Yeah, I also found it intersting that they separated the image synched with music from the rest of the project and said only that would need to be released as SA.
Of course, this still raises it's own issues. Suppose you take a CC-BY-SA 'jump' sound and use it with a 'CC-BY' sprite. Now you need to release the sprite as CC-BY-SA but you can't because you don't own the original work.
Well for the record, here's how I replied, I figured spelling out a specific example might help, guess we'll see!
Thanks very much for your reply!
I definitely understand what a tricky area this can be and do appreciate you taking the time to try and clarify the matter for us some.
May I ask a few follow up questions?
I guess I kept my initial question deliberately broad in order to keep it short and simple, but it maybe it would more helpful if I provide a concrete example.
Suppose an artists creates a PNG w/ multiple images of a cartoon rabbit in various poses (walking, standing, hopping, eating, etc) and releases the PNG under the CC-BY-SA license.
Now a second artist takes the PNG and uses it in their video game 'Run Rabbit Run!'
The 2nd artist makes no changes to the PNG, but loads it and uses it for the main character, showing one pose at time for the rabbit's different movements in the game and all synched with the players input.
Would this constitute an 'Adaptation' under the CC-BY-SA?
Setting aside the legal issues involved, can I ask about the intent of the Creative Commons with regards to use of SA assets in an example like this?
Is this the sort of use the Creative Commons would want to be considered an adaptation?
I ask this not just to side step the legal issues and avoid asking you for legal advice, but because that's actually an important consideration for the OGA community also. At Open Game Art, we pride ourselves on sharing assets in a way that is legal, moral, and in keeping with the original artists wishes. We will remove work from the site regardless of the license if an artist requests it. So sometimes, regardless what the courts say, it's just as important for us to understand what an artist intended when they selected a license. Of course, to be sure guessing this can be risky game, but certainly it would be helpful for us to know how Creative Commons intends or hopes the license would be interpreted.
Regarding the example of synching music and a moving image, just to 100% clear, this would also apply when using a sound effect licensed as CC-SA also, correct? So if someone took a 'bunny hop' sound licensed as CC-SA-BY and synched it with a sprite of a bunny hopping in their game, they would need to share the sprite sheet for that as CC-SA-BY also? but not the entire game (code base, other music, assets, etc.)
Thanks again for your help with this. These questions have bedeviled our community pretty much from it's start, so it's great to have any clarification or advice that you can provide.
Friday, January 15, 2016 - 15:01
hey! what do you know, I heard back:
The answers to your question all hinge on whether you are creating an adaptation of the BY-SA work. This is a complicated legal question with no black and white answers, which also depends on what jurisdiction you are in. Here is an FAQ from our site about the topic: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Wh...
There is one fairly clear-cut scenario in this though, and that is when you are using BY-SA licensed music and synching it with a moving image. In those cases, what you are creating is an adaptation because it is written into the terms of the CC license.
Whenever what you have done creates an adaptation, you only have to ShareAlike the adaptation and not anything else that happens to be aggregated with the work. For example, in the scenario above with BY-SA music you would need to ShareAlike the moving image that uses the music, but you could license the source code to the game however you like.
Sorry for the somewhat complex answer, but this is a tricky area. We can't give legal advice either so unfortunately even with more specific facts, we wouldn't be able to provide complete clarity. Hope this helps at least lead you toward the answers you need.
Sadly that doesn't really help very much. I'll try writing back to see if I can get any better clarification, but the vibe I'm getting here is very much 'USE AT YOUR OWN RISK' :(
Friday, January 15, 2016 - 08:38
@Ramert1404: If you have the time, it would be great to hear if you found anything in the FAQ or my suggested changes useful or informative, or if you had any further questions after reading them.
Friday, January 15, 2016 - 06:36
I do think artists intent matters also. Does an artist want anything done with a work to be released into the commons also, or are they only concerned about more direct revisions to the work itself? Unfortunately, since CC hasn't clarified the issue, it's really hard to make any assumptions about what an artist intends by selecting the license.
