Many closed source games do have streaming/video policies
True, but I think that suggests a solution to your concern. Make a streaming policy for Minetest. Perhaps I don't understand the concern, though.
You would have to make it clear which assets require attribution.
You have to do that anyway. That's a requirement of CC-BY. If Minetest uses CC-BY assest, then it must make clear that those assets require attribution... by way of indicating the license and giving attribution. I do see your point about streamers not bothering to scour the credits page for that kind of thing, but a streaming policy would resolve that if the goal is to encourage (safe) streaming of Minetest. Again, the streamers only have to be concerned with that if they aren't protected by Fair Use for some reason. Regardless, a URL to a credits page in the video description is considered acceptable attribution. If a troll wants to belabor that point, I submit the issue is not any license you could use, attribution or otherwise, it is trusting assets from a troll... which I am constantly on guard for anyone doing that here.
People can sue for any reason. But this feels like a straw man argument.
That certainly wasn't my intent. If I am arguing against a position that doesn't exist, it is only because I am misunderstanding your position. To be honest, suggesting that streamers will get sued over video of a community-supported game that uses CC-BY assets seems like a straw man argument as well. Though my goal is not to argue against you, only to assuage any concern you may have over the use of any specific open source licenses; because I believe it really is both low risk and not the root of the problem.
any video that shows their textures could have legal action taken? That's insane! There's thousands of videos about Minetest.
That would be insane. Why would the let's-players get in trouble? Let's-play videos are (generally) under Fair Use and are (generally) not considered derivatives. I wasn't saying Fair Use doesn't apply to any content using CC licenses. I was saying Fair Use has nothing to do with CC licenses. They are two entirely separate things. Videos of GPL content, or MIT content, would be just as liable for failing to include a copy of the license text in their videos. That is to say, if what they're doing is Fair Use, they wouldn't be liable at all.
The people making the videos are responsible for determining if their use qualifies as Fair Use, not the developer of the game they're featuring in the videos. There are videos of every closed source commercial game on the market, but the creators of those videos aren't getting sued either, even though the license of the assets featured in the game are proprietary. Blizzard isn't suing the makers of the Leeroy Jenkins video even though it consists entirely of uncredited World of Warcraft intellectual property.
I'm surprised that the Creative Commons attribution licensing is even used in games at all, even open source games.
Substitute any license into that sentence and it still holds the same weight. Because the issue is not the license, it's copyright trolls. Observe:
I'm surprised that Public Domain works are even used in games at all, even open source games because copyright trolls can release an asset as PD, wait for someone to use it, then remove the asset from whever they were sharing it and sue while pointing to the proprietary-licensed royalties-due copy they had posted elsewhere earlier. "prove you had permission to use this!"
Why is this a separate thread instead of a comment on the original post of the same topic?
Only the Fans would be liable. Having satisfied the terms of the license, you are not responsible for what others do with the author's work or derivatives thereof.
CC licenses do not have an international fair use clause. Fair Use terms are separate from any license and vary by jurisdiction.
I think you're missing what I'm asking. No one is able to download the 2D texture map, because you uploaded a screenshot in its place.
The "104_hextiles_00.jpg" file should be under File(s): but its under Preview instead. It would be better if it were a .png file instead of .jpg, too since jpg is so lossy.
The "hexagonal_terrain_world_01.jpg" file should be under Preview but its under File(s) instead.
I think the "download" file and the "preview" file are reversed... or I don't really understand the purpose of the jpg you uploaded. It appears to be screenshot of 3D rendered terrain, which isn't really a 2D asset or a 3D asset.
Art by the same submitter submitted in rapid succession gets pushed back 24 hours temporarily. Spammers submit like that to saturate the front page with ads. This gives me a chance to remove it without it getting picked up by seo indexing crawlers.
In the case of non spammers, it gives everyone else a chance on the front page instead of being immediately pushed off by one submitter. If you're submitting a lot of similar stuff that works well together, it is better to submit them as a set or album on one submission instead of, for example, 6 different submissions containing one sprite/texture/song each.
I agree it is morally sound to automatically add the upgraded version of licenses anywhere the author checked the "allow later version..." box. The technological feasibility is ... not impossible, but it will take some work to get a script in place to handle something like that.
There are several features of the site that are in need of address. Namely, the fact the aforementioned checkbox is not visible to anyone but admins and the submitter, plus the broken "is this your work?" feature. In addition, I look forward to seeing a quick "copy attribution text to clipboard" button and some form of automatic derivative linking.
Interestingly, any CC-BY-SA 3.0 license can be upgraded to CC-BY-SA 4.0 already, even without the "allow later versions..." checkbox; -SA has an upgrade clause built-in, but CC-BY does not. :/
All this being said, this may be less of a risk here than many suspect/fear, for several reasons:
As many of you have pointed out, this is predominantly affecting stock images. Copyleft trolls have a lot harder time automating the process of identifying content from OGA being used in the wild since most of it is being used in video games. As of yet, there is no "reverse video game lookup" like there is for stock images.
Furthermore, and more importantly, the "minor attribution errors" are the very thing we're obsessively clear about. Although it would be ideal to have a quick "attribution text" button, the suggested attribution guidelines in the FAQ are highly resistant to the kind of thing the article is talking about. I have no idea how often people follow those guidelines, but provided you do follow them, you have very little to worry about.
Thirdly, I (and many of you) watch for bad experiences coming back to OGA. Any time someone says something like "I used this in a youtube video, but I got a content ID strike" You can be sure I take notice. It doesn't mean the submitter is a copyleft troll. Sometimes it's just a mistake. But we always take them down immediately until it's resolved. If anyone comes across a "bad experience" leading from OGA in your internet travels, let me know right away. We've seen a few copyright trolls, and they were quickly dealt with, but I have yet to encounter even a rumor of copyleft trolling on OGA. Let me know if you see something suspicious.
