I believe there IS a way to post it here. :) Well, some of it, anyway. That's what I need your help with.
The stuff from Mack's characters can't stay, but that doesn't mean ALL of it has to go. You've got hundreds of files, surely not all of them are based on Mack's characters, right? Like the Computer-Console-007- files. Is that based on Mack's artwork? ;P
What files or groups of files are based on Mack's artwork? Let's start there. After that, let me know the following:
Which files, if any, are modifications (or based off of) artwork from the RPG Maker RTP? (note: putting the sprites or artwork in a RPG-Maker-compatible format is fine. We just need to determine if the artists who made them used the RPG-Maker artwork as a guide otherwise.)
Do you know the artists or sources for the rest of the art? if so, who/where are they from? if not, we'll have to look into those a bit more.
Are any files made (in part) out of pictures from google? Like the purple Bezos one. Using the likeness of actual people without those people's permission is often a problem, so we need to know which ones use images of actual people or images where we don't know who made them.
Eh, don't worry about it. I can answer questions here, no problem.
They were made in Game Character Hub for the characters. We did use the Looseleaf Character parts. We can credit Mack in this but we're allowed to redistribute. Don't freak out. What's wrong?
Understood. Unfortunately crediting Mack is not sufficient to satisfy the license he placed that artwork under. I'm not freaking out. Nothing is wrong. We're not calling the cops on you or something stupid like that. If anything, WE're in trouble. Not you. :)
If you guys want to get cracked out on the license we can change it really quick on your site to make it right. What's the issue here? We take bits and pieces from others where we're allowed to.
We appreciate that, but none of the licenses available here on OGA are compatible with Mack's license. It would be very simple to just change the license to Mack's license, but that is not one of the options. That is the issue. Yes you're allowed to take bits and alter them (known as deriving) in the case of Mack's characters. Your game is, as far as I know, legally good-to-go. :)
Looseleaf parts came with Game Character Hub, is it not ok to make characters with game characer hub with the components that came with it from a purchased Steam Product?
Honestly, Game Character Hub should not have distributed Mack's artwork with the software. Mack's license forbids people redistributing his work or derivatives of it in anything but a game. GCH is not a game, so they should not have packaged and distributed it. However, that is on GCH, not you. If it were me, I'm not sure I'd use GCH to make those characters, but you'll have to make that decision for yourself. The fact that you purchased these on steam doesn't make it ok, though. The steam seller is ALSO technically in violation of the license because- although it is being distributed for USE in a game- it is not being distributed IN a game. it is being distributed on steam.
I am sorry I posted this. I feel like a fucking criminal right now but all I wanted to do was provide bulk assets to the overall community that they could use in their game. I've done nothing wrong. I don't want any credit. I don't own it. I am just sharing what I built with random cahracter generator based on a few uniforms I created.
You really shouldn't feel that way. You clearly didn't know. Unfortunately, since mack said the characters and derivatives can't be redistributed outside of a game, your creations with the random character generator can't be shared here on OGA. You can use them in your game, but this page is not a game, so sharing them here will get us in trouble. That is why we had to mark them with a licensing issue. Not to punish you or show how angry we are; just so we don't get in trouble for having it on our site. Also, that's only temporary. I'm betting not ALL of the art is affected by such licenses. I'm hoping the other parts can still stay. When we find out what parts those are, everyone can download them and enjoy them. :)
I'm sorry. I'm not a copyright lawyer and I know there's like 1000 types of licenses. I am just trying to release material that's my own or heavily modified and allowed for the general public to use for whatever they want and I don't want any credit and just want to help others get materials they need because it's what held me back for years...not having enough bulk material.
Of course you're not a lawyer. We don't expect you to be. :) The original post indicating the issue with licensing was not to say what a bad lawyer you were. It was just to inform you of why we have to verify some things before we can proceed. Your desire to share the assets you've created/derived is admirable. That should continue. That being said, we just need to verify the origin and licenses of some assets sometimes. This way, everyone that uses the assets they find here can be confident they aren't going to get in trouble or served with a Cease and Desist when they release their game.
I'm sorry if that makes me a bad person or not able to post here. I have nothing to hide. But I feel like this has escalated and gotten hostile out of nowhere.