Well, no reply yet, but still hoping.
In the mean time, here's the full text of my email to CC:
The site houses art (images, sprites, 3D models, music, sfx, etc) for use in video games and related projects under a variety of different open licenses (CC licenses, GPL, etc).
A question that comes up again and again is:
Can I uses XYZ work licensed as CC-SA-3.0 in my closed source video game project?
Put another way:
If I use XYZ work licensed as CC-SA-3.0 in my project, must I also release the project itself (final game, source code, other assets used, etc.) as CC-SA-3.0?
Put into the terms of the CC-SA-3.0 license itself:
Does using a work (image, sound effect, song, etc.) in a video game constitute an 'adaptation' as defined CC-SA 3.0 licenses?
And if so, would a video game using the work be required to be released as CC-SA 3.0?
And if so, would all the components of the video game (eg. source code, other art assets, etc) be required to be released as CC-BY-SA or would it be sufficient to just release the final completed game package (eg. compiled binaries, windows installer, Android package, etc.) as CC-BY-SA?
Sorry to be asking about the old version of the license, the site is in the process of adding support for the new license versions, but most of the work on there now is under the 3.0 versions, so that's why I ask specifically about those.
Thanks very much for your time!
Looking it over, I kind of abbreviated CC-BY-SA as CC-SA a few times, but hopefully they get the point.
Well, I encourage anyone else to write them asking them the same question, maybe if we throw enough rocks one might get through.* ;)
* just to be clear, that's a Tragically Hip reference not an endorsement of throwing rocks! :)
Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - 12:34
@Redshrike: You're right, but certainly knowing how CC /intended/ video games to be treated under the license would be helpful. They may also be able to comment on how well their intent has held up in the courts.
@MedicineStorm: Trying not to get to excited myself (what are the odds they even respond?) but gotta admit I'm definitely very curious to hear what they have to say.
Did some spelunking through their mailing list archives the other day. Seems like just the place to look to see if they've addressed this question before. But sadly, the archives are only viewable one month at a time, and they go back to 2009, so it'll take some time to get through them all.
@DezrasDragons: Yeah. "discussed to death" is definitely the technical term for it! :)
Hopefully, we can get some clarity from CC on this. I did get a nice auto-reply message that promised a personal reply in 2-3 days so we can hope!
But if not, maybe we can just go with some suitably cautionary language, eg:
There is considerable debate about whether a video game using a work licensed as CC-SA-3.0 constitutes a 'derived' work or not by the terms of the license. Until Creative Commons issues a proper clarification on this issue, it is advised that licensees assume a video game (or similar project) would be considered a derived work under the license and therefore be required to be distributed under the same terms (ie. as CC-SA-3.0).
Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - 11:30
@DezrasDragons:
> Regarding the collage, I think the question is more whether or not the resulting collage needs to be released under -SA, given that it uses -SA images. If the images in the collage are unaltered, and simply displayed, it seems more like a collective work than a derivative to me.
The jist I got from the article was that using images in a collage is considered a copyright violation, but I guess you're right, that doesn't really address something like the CC-SA license.
Too bad the lengthy paper doesn't really delve into CC issue :(
'In short, if you use a CC-BY-SA licensed image to make a video game, the game can be commercial but it should also carry the same license, which means its source and other materials should also be available for others to use under the same terms.'
But again, I'd swear I've seen it argued the other way around here. Indeed, the OGA site FAQ, though it doesn't explicitly say so, does sort of implicitly endorse the view that CC-SA does not require an entire project to become CC-SA, since it describes the CC-SA license as:
'This license requires you to release any modifications you make to the art work in question under the same license.'
I guess it kind of gets at what a creator is trying to ensure gets 'shared alike.'
If an artist submits a sprite sheet as CC-SA, do they want any games that use those sprites to be shared as CC-SA or do they only care about derivatives of the sprites themselves being shared as CC-SA?
