Creative Commons has its uses. We use it in my RL job for "open access content", which goes under Creative Commons Deed 2.5. Which is now superseded by 3.0.

That just says: you can share, you can adapt, credit the original.

So is it all Creative Commons? Or some particular licenses? Or most people's inability to use the appropriate licenses?

I think it's NOT bollocks, but that people use restricted licenses in such a way that they are BOLLOCKS for doing so.

Edit: Oh, here's an explanation of the licenses for those needing to get up to speed.

Nah its not bollocks at all. Frankly why should you get something for nothing?

Jon Hodgson
www.jonhodgson.net

...to previous "Bollocks" threads for good linking.

...the Attribution licence seems fine to me.

Jon, to me, it's not really a question of getting something for nothing. I'm happy to pay an artist for work; happy to credit him.

But the idea that someone should say "Hey, you can use my art, as long as you release all your stuff for free!": that's the bollocks part.

And it's the laziness of it. "I'm releasing all my stuff, but I'm not really, because you can only use it in certain very specific ways!".

And it's the fact that it works against the creator-owned community. We're based around people releasing their work and getting paid for it. That whole Non-Commerical bollocks works against that.

Oh, and I think it discourages communication, too. In the old days, I'd find a nice image, and write to the artist saying "Can I use this?", and he'd say yes or no or credit me.

These days, it's on the license, so there's no incentive to write to the artist. And I think that works against the artist, too: if we'd had that initial communication, I'd be more likely to
drop another email and say "I need this other thing, how much would you charge?".

Not arguing with you, Jon...well, I am, of course....but in a "willing to discuss" way.

Graham

I think its about what you want to do. Using the example of Storn's work, I'm sure it saves him loads of hassle from people asking if they can use his art for their character if he puts the license on. That's his motivation. Its a good gate keeping strategy to prevent you having to repeat yourself.

I get 5 or 6 emails a week asking for permission to use things for free in non-profit ventures. I always say no unless its actually for charity (and its amazing how many people regard their homebrew rpg as a charitable project!) because I am a very bad person.
Edit - But Storn obviously doesn't mind, and that's his way of telling people. /edit

But knowing Storn, I'm sure he would be really happy to receive an email enquiring as to the availability of rights for pay. Assuming he wouldn't is, well, a (mistaken) assumption.

Jon Hodgson
www.jonhodgson.net

Creative Commons can be useful, but I think it is also overused and often misunderstood. Those who use it frequently don't always understand the consequences of the license for those who make use of their art, or don't intend for their art to be used in commercial ventures but don't mind other people doing stuff like photomanipulating it, colouring it, that kind of thing.

I can't help getting the feeling that you hate it purely because it's stopping you from using art that you'd like to use for free. However look at it from this angle: if it wasn't under Creative Commons, it'd still be under copyright which would stop you using it in any way whatsoever. The only liberty you are losing is an illusory liberty brought about by a license that, at first sight, seems to be giving you something for nothing.

I do agree though that it is annoying when a web-search for free art and clipart comes up with nothing but pay-for-usage art, but that's a different issue altogether that has little to do with Creative Commons other than CC's recent prevalence.

Ash

I can't help getting the feeling that you hate it purely because it's stopping you from using art that you'd like to use for free.

It's really not that, honestly.

Graham

More the whole 'Every time I look for clip-art, I get stuff I can't actually use as clip-art' thing? I can relate to that. I gave up using regular searches and started looking in specific places like the resource section of art sites I know and trust instead.

Ash

...that the share-alike thing is perhaps the problem.

OK, I have an image so I put share-alike on it. My intention is that if you make a collage or composite image then it's only fair that it shares the same licence terms that I put in my image.

However, the problem comes if you use the image to make something that isn't a reworking of that image, e.g. placing it in a book. Is the whole book now under the share-alike licence? Or just the coloured and manipulated version of the image you made for the book?

Could you list the illustration as being under a different licence to the rest of the book? It's possible perhaps?

Jason Morningstar's first-cousin thread to this one on Story Games has really lit up actually.

I note that Clinton Nixon likes the Attribution license and has grown to dislike the others. I think that's something worth taking note of, especially considering Clinton's pioneering work in using CC licenses for RPGs.

Yes, I tend to use the Attribution license myself for certain things like game systems. Because a game system can't be copyrighted in the conventional sense, and other forms of writing protection that do work (such as patent protection) are expensive and of negligible use anyway, providing your game's system under an attribution license encourages people who are going to use your system anyway and file the numbers off to make it legal may be tempted to simply use the system as is at the cost of including your name in the credits just because this makes things easier for them. OK so they are still using your system with no monetary benefit to you, but they never would have had to pay you anything anyway under law so you might as well encourage them to put your name on the product.

Ash

Just a though Graham, if you're stilll looking, have you searched Fotolia? 62 pages of dice photos available as stock art. No Creative Commons on there - just nice non exclusive licenses.

http://en.fotolia.com/search?k=dice&search.x=0&search.y=0&order=relevance

Jon Hodgson
www.jonhodgson.net

Thanks!

Graham

Have you formulated an opinion based on the discussion Graham?

Tell me your final result after musing on the problem and listening to the argum,ents!

Well, I still think it's bollocks.

I can understand it being used for certain limited things (blogs, perhaps). And I quite like Attribution.

I do think it works against creator-owned games and that it's not something we should support or encourage.

Graham

It occurs to me that as a publisher, non-commerical attribution share-alike might be a license to put out free downloads as for promotion.

Here's some pictures of characters, do something creative for the game, but don't make money off it...

As a publisher its less useful to me, but for a fan community, it gives freedom within certain limits that could be useful.

-Matt

Realms Publishing

Well, the Share-Alike clause states that a collection does not constitute a derived work, so I reckon you can just reference the license on the specific art work.

