Art content licensing question

[Bart Kelsey]

Greets!

I was wondering if the following license (heavily modified from zlib) would be acceptable for works of art included Debian:

This work is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied

warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
arising from the use of this work.

Permission is granted to anyone to use this work for any purpose,
including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it

freely, subject to the following restrictions:

   1. The origin of this work must not be misrepresented; you must not
   claim that you created the original work. If you use this work
   in a product, an acknowledgment of this use is required.


   2. Altered versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
   misrepresented as being the original work.

   3. All derivatives of this work must be released under this license.
   For the purpose of this license, a derivative is a work generated by

   modifying the licensed work.

   4. All aggregates containing this work must be allowed to be sold,
   swapped, given away, or otherwise distributed freely.

   5. This notice may not be removed or altered from this work.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Bart

--
--

[Francesco Poli (t1000)]

On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:21:05 -0400 Bart Kelsey wrote:

> Greets!

Hi!  :-)

>
> I was wondering if the following license (heavily modified from zlib) would
> be acceptable for works of art included Debian:

The license is only a far relative of the zlib license.
It even attempts to implement a (weak) copyleft, in contrast with
the non-copyleft nature of zlib...

[...]
>    1. [...] If you use this work
>    in a product, an acknowledgment of this use is required.

I am not sure that this is fine: would an acknowledgment in the product
packaging or documentation suffice?
Or must I buy TV advertisement time-slots on all TV broadcasters across
the world, in order to let anyone know that I used the work in my
product?

[...]
>    4. All aggregates containing this work must be allowed to be sold,
>    swapped, given away, or otherwise distributed freely.

I personally think that this fails to meet DFSG #9, as it contaminates
other software distributed along with the licensed work.

[...]
> Any thoughts?

My own personal opinion is that this license is *not* suitable for
Debian.

What do others think?


--
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..................................................... Francesco Poli .
 GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12  31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4

[Bart Kelsey]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Francesco Poli <frx@...> wrote:

On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:21:05 -0400 Bart Kelsey wrote:

> Greets!

Hi!  :-)

>
> I was wondering if the following license (heavily modified from zlib) would
> be acceptable for works of art included Debian:

The license is only a far relative of the zlib license.
It even attempts to implement a (weak) copyleft, in contrast with
the non-copyleft nature of zlib...

[...]
>    1. [...] If you use this work

>    in a product, an acknowledgment of this use is required.

I am not sure that this is fine: would an acknowledgment in the product
packaging or documentation suffice?
Or must I buy TV advertisement time-slots on all TV broadcasters across
the world, in order to let anyone know that I used the work in my
product?

[...]

>    4. All aggregates containing this work must be allowed to be sold,
>    swapped, given away, or otherwise distributed freely.

I personally think that this fails to meet DFSG #9, as it contaminates
other software distributed along with the licensed work.

[...]
> Any thoughts?

My own personal opinion is that this license is *not* suitable for
Debian.

What do others think?


--
 New location for my website! Update your bookmarks!
 http://www.inventati.org/frx
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
 GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12  31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4

Okay, here's a brief explanation of what it is that I'm trying to accomplish.  There are a significant number of artists out there who would like to contribute art (graphics, music, etc) to FOSS game projects, but are nervous about their work being exploited through loopholes in licenses like the GPL, which may allow proprietary interests to bundle their work with code that doesn't allow free redistribution.  I would prefer to avoid getting into a discussion about whether this is really permissible under the GPL, and instead address the issue with a clear, simple license that leaves no room for interpretation on this matter.

In short:  If someone creates freely redistributable media for a game, they want to be sure that media is only used as a part of a freely redistributable game.  This would prevent someone from bundling their artwork with, say, a game engine, and putting restrictions on the redistribution of the game engine, while allowing free redistribution of the art.

I may have overstepped a bit in terms of "aggregate".  What I'd *like* for this license to cover is basically a *project* -- a piece of software, as a whole, which makes use of the media in question.  There isn't really a need to contaminate *other* software with this license.

Here's a revised version:

This work is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied

warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
arising from the use of this work.


Permission is granted to anyone to use this work for any purpose,

including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it

freely, subject to the following restrictions:

   1. The origin of this work must not be misrepresented; you must not
   claim that you created the original work. If you use this work

   in a product, an acknowledgment of this use is required in the
   product documentation or credits.

   2. Altered versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
   misrepresented as being the original work.


   3. All derivatives of this work must be released under this license.
   For the purpose of this license, a "derivative" is a work generated
   by modifying the licensed work.

   4. All projects containing this work must be allowed to be sold,

   swapped, given away, or otherwise distributed freely by anyone. For 
   the purpose of this license, a "project" is a piece of software 
   (such as a game), or other work that depends on the licensed work 

   in order to function as a whole.

   5. This notice may not be removed or altered from this work.

Does this work a bit better?

Thanks,
Bart
--
--

[Joerg Jaspert]

> Okay, here's a brief explanation of what it is that I'm trying to
> accomplish.  There are a significant number of artists out there who would
> like to contribute art (graphics, music, etc) to FOSS game projects, but are
> nervous about their work being exploited through loopholes in licenses like
> the GPL, which may allow proprietary interests to bundle their work with
> code that doesn't allow free redistribution.  I would prefer to avoid
> getting into a discussion about whether this is really permissible under the
> GPL, and instead address the issue with a clear, simple license that leaves
> no room for interpretation on this matter.

> In short:  If someone creates freely redistributable media for a game, they
> want to be sure that media is only used as a part of a freely
> redistributable game.  This would prevent someone from bundling their
> artwork with, say, a game engine, and putting restrictions on the
> redistribution of the game engine, while allowing free redistribution of the
> art.

http://blog.ganneff.de/blog/2008/03/22/write-a-new-license-every-day.html

You are going the wrong way. We have too many licenses, we DO NOT NEED
YET ANOTHER.

--
bye, Joerg
It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there
when it happens.
  -- Woody Allen


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[Bart Kelsey]

Dearest Joerg,

Thanks for taking the time to read my post and give it due consideration.  I've looked through the myriad Free licenses out there and I have yet to find one that accomplishes this goal.  I gather you're aware of one that does what I'm looking for, because it would be pretty rude of you just to post a link to a terse blog post that calls me an idiot and tells me to die a horrible death.

Thanks,
Bart
http://opengameart.org

[MJ Ray-2]

Bart Kelsey wrote:
> I may have overstepped a bit in terms of "aggregate".  What I'd *like* for
> this license to cover is basically a *project* -- a piece of software, as a
> whole, which makes use of the media in question.  There isn't really a need
> to contaminate *other* software with this license.

If the game engine can be split from the media in question then it is
*other* software and the aim of this licence is to require particular
licence terms on it, which will break DFSG #9.

Copyright law generally doesn't work on a project level and that's a
feature, not a bug, because it allows us to rescue good code from
being aggregated with restricted works.

Regards,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct


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