From my reading, it seems like CC folks are after the broader definition.
I have gone ahead and written the CC folks to see if we can get any clarification out of them on this.
I just used the 'Contact Us' button on their web page, so not super hopeful but maybe we'll get something.
Monday, January 11, 2016 - 12:37
@mdwh:
Thanks very much the feedback! I am very worried about this thread falling off the radar and I do think it's important to get this stuff updated and correct, or at least as correct as we can get it.
Some itemized thoughts:
> 'Popular'
I have no problem removing this, although I do think it does serve a purpose. The idea is to alert folks that DRM is commonly used in game distribution and not just some obscure feature used in a few specialized places. Also, I don't think the word 'popular' truly constitutes peacocking here as it's pretty well an objective fact that the listed distribution services (XBL, PSN, iOS) are 'popular' by just about any definition of the word.
However, I do agree it's not the place of OGA to try in anyway to advocate for one distribution network over another and since the text does enumerate the 'popular' services, I don't think it's a big deal to drop the word 'popular' on the off chance someone might read it as an endorsement one way or the other.
> 'Google Play, DRM is only enabled if the developer wants DRM. The current wording makes it sound like DRM would be enforced if you happened to package the game in a particular way, even if you didn't want it. I'm not aware that Steam is different. I'd suggest scrapping this bit completely unless someone can show DRM might be forced on developers in some cases.'
Sorry, yeah this is not meant to imply that DRM maybe forced on a package, merely that DRM is an option on these networks. Does this phrasing clarify that:
"may or may not use DRM depending on how a developer chooses to package a particular game (ex. Steam, Google Android)."
> 'A more general point to say instead, for the point of view of artists wanting their art used in games, is that some commercial companies will want to use DRM'
If you're talking about this as a different approach to the entire section, I agree it's another way of phrasing it and a correct one, but I think it's a little too general.
I think it's important to name a few names and directly list the 'popular' distribution services and make it clear where they fall in terms of the license. Otherwise, the very next question anyone is going to ask is 'Ok, so can I use this work with my game on XYZ distribution service?' In fact, this is a question I see asked all the time around OGA, so the goal here is to help answer that question up front for people. And I think the question works the other way too, for folks submitting work, it's good for them to hear how the license impacts the potential for their work to distributed (and seen!) on the different distribution services. Again, the goal not being to advocate for one platform or another (or for DRM or no-DRM) but just to help inform people about how the platforms and licenses intersect.
> ' 'additional restictions' (ie. DRM)'
Yes. Since the point of the OGA-BY was explicitly to remove the DRM restriction, my mind went to 'ie.', but you're right, I think an 'eg.' would be more correct here. So:
' 'additional restictions' (eg. DRM)'
Does that work?
> It might be worth mentioning that OGA-BY can be relicensed as CC-BY (this is useful for anyone worried about licence compatibility/proliferation, or sticking to more well known licences or those approved by OSI, FSF, Debian, etc).'
I'd prefer to leave any mention of re-licensing out of this part of the FAQ. I just think it opens a whole other can of worms that's best left for another part of the docs.
@mdwh & DezrasDragons:
> Whilst I would hope this is the case (if not, it makes CC BY-SA useless for most games, commercial or open source), unless we have a reference from creative commons or a legal opinion, I'm not sure this is known?
hmm... Yeah, you make me wish I knew where I'd read that because re-reading the license now, it seems pretty clear to me that a video game would constitute a 'Derivative Work'.
About 'Collective Work', by my reading all they mean by 'Collective Work' is anthologies, clip art collections, font packs, etc. Stuff where you're just bundling up a bunch of works and re-distributing them. I don't think a video game falls in this category, because it does not present the works independently from one another. Although, this category does seem to include using images in a book:
But it begins with the line: 'Whether a modification of licensed material is considered an adaptation for the purpose of CC licenses depends primarily on the applicable copyright law.' Which certainly sets off some warning bells for me! :)
It does go on to say: 'Generally, a modification rises to the level of an adaptation under copyright law when the modified work is based on the prior work but manifests sufficient new creativity to be copyrightable, such as a translation of a novel from one language to another, or the creation of a screenplay based on a novel.'
