a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
You are not logged in.
Jason, as someone who has invested a lot of time building upon your work (through onetech), this mobile event has been quite discouraging. I feel the no_copyright.txt statement of "absolutely no restrictions, and no permission necessary" should be updated to clarify your ideas of what is allowed.
I understand you consider fraud to be outside of the copyright, but I don't think the average non-lawyer sees it this way. I certainly did not.
Imagine the case of a fan creating artwork that uses some of your art and then they sign their name on it. They invested hours into making it, but you can demand they put a big statement over the top of the image to let everyone know you created some of the assets because otherwise it is fraud. I doubt you would do this, but I feel it is not far from your interpretation of fraud.
You have a right to specify how your work is used, but please be straight with us and up front about it. Otherwise we risk investing time building upon your work and having the rug pulled out from underneath us.
One Hour One Life Crafting Reference
https://onetech.info/
Offline
Ryan, do you think that some fan artwork (imagine a collage made with my sprites) would be confusing? And what would the scope of the confusion be?
The scope of confusion with the mobile version was gigantic, to the point of clearly dwarfing the original work itself, and perhaps even undermining (eventually) the perceived legitimacy of the original work (you can imagine people in China, someday, thinking that my version was the knock-off of the mobile game they loved).
If this collage's notoriety grew in scope to the point where it was widely believed that this fan-artist actually created all of the art assets involved whole-cloth, and the fan-artist claimed a fraudulent copyright over the whole thing, and the collage was featured on the cover of Time Magazine with text that said, "John Jones, artist of the year," then we'd have exactly the same problem. It's an outlandish example... I'm just trying to figure out how a single piece of artwork could cause confusion on a massive scale. If people came up to me and said, "Hey, you're the guy making the game based on John Jone's artwork, right?" that would be a problem.
Likewise, if somehow Onetech grew legs, and was seen as a stand-alone browser of RyanB's original artwork by almost everyone.... we'd have a problem. You'd have the power to correct that perception, and I trust that you would.
Likewise if my piano music is used in some movie soundtrack, and then the "composer" John Jones wins an Oscar for best original score, and goes up on stage to accept the award, with my piano music playing in the background as he takes the stage, and he talks about how much heart and soul he poured into that piano music....
These are all examples where the public is being misled on a massive enough scale that it would do measurable damage to my reputation and legacy.
Relatively speaking, 600K Chinese game players being exposed to a claim of sole authorship is a "massive scale."
And unfortunately, it's really a "know it when you see it" kind of thing.
With those examples in mind, what kind of wording would you recommend? Again, I have no interest in stopping anyone from "doing" anything. Making the collage. Using the piano music in a movie score. Making a stand-alone browser of artwork. Or making a Gates-sized fortune from these activities, without giving me a dime.
Don't mislead people about whatever you're doing with my work, since doing so would be both illegal and immoral, regardless of the copyright status of my work.
Examples: claiming sole authorship, staking an unqualified copyright or trademark claim over my work, hiding that the original source work is in the public domain, implying that your usage is exclusive, implying that your usage is official, impersonating me, implying that I'm involved with you, or implying that I endorsed your work.
The burden is on you to ensure that everyone who interacts with your derivative work, and everyone you enter into related agreements with, is appropriately clear about the situation, with the amount of appropriate clarity depending on the public perception of your work and the scope of my work as used within your work.
Fraud is bad. Don't do it.
Offline
And unfortunately, it's really a "know it when you see it" kind of thing.
With those examples in mind, what kind of wording would you recommend?
You're putting Ryan in a very bad position, the exact same position you've put Dual Decade in.
"My work is released without restriction, except for one, which I can't explain in a way that everyone will understand, but I will know whether you've violated this restriction when I see it, which could happen at any point in the future, in ways that I will not attempt to predict or anticipate here, and if and when that happens I will make further demands upon you, demands which I will not attempt to predict or anticipate here."
This is terrible.
And now you're asking Ryan to not only read your mind, but tell you what he thinks the best explanation of your intention is?