Nope. Doesn't make you a bad person at all. There was no hostility. I've made similar submissions that had to be verified before, too. Did I get banned? Heck no. They made me an admin. I don't feel like it escalated very far. I think it was just a misunderstanding. No one was saying your stuff was bad quality or that you are bad, just that the differences in quality indicate a broad spectrum of licenses (i.e. you got them from many different places that may have different licenses), so the sources need to be looked into more. Even if you had 100% stole these from a sega game or something (I know you didn't steal anything, obviously) we still wouldn't ban you. We would just say "sorry we can't host these here because the license saga put on them doesn't allow us to. But if you find others that are open source, please share them! :)"
Now, with all that being said, do you have any other questions before we start getting this great art available to everyone?
Actually, Mack's license DOES allow you to use them commercially. That part isn't the issue, though. Google translate does a crappy job at translating his license. A more accurate translation of the problematic part would be:
(translated from Japanese) <...however, regardless of it being commercial or free, it is expressly forbidden to package and distribute just the resources in such collections as "resource packs" and so forth. These resources may only be distributed inside a game.>
There seems to be a lot of questions. I'd be happy to answer them. It may be easier to do so over a chat client like IRC. Would you like to converse via the OpenGameArt channel?
Chill for a second. No one is being hostile. No one is angry at you for sharing these assets. You aren't a criminal and no one said otherwise.
You ARE allowed to use the Mack/Looseleaf artwork in your game. Unfortunately you are not allowed to redistribute it outside of a game. Hosting the art here on OGA, which is not a game, is not allowed though. Most people don't know this. You aren't being blamed, just informed that we can't really legally host some of this artwork here or share it with others because the license doesn't allow it.
Like I said, a lot of these look pretty interesting and I'd love it if the truly FOSS components could stay. We like this art and we're happy you've decided to share it, we just need to verify which components are allowed to be shared. That's it. :)
I'm afraid these appear to include assets derived from the mack/looseleaf set as well as components packaged with Game Character Hub that should never have been distributed in that manner. Such assets and their derivatives are legally incompatible with the licenses accepted on OGA.
Can you indicate where the assets in this submission came from?
Until then I have to mark this with a licensing issue. Similar submissions (for the same project: Star Shift) had to be taken down for similar reasons before:
A lot of these look pretty interesting and I'd love it if the truly FOSS components could stay, but I have to agree with Surt. We will need to verify the origins. Please let me know if you have questions.
Nice, but you should include the 3D files here on this site. It's fine to link to your own site, but the assets must be available here in a usable form as well.
Nice cover art, :) but audio submissions should always have an audio file (.ogg, .mp3) as the first preview file so people can hear a sample of it from the main page. Would you be willing to add a sample of the music before the cover art preview?
Also, some of the tags are redundant: this is already in the "music" category, and everything on this site is for games, so tags like "music" and "game music" are unneccessary.
@hernandack: yes, I'm also not terribly familiar with drupal. We could switch to another framework, but we definitely need a robust CMS framework at the very least. OGA is big and complicated; lots of file types, lots of widgets to get images and thumbnails auto-converted, etc. Drupal is such a CMS framework, and switching to another CMS has no guarantee of being any more familiar to more users. We also know that the current data is organized in such a way that migrating from Drupal to Drupal is going to be easier than migrating from, say, Drupal to Joomla or something. I'm not saying we won't be changing to some other framework. Just that I don't know of a superior alternative at this time, despite my own unfamiliarity with it. I am looking forward to exploring drupal 8 though! :)
We are certainly looking for interested people who would like to help out with both coding as well as UI design and even sql data migration. If you're interested in helping out, drop us a line!
@bonsaiheldin: agreed. more transparency = more understanding. I can't speak to the patreon stuff since I don't have any dealings with that, but I like the code being openly available as a start. The current OGA2 code being available is definitely useful since it allows coders to see how the code currently operates, which informs how the code could operate (or should be fixed) in OGA3 code.
