Absolutely, and here's why: this site aims to be a 100% trustworthy source for art as far as licenses go.

If the original artist has a problem with your upload, they would also have a problem with everyone who downloads and uses it. If we let that happen, our users could no longer trust the licenses shown.

There are other places to host "free" art that is less strict about licenses. But OpenGameArt is the place to go when CC licenses matter.

I like it as an end-user, because I know resources are provided with the artists' consent and with easy direction on how I can use the resources and how to credit the artists.

I won't pretend to speak for any of the artists themselves, but from what I've seen in comments, the ones that give permission to create derivatives actually like to see people make derivatives.  As long as you are in compliance with their license and aren't doing anything offensive, you should be ok.

> Who made that site? Certainly not men.

Now you're just a troll. Bullshit masculinity is not welcome.

> Goodbye OGA!

I'll go ahead and lock your account and remove your blog link so we don't send you more traffic.

Considering there's no other site like this, you just made a big mistake.

To other artists seeing this and fearing your derivatives will be taken down: You've got nothing to fear.

As an artist, you can rest assured your hard work will not be ruined by someone else, but that also applies to all other artists as well, including the ones you may have derived your work from.

I have seen thousands of derivative works uploaded to OGA. Of those thousands, I have not seen even a single request for take-down of a work that was compliant with the original work's license. Artists just don't request take-downs that much.

There are other sites that share artwork, but I would never use them. I've seen games about to hit the big-time only to send out a message to all their fans saying "we have to shut down. There was a legal conflict with some of our assets. Once that's resolved, we'll be back" ...but they never come back. Having to rip out fundamental pieces of your game so late in development is a deathblow. The OGA community takes extra effort to ensure the assets you get here are conflict free.

MedicineStorm is right. I've been a copyright mod here for a long time, and I can't recall many times where the license was correct but the intention of the original artist did not allow the content.

Here's one case.

Most popular video games have Wikipedia articles. Images on wikipedia must be a free license, often CC-BY-SA -- obviously this is important for an encyclopedia for sharing knowledge.

Someone new to the site started uploading sprites ripped from Wikipfedia articles, of commercial proprietary games. Technically, the letter of the license on Wikipedia would allow that. Do you think the owners of those games intended for their encyclopedia images to be ripped and freely reused in other games? Of course not. We took down that content.

Being technically on the right side of the law isn't going far enough for us. Just because we (or our site's users) might win a copyright lawsuit over such a technicality, why would we want to leave our users open to lawsuits in the first place?

The copyright mods here have a love for open licenses, and a duty to our users to know what we're doing.

I'm not sure I read this right.

I always read that line to mean that if an author wanted their own works removed, the site would honor that request.

Are you saying that if an author requested a work be removed, you would also /automatically/ remove any derivative works?

Or would you only do that if an author specifically requests derivatives be removed?

What if an author requested a specific derivative be removed but wanted their own original work to remain on the site?

Despite lukasz1985's ridiculous overreaction, there is valid question raised here.  Is it fair to give original author's a 'veto' over derivative works?  Afterall, part of the point of these licenses is to protect users of a work as well as authors.  If someone takes a work and puts a lot of time and effort creating a derivative work, and makes a solid, good faith effort to abide by the terms of the license, is it fair for their work to be disregarded if the original work's author decides he/she doesn't want their work on OGA anymore?

These questsions asked, I totally agree this is a really rare corner case because it pretty much never happens, even the case Clint sites was actually OGA mods going out of their way to contact an orginal artist and offer to remove the offending works rather than the author themselves requesting it.  In that way, I think it's more than appropriate for site mods to handle these kinds of requests on a case by case basis.  

That is a fringe case but it is indeed a valid question. I think admins here have done a pretty good job of assessing each case under its own individual merits by the spirit of the law and not the letter.

In the case of the WikiCommons example Clint provided, I imagine derivatives of that would also be taken down since the derivatives, albeit compliant with the license, would not have been in the spirit with which the ripped graphics were shared. Considering everyone except the person uploading those ripped graphics felt it was an obviously uncool move, I don't think we'll have much of a problem with similar situations.

In the case of an author requesting specific derivatives be removed but wish their original to remain on the site, I think the admin's assessment may initially sound something like "are you freaking kidding me?". If the original author licensed it for derivatives, but demands derivatives be taken down, that would call for taking the original artist into a sidebar and discussing the intricacies of Wheaton's Law. Also, I'm betting the artist would be asked to change the license to something that complies with their wishes... like CC-BY-ND... which isn't a license allowed on OGA.

I can't imagine such fringy cases ever being a reality, but even if they do happen, I'm confident in the case-by-case mitigation powers of our admins to produce a just and equitable solution for all. :)

Still, though... I'm also curious what the admins think about this.

I'm sure if a super weird corner case actually comes up, we'll update or clarify the site rules. (We did so with the Wikipedia CC-BY-SA case).

A suggestion for content makers: if you're going to put a lot of effort into a derivative work, it's a good idea to contact the original artist to double check the license before you distribute (or, before you even begin the effort).

A rare few open game artists see CC licenses as a "here are my terms, now please don't bother me". But, by far, most artists enjoy hearing about interesting derivatives. Especially because those derivatives may be useful in our original projects too.

"I think the admin's assessment may initially sound something like "are you freaking kidding me?"."

Yes, it definitely would be.  We will always do our best to honor artists' intents and requests within reason.  Not just because it's nice and right, but also because this site is one of the major points of connection between general game art and FOSS development.  We don't want to give the impression to artists at large that if they submit here that they will be taken advantage of.  But that kind of case would no doubt require some sort of special handling.

I'm no lawyer, but the US Copyright Office direction suggests that, as the derivative artist, you only control what you add to the original work unless the original is public domain:

The copyright in a derivative work covers only the additions, changes, or other new material appearing for the first time in the work. Protection does not extend to any preexisting material, that is, previously published or previously registered works or works in the public domain or owned by a third party

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf

Again, I'm no lawyer, but that seems consistent with OGA policy and that the derivative artist would have to remove all original pieces and re-submit.

Yes, but we're only talking about works that are already freely licensed, where derivative works are explicitly allowed and the artist has given (irrevocable) blanket permission for use and redistribution.  In these cases they have no technical legal basis for demanding a removal--it's simply a matter of courtesy and respect for their wishes.