"There is nothing in the submission guidelines that say that when you submit something, you implicitly give OGA the right to redistribute the work." Note the word "implicit" here. By uploading your work to a site that publicly hosts art you are giving the site permission to publicly host your art. And in turn, if that direct permission is revoked we don't keep hosting work on the site, even if the relevant licenses would allow us to. That's not done for legal reasons but nevertheless it's how things are run and it would likely provie a very formidable defense from anything frivolous.
As I've said, though, that only applies in cases where the sole author is uploading their own work. Where third parties have uploaded it would just be under the terms of the license itself. But that would likely clear the field even more.
It's only a little technical argument though--not much help for promoting the actual purpose of the site which is to provide useful, unencumbered freely-licensed assets. But it could help stave off some complaints at the site itself.
"The problem is that when you upload something to OGA that has the GPL license, then OGA itself becomes a distributor of the GPL'ed work. Legally, the burden is then on OGA to provide the sources on request, as required by the GPL."
Just a quick side-note here, that's not necessarily the case. If the author uploads their own work here OGA is hosting it with their direct permission, not under the terms of the GPL. That it happens to be GPL-licensed is irrelevant. I'm not sure whether there's a similar out in the case of people who aren't the sole author of a work uploading though.
To answer the question: such a feature has definitely been considered. I don't know how high up it is on the priority list.
By the way, I did get in touch with Bart recently, and he is alive. Apparently among other things he's been working on the spam filter, which seems to be working somewhat better now.
I don't know why deletion was requested for this item.
While we will not continue hosting art against an artist's wishes, the licenses themselves are irrevocable. I see no evidence that the art was mistakenly or fradulently licensed so you should be in the clear legally. You might want to contact the artist for clarification but on a strictly legal level it shouldn't be a problem.
Here's the thing. Mods technically have the ability to do that, but not necessarily the authority. As I understand it, my modship was given for the purpose of deleting spam, marking licensing issues and occasionally smoothing over small conflicts. Even if he isn't around much, it's still Bart's site and I don't want to overstep the bounds too much. I also wouldn't have much to say these days; I'm drafting my thesis so I occasionally stop in to delete spam and check things on the front page that catch my eye, but I haven't been properly keeping up for a while. I haven't even been updating my art collections.
I have suggested to him that he ought to put up a small update, both through direct and indirect channels. It is embarrasing that our latest update is from last year and about a security failure, even if the actual damage was very minor. I haven't heard back from him though. I mean, I get it, he has two young kids now and his priorities have likely shifted. Stuff happens. Nevertheless, if I end up with more time after getting my degree I think I'll try to do more, permission or no.
The problem with CC-By-NC isn't so much the NC part as the CC part in my opinion. It has no part in the 'creative commons', it's simply a handy license for distributing work that you only want people to be able to consume personally for free but not otherwise compete with your external revenue streams. Very useful and good for customers in some instances, but it has nothing to do with creative usage of the work. Not quite as bad as -ND, though, which is somehow worse in that regard.
It's a very real problem. I haven't been in touch with Bart in quite a while. I try to stop in every now and then and clean the most obvious spam but there is definitely lots left and my time is quite limited by grad school demands. On the plus side, we've recently added Medicinestorm to our modding lineup! So there is that!
"There is nothing in the submission guidelines that say that when you submit something, you implicitly give OGA the right to redistribute the work."
Note the word "implicit" here. By uploading your work to a site that publicly hosts art you are giving the site permission to publicly host your art. And in turn, if that direct permission is revoked we don't keep hosting work on the site, even if the relevant licenses would allow us to. That's not done for legal reasons but nevertheless it's how things are run and it would likely provie a very formidable defense from anything frivolous.
As I've said, though, that only applies in cases where the sole author is uploading their own work. Where third parties have uploaded it would just be under the terms of the license itself. But that would likely clear the field even more.
It's only a little technical argument though--not much help for promoting the actual purpose of the site which is to provide useful, unencumbered freely-licensed assets. But it could help stave off some complaints at the site itself.
"The problem is that when you upload something to OGA that has the GPL license, then OGA itself becomes a distributor of the GPL'ed work. Legally, the burden is then on OGA to provide the sources on request, as required by the GPL."
Just a quick side-note here, that's not necessarily the case. If the author uploads their own work here OGA is hosting it with their direct permission, not under the terms of the GPL. That it happens to be GPL-licensed is irrelevant. I'm not sure whether there's a similar out in the case of people who aren't the sole author of a work uploading though.
To answer the question: such a feature has definitely been considered. I don't know how high up it is on the priority list.
By the way, I did get in touch with Bart recently, and he is alive. Apparently among other things he's been working on the spam filter, which seems to be working somewhat better now.
Botanic assures me he is alive and well. I haven't had any contact in several months.
But this is OGA, where everything is made up and the points don't matter!
That's right, the points are just like that CC-By-NC licensed asset you found somewhere online! They just don't matter!
I don't know why deletion was requested for this item.
While we will not continue hosting art against an artist's wishes, the licenses themselves are irrevocable. I see no evidence that the art was mistakenly or fradulently licensed so you should be in the clear legally. You might want to contact the artist for clarification but on a strictly legal level it shouldn't be a problem.
Here's the thing. Mods technically have the ability to do that, but not necessarily the authority. As I understand it, my modship was given for the purpose of deleting spam, marking licensing issues and occasionally smoothing over small conflicts. Even if he isn't around much, it's still Bart's site and I don't want to overstep the bounds too much. I also wouldn't have much to say these days; I'm drafting my thesis so I occasionally stop in to delete spam and check things on the front page that catch my eye, but I haven't been properly keeping up for a while. I haven't even been updating my art collections.
I have suggested to him that he ought to put up a small update, both through direct and indirect channels. It is embarrasing that our latest update is from last year and about a security failure, even if the actual damage was very minor. I haven't heard back from him though. I mean, I get it, he has two young kids now and his priorities have likely shifted. Stuff happens. Nevertheless, if I end up with more time after getting my degree I think I'll try to do more, permission or no.
The problem with CC-By-NC isn't so much the NC part as the CC part in my opinion. It has no part in the 'creative commons', it's simply a handy license for distributing work that you only want people to be able to consume personally for free but not otherwise compete with your external revenue streams. Very useful and good for customers in some instances, but it has nothing to do with creative usage of the work. Not quite as bad as -ND, though, which is somehow worse in that regard.
(Despite Bart not being very visible it's best not to poke the back end stuff on the site. Better to poke Botanic to poke it if you can).
It's a very real problem. I haven't been in touch with Bart in quite a while. I try to stop in every now and then and clean the most obvious spam but there is definitely lots left and my time is quite limited by grad school demands. On the plus side, we've recently added Medicinestorm to our modding lineup! So there is that!
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