OGA does currently have a code of conduct already: No discussion of religion. No discussion of politics, except relating directly to copyright, the Creative Commons, and/or FOSS. Don't be racist, homophobic, or otherwise hateful. More details on the FAQ, but this is intentionally very simple. Bart feels (and I agree) that adding a bunch of specificity doesn't actually prevent additional offense and often serves to promote people trying to find edge-case loopholes where they push the envelope to see just how far they can go without getting banned. While enforcing the rule "Don't be racist, homophobic, or otherwise hateful" makes more specific rules superfluous. (like "don't be ableist, don't use covert anti-semitic hatespeech signals, don't use microagressions to make backhanded insults" which are far more difficult to accurately define) Most users violating the CoC do not do so because we didn't have one or because they weren't aware of its existence, so I am not sure if a more formalized CoC would prevent much. However, it may be worth exploring a way to make this CoC more prominent to new users in the new verstion of the site. :)
Having more people manage the various social presentations of OGA as well as the day-to-day administration of the site is a good idea, and we're well on our way toward that end: OGA's social media accounts are being extended to a few select volunteers. For starters, the OGA GitHub is now official and active (Thanks AntumDeluge and Botanic!)
This is more of a tileset ("2D art") than it is a texture, though. Also, I am not the author of the superpowers assets. I am just the gal who shared it here on OGA. Sparklin Labs is the author as indicated in the description and attribution notice of the submission you've linked to. :)
I believe there IS a way to post it here. :) Well, some of it, anyway. That's what I need your help with.
The stuff from Mack's characters can't stay, but that doesn't mean ALL of it has to go. You've got hundreds of files, surely not all of them are based on Mack's characters, right? Like the Computer-Console-007- files. Is that based on Mack's artwork? ;P
What files or groups of files are based on Mack's artwork? Let's start there. After that, let me know the following:
Eh, don't worry about it. I can answer questions here, no problem.
Understood. Unfortunately crediting Mack is not sufficient to satisfy the license he placed that artwork under. I'm not freaking out. Nothing is wrong. We're not calling the cops on you or something stupid like that. If anything, WE're in trouble. Not you. :)
We appreciate that, but none of the licenses available here on OGA are compatible with Mack's license. It would be very simple to just change the license to Mack's license, but that is not one of the options. That is the issue. Yes you're allowed to take bits and alter them (known as deriving) in the case of Mack's characters. Your game is, as far as I know, legally good-to-go. :)
Honestly, Game Character Hub should not have distributed Mack's artwork with the software. Mack's license forbids people redistributing his work or derivatives of it in anything but a game. GCH is not a game, so they should not have packaged and distributed it. However, that is on GCH, not you. If it were me, I'm not sure I'd use GCH to make those characters, but you'll have to make that decision for yourself. The fact that you purchased these on steam doesn't make it ok, though. The steam seller is ALSO technically in violation of the license because- although it is being distributed for USE in a game- it is not being distributed IN a game. it is being distributed on steam.
You really shouldn't feel that way. You clearly didn't know. Unfortunately, since mack said the characters and derivatives can't be redistributed outside of a game, your creations with the random character generator can't be shared here on OGA. You can use them in your game, but this page is not a game, so sharing them here will get us in trouble. That is why we had to mark them with a licensing issue. Not to punish you or show how angry we are; just so we don't get in trouble for having it on our site. Also, that's only temporary. I'm betting not ALL of the art is affected by such licenses. I'm hoping the other parts can still stay. When we find out what parts those are, everyone can download them and enjoy them. :)
Of course you're not a lawyer. We don't expect you to be. :) The original post indicating the issue with licensing was not to say what a bad lawyer you were. It was just to inform you of why we have to verify some things before we can proceed. Your desire to share the assets you've created/derived is admirable. That should continue. That being said, we just need to verify the origin and licenses of some assets sometimes. This way, everyone that uses the assets they find here can be confident they aren't going to get in trouble or served with a Cease and Desist when they release their game.
Nope. Doesn't make you a bad person at all. There was no hostility. I've made similar submissions that had to be verified before, too. Did I get banned? Heck no. They made me an admin. I don't feel like it escalated very far. I think it was just a misunderstanding. No one was saying your stuff was bad quality or that you are bad, just that the differences in quality indicate a broad spectrum of licenses (i.e. you got them from many different places that may have different licenses), so the sources need to be looked into more. Even if you had 100% stole these from a sega game or something (I know you didn't steal anything, obviously) we still wouldn't ban you. We would just say "sorry we can't host these here because the license saga put on them doesn't allow us to. But if you find others that are open source, please share them! :)"
Now, with all that being said, do you have any other questions before we start getting this great art available to everyone?
Actually, Mack's license DOES allow you to use them commercially. That part isn't the issue, though. Google translate does a crappy job at translating his license. A more accurate translation of the problematic part would be:
There seems to be a lot of questions. I'd be happy to answer them. It may be easier to do so over a chat client like IRC. Would you like to converse via the OpenGameArt channel?
wait wait WAIT.