Terrible squared.
Being clear about your licenses is your responsibility.
Offline
The general solution to these sorts of problems, Jason, is to use the existing laws as they are. They're there for a reason, and they have evolved over a long time through the efforts of many people in order to effectively deal with the very issues you are wrestling with now.
Offline
Not sure if these crossed in the pipe... I might have been saving the post as I went along or something. Did you see the wording that I posted at the end?
Offline
So, if I'm supposed to use the existing laws, I'd do this:
Copyright 2018 Jason Rohrer
All Rights Reserved
I.e., you can't do anything with this work without my explicit permission, and if I'm not available to give permission, go jump in a lake, including all the way up until 2120, or whenever 70 years after my death happens, but the copyright term will likely be extended indefinitely, so in other words, never. In other words, this work dies with me, k thanks bye.
I dunno, Eddie... there's just something so.... short-sighted about that approach?
Offline
To my eyes, the example license you posted at the end isn't substantially clearer, and I doubt it would have prevented the current dust-up with DD. I do think it clarifies your intent, which is important, but in practical terms it leaves too much to your variable and situational discretion and has too many elements which are open to a wide range of interpretation. Accordingly, it has the potential to lead to more of these types of disputes and disappointing outcomes.
Perhaps Ryan feels differently. He has skin in the game, I do not; I'm just sitting in the peanut gallery.
Offline
Also, if I was using regular copyright, Eddie, along with being short-sighted, it would also require a bunch of casual agreements just for the day-to-day operations of running a game community. RyanB would hopefully make OneTech still, but probably email me first, and I'd say Yeah, and some fan-artist might email me first, and I'd say Yeah.
But if anything ever got out of hand, we'd be right back to interpreting exactly what "Yeah" meant, and arguing it in court eventually.
Minecraft is copyrighted, but there's still a whole teeming ecosystem around it, most of which is probably in violation of its copyright, and not fair use. That's necessary, of course, as a matter of practicality.
But it's strange to have a license that forbids all of the activity which you actually plan to allow.
And in terms of building on the foundations laid by others, consider CC BY:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Looking closely, I realize that it is an INFECTING license just like GPL. In other words, Ryan and the mobile developers would also have to release their derivative works under CC BY or a more lenient license, because it says you can only remix if:
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Offline
You can use the existing laws to craft all kinds of outcomes!
Look at what Gnu did, for example. That sort of outcome was unthinkable... until Stallman thought of it, and then (with a lot of help) made it real.
Look at what Zcash has done with their trademark policy: https://z.cash/trademark-policy/ - They want their trademark to be widely used, free of charge, without prior approval or agreement or contract, for "good" purposes... without giving up their ability to prevent "bad" purposes (with "good" and "bad" subjectively determined by them).
I feel certain there's a way to get what you want, and to communicate what you want to anyone who wants to use your work, but you have to understand what the law actually says about these kinds of issues, and what the (very wide) scope of possibilities entails.
Offline
Well, my eyes tend to glaze over when I look at pages and pages of legal text like on Zcash, so I'm more likely (personally) to move along and not consider re-using the work.
Especially with software code, whenever I see Public Domain, I think, "thank god!" Now I can get down to work using this thing to make something great without reading a bunch of text or jumping through a bunch of hoops.
And I'm generally not just "repackaging it" as a complete product and hawking it as my own thing, so I don't even stop to feel bad about it, because I'm not deceiving anyone---it's just one little part of what I'm doing, so I give it a footnote if I can remember to do so, and that's that.
Offline
Both Ryan and Eddie have a valid point. A license agreement is not something that should be open for interpretation. Esspecially when people from all over the world want to use your work.
I also don't really see why you dont just use a non comercial license. Artists/Fans would be able to do stuff without aprovall and the others would have to email you.
Offline
Going to these links in this thread, I think this law teacher covers the basics. In fact, the trouble spot includes both how someone could copyright a modified version of something in the public domain. It also covers how Trademark Law still covers items in the public domain (where Copyright Law may not).