Hard to say if using sprites in a video game meets that bar or not. I can say, I personally would not chance it. That is to say, if I was working on a closed source (or otherwise non-CC-SA licensed) work, I don't think I would use CC-SA stuff with it.
The closest 'art' analogy I could think of would be a collage. Do collages count as 'derivative' or 'collective' works?
Found at least one site that defines collage as clearly derivative and states:
'Most important to the collage artist is that a derivative work can only include copyrighted material if it is created by the owner of the copyright on the original material, or with that person's permission. This means that making a collage that includes photos from National Geographic, Rand McNally maps, or pictures of Andy Warhol paintings, is illegal unless you have obtained permission from whoever owns the copyright on those works.'
hmm... Anyone out there want to argue the other side of this?
> I would interpret this to mean that the "slash SFX / slash sprite" combination is a derivative of the SFX, and must be released under a compatible license.
Yeah, this is exactly how I'd interpret that also. The FAQ linked above) also goes out of it's way to re-state this point, 'synching' is always considered a derivative work.
@DARKAGEGAMES: Thanks! Just by reading the post and commenting that it was helpful you've already helped out plenty! :)
@DezrasDragons:
About the legal advice bit, the opening paragraph I've proposed is:
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.
Does that cover your 'not legal advice' concerns ok?
thanks again to all for the feedback! Will bundle it all up and post back an update to the whole thing shortly.
Sunday, January 10, 2016 - 15:47
lol, no problem, and very glad you found my write up useful, you seriously just made it all worth while! :)
Now if this post could just catch the attention of some of the admins... ;)
Beardy McBeard! I love him! Great work!
Yeah, I also found it intersting that they separated the image synched with music from the rest of the project and said only that would need to be released as SA.
Of course, this still raises it's own issues. Suppose you take a CC-BY-SA 'jump' sound and use it with a 'CC-BY' sprite. Now you need to release the sprite as CC-BY-SA but you can't because you don't own the original work.
Well for the record, here's how I replied, I figured spelling out a specific example might help, guess we'll see!
Thanks very much for your reply!
I definitely understand what a tricky area this can be and do appreciate you taking the time to try and clarify the matter for us some.
May I ask a few follow up questions?
I guess I kept my initial question deliberately broad in order to keep it short and simple, but it maybe it would more helpful if I provide a concrete example.
Suppose an artists creates a PNG w/ multiple images of a cartoon rabbit in various poses (walking, standing, hopping, eating, etc) and releases the PNG under the CC-BY-SA license.
Now a second artist takes the PNG and uses it in their video game 'Run Rabbit Run!'
The 2nd artist makes no changes to the PNG, but loads it and uses it for the main character, showing one pose at time for the rabbit's different movements in the game and all synched with the players input.
Would this constitute an 'Adaptation' under the CC-BY-SA?
Setting aside the legal issues involved, can I ask about the intent of the Creative Commons with regards to use of SA assets in an example like this?
Is this the sort of use the Creative Commons would want to be considered an adaptation?
I ask this not just to side step the legal issues and avoid asking you for legal advice, but because that's actually an important consideration for the OGA community also. At Open Game Art, we pride ourselves on sharing assets in a way that is legal, moral, and in keeping with the original artists wishes. We will remove work from the site regardless of the license if an artist requests it. So sometimes, regardless what the courts say, it's just as important for us to understand what an artist intended when they selected a license. Of course, to be sure guessing this can be risky game, but certainly it would be helpful for us to know how Creative Commons intends or hopes the license would be interpreted.
Regarding the example of synching music and a moving image, just to 100% clear, this would also apply when using a sound effect licensed as CC-SA also, correct? So if someone took a 'bunny hop' sound licensed as CC-SA-BY and synched it with a sprite of a bunny hopping in their game, they would need to share the sprite sheet for that as CC-SA-BY also? but not the entire game (code base, other music, assets, etc.)
