sure is to seek legal advice about your specific situation. The most conservative approach is to assume that your game is a derivative of any artwork/assets you use, that the copyleft provisions of the license apply, and thus if you distribute you game you need to do so under the same license as the artwork/assets.
3) Open source: The GPL requires that, if any GPL-licensed material is incorporated into a program, the source code for the entire program must be made available under the GPL; for example, copying GPL-licensed code into your game means the game code must be available under the GPL. Does using GPL-licensed art in your game impose the same requirement? It probably depends on how the art is technically incorporated into your game, whether the art serves a functional or purely aesthetic purpose, and perhaps other factors. (We say "probably", because this issue has not been tested in the courts (#q-why-conflicting-advice)). The safest option, and the one recommended by the Free Software Foundation, is to release your source code under the GPL when using GPL-licensed artwork.
Note that while CC-BY-SA is a copyleft license, it is not an open-source license; that is, unless the source code for your game is somehow derived from the artwork, merely using the artwork in your game does not require you to release the source code.
4) Additional restrictions (e.g. DRM): The GPL, CC-BY, and CC-BY-SA licenses all prohibit you from applying additional restrictions that interfere with the ability of other users to exercise their rights---namely to use, modify, and distribute the artwork under those licenses. In practice, this means that you cannot incorporate DRM into your game or distribute it on a platform that requires DRM. See {#q-drm} for details.
I have used artwork from this site in my game. Is my game a "derivative work" (also known as an "adaptation") of the artwork?
Short answer: probably yes, but it depends.
Applicable copyright law determines whether one work is a "derivative" of another. (CC licenses call this an "adaptation"). That means the answer to this question depends on the specific facts of your game, the jurisdiction, and ultimately how a court of law interprets those facts, the license, and the law. Therefore the only person who can definitively answer this question is a judge ruling on a case. For a more informed answer to this question, you should seek legal advice.
That said, here is some general guidance and some resources to better understand this issue:
Some additional resources about this topic:
I'm submitting art/music to the site. What license should I choose?
First, if you are modifying an existing work, see #q-modified-work-licenses, as the license of the existing work will constrain your choices.
The license you choose depends on what you want to require of someone (e.g. a game developer) who uses your work; viewed another way, some licenses (e.g. the GPL and CC-BY-SA) attempt to preserve the rights of others to use and modify your work. Therefore the best license for your work depends on your values.
We do not recommend you use CC-BY 3.0, CC-BY-SA 3.0, or GPL 2.0 unless you have no other choice because you are creating a derivative. Those licenses have all been improved upon by later versions, so if you have the choice, you should use the latest version. For the same reason, we recommend always checking "Allow later license versions," because there may well be improvements to these licenses in the future; see {#q-allow-later-versions}.
@bluecarrot16:
I get what you are saying but I prefer my approach.
Specifically, I like the format:
Foeach license...
* description of license
* what does license mean for developers?
* what does license mean for artists?
I think that presents the information in a way that is clear and easy to navigate.
It also minimizes the amount of redundanancy.
To whit, it's very hard to say 'what does this license mean for ...' without getting into a discussion of what the license is, so it's better to put it all in one place.
If someone reads the proposed descriptions of the license they will walk away with a good understanding of what the licenses mean and what they need to do to comply with them. So why have another section that talks about it all a bunch more and from slighlty different angles and also talks about /all/ the license at once, instead of clearly enunciating what each individual license means? I can only see this adding confusion for readers.
> Is my game a "derivative work" (also known as an "adaptation") of the artwork?
I think we are all in agreement that there should be a section discussing this topic.
I prefer my approach (from the final section of my last post) here as well.
I think this approach is better because it:
1) clearly enumerates the known and agreed up cases where a work is a derivative
2) stops there with minimal speculation as to what else might or might not be a derivative.
I actually think on point #2 my text could stand to be even more succint but it was a first draft, so maybe with a little polish we can get it there.
Here's the text so you don't have to go look it up:
Is my work/game a derivative work under CC-BY-SA?
The CC-BY-SA licenses clearly define altering, translating, remixing, re-arraning, or otherwise modifying a CC-BY-SA work as making a derivative work.
Additionally, the licenses specifically define syncronizing a CC-SA-BY licensed sound or music work to a moving image as creating a derivative work.
Beyond this, different readings of the licenses may produce more or less expansive definitions of what consititutes a derivative work. By some readings an entire game could be considered a derivative work.
Creative Commons has attempted to provide some guidance on the issue here (link to https://wiki.creativecommons.org/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Wh...)
Creative Commons has also clarified that simply using an unmodified sprite or graphic in a game would not, in their view, create a derivative work. However, they have also stated that if a given sprite or graphic came with a developed character or story line then a game using those character or story elements would be considered a derivative work.
Unfortunately, further guidance cannot be provided as there is, as of this writing, no settled case law regarding what constitutes a derivative work when using CC-SA-BY licensed artwork in a video game context.
> I'm submitting art/music to the site. What license should I choose?