Offline
Well, my eyes tend to glaze over when I look at pages and pages of legal text like on Zcash, so I'm more likely (personally) to move along and not consider re-using the work.
Well, I don't blame you! There's a lot there.
And I totally get that one of the reasons you put things in the public domain is because it's simple. You don't have to tack on a complicated license and other people don't have to try to read and understand it. "Public domain." There. Done.
I pointed to the GPL and the Zcash trademark policy not so much as examples to imitate, but as demonstrations that it's possible to get what you want, no matter what it is that you want. I bet you could find a way to a) state your requirements in a way that admits of little misunderstanding and b) preserves your rights should something go wrong and c) is brief and simple enough to dissuade neither you nor the others you want to use your work.
I think what you have right now misses both a) and b).
Offline
And unfortunately, it's really a "know it when you see it" kind of thing.
With those examples in mind, what kind of wording would you recommend? Again, I have no interest in stopping anyone from "doing" anything. Making the collage. Using the piano music in a movie score. Making a stand-alone browser of artwork. Or making a Gates-sized fortune from these activities, without giving me a dime.
Those examples are pretty extreme, but there are so many gray areas that we are required to guess at what will be acceptable. There is no boundary specified so we originally assumed there wasn't one. But in light of recent events we see there is an invisible boundary that you have which is "know it when you see it". We can try to guess at where this line is but it will never match your line.
Also in those examples the content creators (both you and whoever builds on your work) has little control over what happens to it. If they post their artwork on Twitter and it goes viral, how is it suddenly a problem for them? Even if they could control it, perhaps it is part of their contribution which caused the popularity.
The key is to understand the risks ahead of time. The current "no_copyright.txt" looks like there is no risk.
While I don't think you need a huge complicated license, perhaps some generic line about "any work that damages, competes with, or causes confusion with the existing One Hour One Life game is not allowed" would help. You could also have a note to email you for clarification, and that any discussion over email supersedes the license.
One Hour One Life Crafting Reference
https://onetech.info/
Offline
I also don't really see why you dont just use a non comercial license. Artists/Fans would be able to do stuff without aprovall and the others would have to email you.
At first I liked this idea, but I don't think it is in line with what Jason wants. You can do just as much damage to his name and reputation with a non commercial product as you can with a commercial product. Maybe even more so since free content can reach a larger audience.
Another example: say I put ads on onetech to cover hosting costs (which I don't plan to do), would it suddenly become a commercial product since I'm getting money from it? Probably so. Does it effect Jason differently? Probably not.
One Hour One Life Crafting Reference
https://onetech.info/
Offline
I'm reminded of Douglas Crockford's JSON license, which to this day says "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."
And supposedly IBM asked for a special exemption so that their clients could do "evil" and Crockfrord granted it. Supposedly.
As hilarious as this seems, it actually turns out to be terrible for anyone who wants to use the license because now they're completely dependent on the whims of the license holder. https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license
Offline
jord1990 wrote:I also don't really see why you dont just use a non comercial license. Artists/Fans would be able to do stuff without aprovall and the others would have to email you.
At first I liked this idea, but I don't think it is in line with what Jason wants. You can do just as much damage to his name and reputation with a non commercial product as you can with a commercial product. Maybe even more so since free content can reach a larger audience.
Another example: say I put ads on onetech to cover hosting costs (which I don't plan to do), would it suddenly become a commercial product since I'm getting money from it? Probably so. Does it effect Jason differently? Probably not.
Here is a bit from the creative common wiki that defines what falls under NC protection:
"NonCommercial is expressly defined as follows:
“NonCommercial means not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation.”
The definition is intent-based and intentionally flexible in recognition of the many possible factual situations and business models that may exist now or develop later. Clear-cut rules exist even though there may be gray areas, and debates have ensued over its interpretation. In practice, the number of actual conflicts between licensors and licensees over its meaning appear to be few. [1]"
In my opinion running adds to cover costs would not be the same as trying to get a comercial advantage. But this is yet again vague and has grey areas. Which is why for cases where money is involved you should contact jason so that he can still license it comercially when he is okay with the product.