Chill for a second. No one is being hostile. No one is angry at you for sharing these assets. You aren't a criminal and no one said otherwise.
You ARE allowed to use the Mack/Looseleaf artwork in your game. Unfortunately you are not allowed to redistribute it outside of a game. Hosting the art here on OGA, which is not a game, is not allowed though. Most people don't know this. You aren't being blamed, just informed that we can't really legally host some of this artwork here or share it with others because the license doesn't allow it.
Like I said, a lot of these look pretty interesting and I'd love it if the truly FOSS components could stay. We like this art and we're happy you've decided to share it, we just need to verify which components are allowed to be shared. That's it. :)
I'm afraid these appear to include assets derived from the mack/looseleaf set as well as components packaged with Game Character Hub that should never have been distributed in that manner. Such assets and their derivatives are legally incompatible with the licenses accepted on OGA.
Can you indicate where the assets in this submission came from?
Until then I have to mark this with a licensing issue. Similar submissions (for the same project: Star Shift) had to be taken down for similar reasons before:
A lot of these look pretty interesting and I'd love it if the truly FOSS components could stay, but I have to agree with Surt. We will need to verify the origins. Please let me know if you have questions.
Nice,
but you should include the 3D files here on this site. It's fine to link to your own site, but the assets must be available here in a usable form as well.thanks!
Nice cover art, :)
but audio submissions should always have an audio file (.ogg, .mp3) as the first preview file so people can hear a sample of it from the main page. Would you be willing to add a sample of the music before the cover art preview?Also, some of the tags are redundant: this is already in the "music" category, and everything on this site is for games, so tags like "music" and "game music" are unneccessary.Thanks for sharing!
@hernandack: yes, I'm also not terribly familiar with drupal. We could switch to another framework, but we definitely need a robust CMS framework at the very least. OGA is big and complicated; lots of file types, lots of widgets to get images and thumbnails auto-converted, etc. Drupal is such a CMS framework, and switching to another CMS has no guarantee of being any more familiar to more users. We also know that the current data is organized in such a way that migrating from Drupal to Drupal is going to be easier than migrating from, say, Drupal to Joomla or something. I'm not saying we won't be changing to some other framework. Just that I don't know of a superior alternative at this time, despite my own unfamiliarity with it. I am looking forward to exploring drupal 8 though! :)
We are certainly looking for interested people who would like to help out with both coding as well as UI design and even sql data migration. If you're interested in helping out, drop us a line!
@bonsaiheldin: agreed. more transparency = more understanding. I can't speak to the patreon stuff since I don't have any dealings with that, but I like the code being openly available as a start. The current OGA2 code being available is definitely useful since it allows coders to see how the code currently operates, which informs how the code could operate (or should be fixed) in OGA3 code.
OGA does currently have a code of conduct already: No discussion of religion. No discussion of politics, except relating directly to copyright, the Creative Commons, and/or FOSS. Don't be racist, homophobic, or otherwise hateful. More details on the FAQ, but this is intentionally very simple. Bart feels (and I agree) that adding a bunch of specificity doesn't actually prevent additional offense and often serves to promote people trying to find edge-case loopholes where they push the envelope to see just how far they can go without getting banned. While enforcing the rule "Don't be racist, homophobic, or otherwise hateful" makes more specific rules superfluous. (like "don't be ableist, don't use covert anti-semitic hatespeech signals, don't use microagressions to make backhanded insults" which are far more difficult to accurately define) Most users violating the CoC do not do so because we didn't have one or because they weren't aware of its existence, so I am not sure if a more formalized CoC would prevent much. However, it may be worth exploring a way to make this CoC more prominent to new users in the new verstion of the site. :)
Having more people manage the various social presentations of OGA as well as the day-to-day administration of the site is a good idea, and we're well on our way toward that end: OGA's social media accounts are being extended to a few select volunteers. For starters, the OGA GitHub is now official and active (Thanks AntumDeluge and Botanic!)
Nice!
This is more of a tileset ("2D art") than it is a texture, though. Also, I am not the author of the superpowers assets. I am just the gal who shared it here on OGA. Sparklin Labs is the author as indicated in the description and attribution notice of the submission you've linked to. :)thanks. :)
Pages