Lastly, if you think you may be the target of a copyleft/right troll, inform me so that I may unleash the full force of righteous wrath upon the evildoers! We have access to legal resources, and my rage fuels pro-bono defenses.
True, but I think that suggests a solution to your concern. Make a streaming policy for Minetest. Perhaps I don't understand the concern, though.
You have to do that anyway. That's a requirement of CC-BY. If Minetest uses CC-BY assest, then it must make clear that those assets require attribution... by way of indicating the license and giving attribution. I do see your point about streamers not bothering to scour the credits page for that kind of thing, but a streaming policy would resolve that if the goal is to encourage (safe) streaming of Minetest. Again, the streamers only have to be concerned with that if they aren't protected by Fair Use for some reason. Regardless, a URL to a credits page in the video description is considered acceptable attribution. If a troll wants to belabor that point, I submit the issue is not any license you could use, attribution or otherwise, it is trusting assets from a troll... which I am constantly on guard for anyone doing that here.
That certainly wasn't my intent. If I am arguing against a position that doesn't exist, it is only because I am misunderstanding your position. To be honest, suggesting that streamers will get sued over video of a community-supported game that uses CC-BY assets seems like a straw man argument as well. Though my goal is not to argue against you, only to assuage any concern you may have over the use of any specific open source licenses; because I believe it really is both low risk and not the root of the problem.
That would be insane. Why would the let's-players get in trouble? Let's-play videos are (generally) under Fair Use and are (generally) not considered derivatives. I wasn't saying Fair Use doesn't apply to any content using CC licenses. I was saying Fair Use has nothing to do with CC licenses. They are two entirely separate things. Videos of GPL content, or MIT content, would be just as liable for failing to include a copy of the license text in their videos. That is to say, if what they're doing is Fair Use, they wouldn't be liable at all.
The people making the videos are responsible for determining if their use qualifies as Fair Use, not the developer of the game they're featuring in the videos. There are videos of every closed source commercial game on the market, but the creators of those videos aren't getting sued either, even though the license of the assets featured in the game are proprietary. Blizzard isn't suing the makers of the Leeroy Jenkins video even though it consists entirely of uncredited World of Warcraft intellectual property.
Substitute any license into that sentence and it still holds the same weight. Because the issue is not the license, it's copyright trolls. Observe:
Hmm... that was resolved. Sorry. Try it now.
I think you're missing what I'm asking. No one is able to download the 2D texture map, because you uploaded a screenshot in its place.
The "104_hextiles_00.jpg" file should be under File(s): but its under Preview instead. It would be better if it were a .png file instead of .jpg, too since jpg is so lossy.
The "hexagonal_terrain_world_01.jpg" file should be under Preview but its under File(s) instead.
I think the "download" file and the "preview" file are reversed... or I don't really understand the purpose of the jpg you uploaded. It appears to be screenshot of 3D rendered terrain, which isn't really a 2D asset or a 3D asset.
wow. Did you make all of these? What textures are these based on?
Art by the same submitter submitted in rapid succession gets pushed back 24 hours temporarily. Spammers submit like that to saturate the front page with ads. This gives me a chance to remove it without it getting picked up by seo indexing crawlers.
In the case of non spammers, it gives everyone else a chance on the front page instead of being immediately pushed off by one submitter. If you're submitting a lot of similar stuff that works well together, it is better to submit them as a set or album on one submission instead of, for example, 6 different submissions containing one sprite/texture/song each.
Why wouldn't you just include the extended version here as well?
I agree it is morally sound to automatically add the upgraded version of licenses anywhere the author checked the "allow later version..." box. The technological feasibility is ... not impossible, but it will take some work to get a script in place to handle something like that.
There are several features of the site that are in need of address. Namely, the fact the aforementioned checkbox is not visible to anyone but admins and the submitter, plus the broken "is this your work?" feature. In addition, I look forward to seeing a quick "copy attribution text to clipboard" button and some form of automatic derivative linking.
Interestingly, any CC-BY-SA 3.0 license can be upgraded to CC-BY-SA 4.0 already, even without the "allow later versions..." checkbox; -SA has an upgrade clause built-in, but CC-BY does not. :/
All this being said, this may be less of a risk here than many suspect/fear, for several reasons:
As many of you have pointed out, this is predominantly affecting stock images. Copyleft trolls have a lot harder time automating the process of identifying content from OGA being used in the wild since most of it is being used in video games. As of yet, there is no "reverse video game lookup" like there is for stock images.
Furthermore, and more importantly, the "minor attribution errors" are the very thing we're obsessively clear about. Although it would be ideal to have a quick "attribution text" button, the suggested attribution guidelines in the FAQ are highly resistant to the kind of thing the article is talking about. I have no idea how often people follow those guidelines, but provided you do follow them, you have very little to worry about.
Thirdly, I (and many of you) watch for bad experiences coming back to OGA. Any time someone says something like "I used this in a youtube video, but I got a content ID strike" You can be sure I take notice. It doesn't mean the submitter is a copyleft troll. Sometimes it's just a mistake. But we always take them down immediately until it's resolved. If anyone comes across a "bad experience" leading from OGA in your internet travels, let me know right away. We've seen a few copyright trolls, and they were quickly dealt with, but I have yet to encounter even a rumor of copyleft trolling on OGA. Let me know if you see something suspicious.
Lastly, if you think you may be the target of a copyleft/right troll, inform me so that I may unleash the full force of righteous wrath upon the evildoers! We have access to legal resources, and my rage fuels pro-bono defenses.
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