Here is another quote from the creative common wiki.
NonCommercial licenses are non-exclusive.
Like all CC licenses, the NC licenses are non-exclusive. This means that an NC licensor is free to offer the material under other terms, including on commercial terms. A frequently discussed use case for the NC licenses is a creator who wishes to allow NonCommercial use but also authorizes commercial uses in exchange for payment. (Additional permissions such as this may always be offered; licensors may also use our CC+ protocol to offer these in a standardized manner.) Also, licensees are always free to contact licensors to ask permission to use the work for commercial purposes.
For a given work, permitted NC uses may still be restricted due to non-copyright rights.
Even if a use is NonCommercial for purposes of the CC license, it may still not be permitted because of other rights that prevent that particular use of the work. For example, a use that is otherwise NonCommercial could violate the publicity or personality rights of an individual featured in the work."
Source: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/N … rpretation
Offline
Yeah, let's not spend any time down that path, Jord.
The commercial nature of the mobile port has never been my concern. More power to them there.
After all, the most troubling development (the mislabeled Chinese version) has so far been free, aka, non-commercial.
There are plenty of examples of non-commercial use that can cause plenty of confusion. Non-commercial lies, in other words, are no better than commercial lies.
Regarding so-called Free Software, here are the FSF's four essential freedoms:
The four essential freedoms
A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms:
--The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
--The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
--The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
--The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Now, I don't know if it's as obvious to you as it is to me, but the whole notion of Copyleft is a direct violation of freedom 3. You are "free" to distribute your modified versions to others, but ONLY if you distribute it as free software, which means that you are not entirely free at all. What if you want to distribute the result as non-free software? What if you don't want to include the source code with it? Sorry, you can't do that!
Keep in mind that we're talking about lines of code that you wrote! You modified this thing, and maybe made it way better, and poured your time and skill into it. And now you are compelled to release the results of your work in a very specific way.
Thus, I'm left to conclude that the only truly free software is public domain software.
And I'm sure, had OHOL been GPL and not public domain, it would have given the mobile developers pause. I have no interest in forcing them to release their source code.
Offline
Also, I'm still not convinced that placing it in the public domain results in my own rights to use the work being swept away from me.
In other words, imagine that someday, I decide to make a mobile version. Imagine that I want to release it on TapTap in China. (I have absolutely no plans for this, it's just a hypothetical.)
But the Chinese publisher has already "reserved" that right with TapTap, and TapTap (apparently) tries to actively block clones, knock-offs, etc. In their email, they already claimed to me that they, TapTap, have verified the publisher's right to publish the official version of the game in China.
China is a weird market that I don't understand, so I'm winging it here, but there's something about getting official approval from the government for paid games, and the Chinese publisher is in the process of doing that. Say they do it, prove that to TapTap, and thus the game is (finally) allowed to be sold instead of just being free in China.
Now fast-forward 5 years. I'm trying to go through the same process, but the Chinese publisher has already "blocked" me in both the government's eyes and TapTap's eyes. My version would be viewed by both as a knock-off, curtailing my own rights to use my own work.
There is NOTHING about the public domain that puts me at inherent risk of this happening, or forces me to let it happen. This is not just "part of the public domain, dude, what did you expect?"
No, what's going on here is that the Chinese publisher has misrepresented the work as being entirely copyrighted by them, has not explained the public domain status, and has lied to both the government and TapTap.
The idea that I somehow "promised" not to fight such an act is ludicrous. The idea that such an act is part-and-parcel of what I meant by "absolutely no restrictions" is just as ludicrous.
In fact, every person on the planet has just as much "right" to fight it as I do, just like you all could fight for unrestricted use of any public domain work.
Offline
Also, I'm still not convinced that placing it in the public domain results in my own rights to use the work being swept away from me.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t public domain mean owned by the public and not an individual? You are donating it to the public for all to use in a level playing field. You are using your work from the public domain just like anyone else can.