Thanks again for your help with this. These questions have bedeviled our community pretty much from it's start, so it's great to have any clarification or advice that you can provide.
hey! what do you know, I heard back:
The answers to your question all hinge on whether you are creating an adaptation of the BY-SA work. This is a complicated legal question with no black and white answers, which also depends on what jurisdiction you are in. Here is an FAQ from our site about the topic: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Wh...
There is one fairly clear-cut scenario in this though, and that is when you are using BY-SA licensed music and synching it with a moving image. In those cases, what you are creating is an adaptation because it is written into the terms of the CC license.
Whenever what you have done creates an adaptation, you only have to ShareAlike the adaptation and not anything else that happens to be aggregated with the work. For example, in the scenario above with BY-SA music you would need to ShareAlike the moving image that uses the music, but you could license the source code to the game however you like.
Sorry for the somewhat complex answer, but this is a tricky area. We can't give legal advice either so unfortunately even with more specific facts, we wouldn't be able to provide complete clarity. Hope this helps at least lead you toward the answers you need.
Sadly that doesn't really help very much. I'll try writing back to see if I can get any better clarification, but the vibe I'm getting here is very much 'USE AT YOUR OWN RISK' :(
@Ramert1404: If you have the time, it would be great to hear if you found anything in the FAQ or my suggested changes useful or informative, or if you had any further questions after reading them.
I do think artists intent matters also. Does an artist want anything done with a work to be released into the commons also, or are they only concerned about more direct revisions to the work itself? Unfortunately, since CC hasn't clarified the issue, it's really hard to make any assumptions about what an artist intends by selecting the license.
Well, no reply yet, but still hoping.
In the mean time, here's the full text of my email to CC:
To: info@creativecommons.org
Subject: Use of CC-SA-3.0 art in Video Games
Hi,
I am writing for help answering a question for the Open Game Art community, located at:
http://www.opengameart.org
The site houses art (images, sprites, 3D models, music, sfx, etc) for use in video games and related projects under a variety of different open licenses (CC licenses, GPL, etc).
A question that comes up again and again is:
Can I uses XYZ work licensed as CC-SA-3.0 in my closed source video game project?
Put another way:
If I use XYZ work licensed as CC-SA-3.0 in my project, must I also release the project itself (final game, source code, other assets used, etc.) as CC-SA-3.0?
Put into the terms of the CC-SA-3.0 license itself:
Does using a work (image, sound effect, song, etc.) in a video game constitute an 'adaptation' as defined CC-SA 3.0 licenses?
And if so, would a video game using the work be required to be released as CC-SA 3.0?
And if so, would all the components of the video game (eg. source code, other art assets, etc) be required to be released as CC-BY-SA or would it be sufficient to just release the final completed game package (eg. compiled binaries, windows installer, Android package, etc.) as CC-BY-SA?
Sorry to be asking about the old version of the license, the site is in the process of adding support for the new license versions, but most of the work on there now is under the 3.0 versions, so that's why I ask specifically about those.
Thanks very much for your time!
Looking it over, I kind of abbreviated CC-BY-SA as CC-SA a few times, but hopefully they get the point.
Well, I encourage anyone else to write them asking them the same question, maybe if we throw enough rocks one might get through.* ;)
* just to be clear, that's a Tragically Hip reference not an endorsement of throwing rocks! :)
@Redshrike: You're right, but certainly knowing how CC /intended/ video games to be treated under the license would be helpful. They may also be able to comment on how well their intent has held up in the courts.
@MedicineStorm: Trying not to get to excited myself (what are the odds they even respond?) but gotta admit I'm definitely very curious to hear what they have to say.
Did some spelunking through their mailing list archives the other day. Seems like just the place to look to see if they've addressed this question before. But sadly, the archives are only viewable one month at a time, and they go back to 2009, so it'll take some time to get through them all.