Similar to the original proposal's approach with 'I'm a commercial (closed-source) game developer. Can I use this art?', I suggest this simply be handled with a redirect to the description of the licenses.
Again, once you have a good description of each license and what they mean, anything else you say is just repitition at best and more likely confusing noise.
> We do not recommend you use CC-BY 3.0, CC-BY-SA 3.0, or GPL 2.0 unless you have no other choice because you are creating a derivative...
I agree there probably should be a section that talks about the license version numbers. How about somethig simpler and more to the point, ie adding the question:
'What's with all these version numbers? Is there a reason I should chose one license version over another?'
From time to time, Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation have updated the legal language of their licenses to reflect changes in copyright case law and to better reflect the licenses' original intent.
As a rule of thumb, the newest version of a license provides the best legal protection for a work. Therefore, OGA recommends artists submit their work under the latest version of any given license. (eg. if you elect to submit a work under a CC-BY license, choose CC-BY-3.0).
It is also recommended that submitters check the "Allow later license versions" option when submitting work. This allows works to be used under newer versions of a license as those become available.
@medicinestorm: I see the proposed changes have made it up onto the site. Excelsior!! I guess we can now start calling it the 'current site text' instead of the 'proposed text' :)
https://withthelove.itch.io/
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, withthelove.
I guess we just disagree, because I still think my approach is clearer :p Just to emphasize a few points:
- Separating into different questions per-audience makes it easier to answer the specific questions people actually ask (on the forum, on discord, etc.), namely "can I use this art in my game?" or "what license should I choose?". If I imagine answering such a question with the current text, I'm basically telling someone "look, just go understand the licenses," which feels less helpful to me than "you can use the art if you think about/address the following issues: A, B, C, D"
- Organizing by audience rather than by license means there is less duplicated information when talking about different licenses (e.g. the issue of credit is discussed once, the issue of share-alike/copyleft is discussed once, etc.). I don't really feel there is much duplication between the "can I use this art?" and the "what license should I choose" questions that I posted above, and together they are about the same length as the new/current "What do the licenses mean?" question
- Finally, my descriptions are more conceptual, introducing the reader to the issues at play (attribution, copyleft, open source, DRM), then explaining how they apply to the different licenses in the hypothetical question-asker's position (e.g. as an artist or as a dev).
Anyway, I'm not going to write much more on this; if you haven't been persuaded by my arguments so far, then we probably just have a different perspective and that's fine :) I'll allow others to weigh in, and/or MedicineStorm to decide; if the consensus is that withthelove's combined approach is clearer, that's fine.
Finally, I want to express again my gratitude to withthelove for working on this, years before I even thought about it!
Again, I prefer what I wrote :p I tried to achieve those same two goals, but with a few differences:
I agree with adding a separate question about this (it was on my list under "Why should I always choose "Allow later versions of the same license" when submitting to this site?"); I think what you have written is good for that. One thing I would add is that "Allow later versions" also allows your art to more easily be combined with art under later versions. There is some slight complication with combining CC-BY 3.0 and CC-BY 4.0, for instance, which would be resolved by licensing work A under "CC-BY 3.0 and later".
I have some minor comments about the current text, if that is what we end up keeping, but I'll save those for later.
> we probably just have a different perspective
I think that's probably it.
> If I imagine answering such a question with the current text, I'm basically telling someone "look, just go understand the licenses," which feels less helpful to me than "you can use the art if you think about/address the following issues: A, B, C, D"
I don't think that's an entirely fair assesment. 'just go understand the licenses' would just be links to the raw license text. The proposed text provides a description of each license along with a short explanation of what that means for developers and for artists, so it's more like 'here's decription of each license and what it means, you decide what's best for you' which seems entirely fair and in keeping with the sites license agnostic policy.
I get the idea behind more conceptual dialogue, I just think it's better for spell things out as directly as possible. If we want to add a more long form discussion of the ins and outs of it all later in the doc (maybe under 'Can you talk more about the licenses and what they mean?' question) but starting with a basic, clear description of the license is going to be the most helpful approach, especially for new comers.
> "what is a derivative work"
Can we start with this:
* The section should clearly enunciate the known, well defined uses that make a derivative work (modifications, etc. etc + syncing sound with video)
It's easy to take that for granted when we get into our long disussions about copyright law, etc. etc. but truthhully, for a new comer, this is the most important thing to state. That is, what are the cases that for sure ceate a derivative work?
After that, however we want to phrase the 'everything else is ambiguous and unknown' part is fine. My only concern is that it be done in a way that is clear and doesn't unnecessarily bias readers towards or away from any particular license or licenses. To that end, I think we'll find that the less we say the better, but I could be wrong.
> If you want to be sure your art can be used in larger projects that are licensed under the GPL v3, choose CC-BY-SA 4.0; CC-BY-SA 4.0 is compatible with the GPL v3 (link) but also has terms that are more clearly applicable to art than GPL v3
This does seem like a point that's worth working in there somewhere.
https://withthelove.itch.io/
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