In the little bit I’ve read, a work cannot be copyrighted from the public domain unless it has been significantly altered, and even then they are only protecting their modifications. The original work still remains without copyright.
If China follows this then it would not be possible to copyright the original public domain content. That is a big “if” and I have no idea.
Whatever the case, I am ok with the term public domain as long as you follow it up with how we can and cannot use your work. This is more of a communication point. I want to understand your interpretation of it.
Does it feel weird to put these clauses next to the term public domain? That is up to you. I just want clarity.
One Hour One Life Crafting Reference
https://onetech.info/
Offline
Here is a thought experiment since I think this is a really interesting topic.
Say ACME Inc hires Company A to write a song for them. Later Company A wants to use the song in a video so they license it from ACME Inc. Then Company B licenses the same song in the same way for their own video.
If Company B’s video becomes more popular and the song is known for it, does Company A have any rights to shut them down? Or visa versa, if Company A’s video becomes more popular can Company B shut them down?
Both companies have equal rights to the song. Even though Company A originally wrote it, ACME Inc owns it
Here ACME Inc is the public domain. There is no licensing under public domain, but I feel like the concept of ownership and rights is similar. It is owned by the public for everyone to use equally.
Am I wrong here?
Last edited by ryanb (2019-03-08 15:21:38)
One Hour One Life Crafting Reference
https://onetech.info/
Offline
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Looking closely, I realize that it is an INFECTING license just like GPL. In other words, Ryan and the mobile developers would also have to release their derivative works under CC BY or a more lenient license, because it says you can only remix if:
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
You're confusing this with CC-BY-SA which is contrary to CC-BY "infectious" by design.
See: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Open_Co … ing_scheme
Also yes this is why I (and I am implicitly citing the FSF here) discourage anybody of writing their own "freedom license". The major licenses are well understood in their effects, you do not need to read through pages of text and make your own interpretations, practically you can rely on the common understandings of the licenses. If any court in any legal system came to a conclusion that would go against these understandings, this surely would create big headlines.
Personally: For software, if you want "free as in beer" use MIT, if you want "infectious" use GPL, if even more in an online age (anyone that uses it online should have access to the code and redistribution license AGPL). For large collections of media, use CC-BY "non infectious" or CC-BY-SA if you want "infectious".
Offline
It is owned by the public for everyone to use equally.
Am I wrong here?
"The public" in this case cannot sue anybody on civil law. There are no "public domain cops".
Offline
Your China hypothetical is muddled. Nothing about it matches the actual functioning of intellectual property law in China or anywhere else.
Offline
I'll quickly post this again. I mentioned it once before, but Jason seemed not so keen. I don't want to press the issue, but there is a section of the law called "Moral Rights" which cover exactly the situations that you guys are talking about (protecting the reputation of the artist). I think when I mentioned it before Jason seemed to misunderstand what the term "Moral Rights" meant. It's not a name that I made up -- it's a legal term with a very specific definition.
I know it's unappealing and difficult to learn about and work with the laws as they are written -- they are very complicated. Sometimes they are very complicated because people want to abuse them. However, sometimes they are very complicated because the situations are complicated. "Moral Rights" falls under this second situation. I highly recommend learning about it.
Now, very importantly, in most countries you can't waive your moral rights (for exactly the reason why Jason gets upset with some uses of his work). However, I believe that in the U.S. if you put your work in the public domain, you waive your moral rights as well. In my opinion (not a lawyer), it is very important that you find out if this is true (I'm not American and while I have to learn about US copyright law because they force it on everybody else in the world, I'm not an expert in it). Either way, I highly recommend that you claim to retain your moral rights in your legal notices -- because you obviously want to retain them!
It's fine if your idea is that you're going to allow everything and then negotiate after the fact, but you have to be realistic in understanding that some people won't want to negotiate on those terms. There is a good chance that they can legally put their fingers in their ears and chant "not listening!" over and over again. If that's going to bother you, the fix is simple -- just put a statement in your legal section that retains your rights to not besmirch your name.
Back to lurk mode.
Offline