Archives here, if anyone else is interested:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-community/
@DezrasDragons: Yeah. "discussed to death" is definitely the technical term for it! :)
Hopefully, we can get some clarity from CC on this. I did get a nice auto-reply message that promised a personal reply in 2-3 days so we can hope!
But if not, maybe we can just go with some suitably cautionary language, eg:
There is considerable debate about whether a video game using a work licensed as CC-SA-3.0 constitutes a 'derived' work or not by the terms of the license. Until Creative Commons issues a proper clarification on this issue, it is advised that licensees assume a video game (or similar project) would be considered a derived work under the license and therefore be required to be distributed under the same terms (ie. as CC-SA-3.0).
@DezrasDragons:
> Regarding the collage, I think the question is more whether or not the resulting collage needs to be released under -SA, given that it uses -SA images. If the images in the collage are unaltered, and simply displayed, it seems more like a collective work than a derivative to me.
The jist I got from the article was that using images in a collage is considered a copyright violation, but I guess you're right, that doesn't really address something like the CC-SA license.
Too bad the lengthy paper doesn't really delve into CC issue :(
Googling, I did find this question:
http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/92536/is-it-legal-to-use-crea...
The last answer for which states:
'In short, if you use a CC-BY-SA licensed image to make a video game, the game can be commercial but it should also carry the same license, which means its source and other materials should also be available for others to use under the same terms.'
But again, I'd swear I've seen it argued the other way around here. Indeed, the OGA site FAQ, though it doesn't explicitly say so, does sort of implicitly endorse the view that CC-SA does not require an entire project to become CC-SA, since it describes the CC-SA license as:
'This license requires you to release any modifications you make to the art work in question under the same license.'
I guess it kind of gets at what a creator is trying to ensure gets 'shared alike.'
If an artist submits a sprite sheet as CC-SA, do they want any games that use those sprites to be shared as CC-SA or do they only care about derivatives of the sprites themselves being shared as CC-SA?
From my reading, it seems like CC folks are after the broader definition.
I have gone ahead and written the CC folks to see if we can get any clarification out of them on this.
I just used the 'Contact Us' button on their web page, so not super hopeful but maybe we'll get something.
@mdwh:
Thanks very much the feedback! I am very worried about this thread falling off the radar and I do think it's important to get this stuff updated and correct, or at least as correct as we can get it.
Some itemized thoughts:
> 'Popular'
I have no problem removing this, although I do think it does serve a purpose. The idea is to alert folks that DRM is commonly used in game distribution and not just some obscure feature used in a few specialized places. Also, I don't think the word 'popular' truly constitutes peacocking here as it's pretty well an objective fact that the listed distribution services (XBL, PSN, iOS) are 'popular' by just about any definition of the word.
However, I do agree it's not the place of OGA to try in anyway to advocate for one distribution network over another and since the text does enumerate the 'popular' services, I don't think it's a big deal to drop the word 'popular' on the off chance someone might read it as an endorsement one way or the other.
> 'Google Play, DRM is only enabled if the developer wants DRM. The current wording makes it sound like DRM would be enforced if you happened to package the game in a particular way, even if you didn't want it. I'm not aware that Steam is different. I'd suggest scrapping this bit completely unless someone can show DRM might be forced on developers in some cases.'
Sorry, yeah this is not meant to imply that DRM maybe forced on a package, merely that DRM is an option on these networks. Does this phrasing clarify that:
"may or may not use DRM depending on how a developer chooses to package a particular game (ex. Steam, Google Android)."
> 'A more general point to say instead, for the point of view of artists wanting their art used in games, is that some commercial companies will want to use DRM'
If you're talking about this as a different approach to the entire section, I agree it's another way of phrasing it and a correct one, but I think it's a little too general.