In any case, all licenses allow you to contact the copyright holder and seek an alternate license. In effect the license says: play around with this all you want but if you want to make money out of it then drop me a line and we'll sort something out. Seems fair enough to me.

In any case, all licenses allow you to contact the copyright holder and seek an alternate license.

...of course. But why bother sharing it in such a crap fashion? If you're going to share it, share it. If you're going to share it as "You can only use this if you don't do anything useful with it", don't bother.

Again, an important point of the whole creator-owned games thing is the idea of makng a bit of money from your game. The whole "Non-Commercial" sharing works against that. I do feel, very strongly, that we should discourage it.

In effect the license says: play around with this all you want but if you want to make money out of it then drop me a line and we'll sort something out.

Then, really, why not just say that? Ben Lehman puts a sentence on his webpages that says something like "I encourage people to derive stuff from my work: get in touch". I think that's the way to go, rather than the crap non-sharing sharing licence.

If I see a Creative Commons licence (other than attribution), it dissuades me from contacting the author. It says to me: "I'm awkward about my stuff being used for commercial projects".

I actively avoid using work from people who use Creative Commons licences. I'd much rather work with someone who's upfront.

I'm slightly in ranting mode, I'm afraid, Adam. Excuse me. Really, we just disagree on this, I think.

Graham

The 'Non-Commercial' and 'Share Alike' parts of the license have their use. Non-commercial allows other people to do things like fan-fiction and fan-art without fear of recrimination so long as they don't sell the results. Share Alike means that nobody will be able to take your ideas, introduce new concepts to the canon then prevent you or anyone else from making use of those concepts and thus preventing anyone from continuing an epic storyline. However it bears mentioning that the Creative Commons licenses were not created specifically with the RPG industry in mind. Where these clauses may seem to work against you, that is only because of the way they are being used, not the way they were intended. If someone wants to take a fork to a soup buffet that's their lookout, but it's still no worse than standard copyright.

By the way, I've been meaning to ask, how would you propose that we discourage the use of the Open Commons license?

Ash

By the way, I've been meaning to ask, how would you propose that we discourage the use of the Open Commons license?

...I don't have a plan to actively discourage it, as such.

But, if I wanted to, I'd talk about it a lot on message boards. And make it known that I avoid products which use Creative Commons (which I do).

Graham

Mission Accomplished ^_^

Ash

Edit: Edited by Gregor to remove a command that was turning everything italic.

***This is just me posting as a person, not as some kind of site policy thing***

I'm not sure that this kind of un-necessary comment is required. I think Graham has stated his case, made his remarks and, unless there is something else substantive to say, we can lett the matter rest.

My comment here is not solely directed at Ash, I think we want to avoid, as a whole, un-necessary, throwaway comments of this nature in what has been a serious discussion about something that is important in the small-press publishing community.

However, if this prompts a discussion about good posting etiquette, I think it should be conducted in anew thread in the 'Admin' section, rather than continuing and de-railing this valuable thread.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

Edit: Edited by Gregor to remove a command turning everything italic.

Sorry, I thought you wanted a more informal, welcoming atmosphere *shrug*

Ash

To be fair, I started the ranting. Only fair that I get some of it back.

Ash, yes, of course. I wrote that with a little irony, knowing that I was already doing everything I'd be doing anyway.

And there's a bit more irony there, too, given that, if someone's art was good enough, I'd hire them whether or not they used these licences.

(Incidentally, I've actually talked to Ash via email a bit recently, so he's allowed to take the piss out of me a bit.)

Graham

Hey Graham,
Could you expand on how you feel non-commercial CCs are working against you creator owned guys making money?

I see it more or less as two separate realms - there's those that want to trade commercially, and those that don't. With some cross over by negotiation.

People using non-commercial licenses are just making it clear that their work can be used non-commercially - in a way regular copyright doesn't strictly allow for. Seems like a neat little clarification to me. Of no help to commercial users, naturally. But then why should everything be about that?

I take it you see it differently - would you say CCs are in competition with commercial projects? I'm trying to understand your dislike here, outside of "wah wah I can't sell CC work". Which I am completely prepared to accept isn't your beef, but I can't really see what the beef is if it isn't that, you dig?

Jon Hodgson
www.jonhodgson.net

I've explained it, really.

There's a community of self-publishing game creators.

I think that two important ideals of that community are:

a. You make decisions about your own product.
b. You make a bit of money by selling your product.

However, recently, Creative Commons seems to have become the new hotness in that community. People think, ooh, I'll share my game under Creative Commons.

If they do so under Share Alike, they share it in a way that enforces a licence on anyone who uses the product. That fights against ideal A.

If they do it under Non-Commercial, they share it in a way that enforces non-commercial usage. That fights against ideal B.

So I think we should discourage Creative Commons.

As a tangent, there's a very annoying tendency among Creative Commons fans (not you, particularly, Jon, I'm thinking of other people) to go: oh, you're criticizing Creative Commons! You must want to use our work for free! That's not what I'm saying.

Graham

Ah ok. In my (possibly special) reading of the thread I only saw you crticising the use of CC for components of games (art for example). I can see how you might take against the use of CCs for entire games that are in competition with your own.

Yeah as a quick comment about the last bit, I know that situation well - fine points are really tough to discuss on the net, and I've really fallen foul of that on more than one occasion.

Jon Hodgson
www.jonhodgson.net

Sorry I am getting a little confused, do you mean this in regard to the game's mechanics? If so, I believe that the Creative Commons license cannot provide any more protection than standard copyright anyway, as it does not supercede it, and thus since mechanics are not copyright protected they should still be usable?

I know you don't like it in artwork, and I can understand why, but CC licenses shouldn't prevent mechanics from being reused, as far as I'm aware.

Ash