I think it's important to name a few names and directly list the 'popular' distribution services and make it clear where they fall in terms of the license. Otherwise, the very next question anyone is going to ask is 'Ok, so can I use this work with my game on XYZ distribution service?' In fact, this is a question I see asked all the time around OGA, so the goal here is to help answer that question up front for people. And I think the question works the other way too, for folks submitting work, it's good for them to hear how the license impacts the potential for their work to distributed (and seen!) on the different distribution services. Again, the goal not being to advocate for one platform or another (or for DRM or no-DRM) but just to help inform people about how the platforms and licenses intersect.
> ' 'additional restictions' (ie. DRM)'
Yes. Since the point of the OGA-BY was explicitly to remove the DRM restriction, my mind went to 'ie.', but you're right, I think an 'eg.' would be more correct here. So:
' 'additional restictions' (eg. DRM)'
Does that work?
> It might be worth mentioning that OGA-BY can be relicensed as CC-BY (this is useful for anyone worried about licence compatibility/proliferation, or sticking to more well known licences or those approved by OSI, FSF, Debian, etc).'
I'd prefer to leave any mention of re-licensing out of this part of the FAQ. I just think it opens a whole other can of worms that's best left for another part of the docs.
@mdwh & DezrasDragons:
> Whilst I would hope this is the case (if not, it makes CC BY-SA useless for most games, commercial or open source), unless we have a reference from creative commons or a legal opinion, I'm not sure this is known?
hmm... Yeah, you make me wish I knew where I'd read that because re-reading the license now, it seems pretty clear to me that a video game would constitute a 'Derivative Work'.
About 'Collective Work', by my reading all they mean by 'Collective Work' is anthologies, clip art collections, font packs, etc. Stuff where you're just bundling up a bunch of works and re-distributing them. I don't think a video game falls in this category, because it does not present the works independently from one another. Although, this category does seem to include using images in a book:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_license#Drauglis_v._Kappa...
Which is somewhat analogous to sprites in a video game.
The CC Faq does attempt to address when a work constitutes an adaptation:
https://wiki.creativecommons.org/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Wh...
But it begins with the line: 'Whether a modification of licensed material is considered an adaptation for the purpose of CC licenses depends primarily on the applicable copyright law.' Which certainly sets off some warning bells for me! :)
It does go on to say: 'Generally, a modification rises to the level of an adaptation under copyright law when the modified work is based on the prior work but manifests sufficient new creativity to be copyrightable, such as a translation of a novel from one language to another, or the creation of a screenplay based on a novel.'
Hard to say if using sprites in a video game meets that bar or not. I can say, I personally would not chance it. That is to say, if I was working on a closed source (or otherwise non-CC-SA licensed) work, I don't think I would use CC-SA stuff with it.
The closest 'art' analogy I could think of would be a collage. Do collages count as 'derivative' or 'collective' works?
Found at least one site that defines collage as clearly derivative and states:
http://www.funnystrange.com/copyright/derivative.htm
'Most important to the collage artist is that a derivative work can only include copyrighted material if it is created by the owner of the copyright on the original material, or with that person's permission. This means that making a collage that includes photos from National Geographic, Rand McNally maps, or pictures of Andy Warhol paintings, is illegal unless you have obtained permission from whoever owns the copyright on those works.'
hmm... Anyone out there want to argue the other side of this?
> I would interpret this to mean that the "slash SFX / slash sprite" combination is a derivative of the SFX, and must be released under a compatible license.
Yeah, this is exactly how I'd interpret that also. The FAQ linked above) also goes out of it's way to re-state this point, 'synching' is always considered a derivative work.
@DARKAGEGAMES: Thanks! Just by reading the post and commenting that it was helpful you've already helped out plenty! :)
@DezrasDragons:
About the legal advice bit, the opening paragraph I've proposed is:
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.
Does that cover your 'not legal advice' concerns ok?
thanks again to all for the feedback! Will bundle it all up and post back an update to the whole thing shortly.
lol, no problem, and very glad you found my write up useful, you seriously just made it all worth while! :)
Now if this post could just catch the attention of some of the admins... ;)
Pages