Creative Commons Integration

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!

RMRK is now integrating the Creative Commons License system into our forums.  
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that works to create a free license standard for intellectual property.  Popular at DeviantART for keeping artwork as your own (original the character: do not steal!) it is now available at your fingertips for use in protecting your games ensuring a clear cut standard of distribution for your resources and projects.

The following BBCode can be used to place a small stamp in your topic, declaring your game protected by the license provided.



Creative Commons Attribution License
This License states that people are free to remix, use commercially, and distribute your work as long as you are given credit for it.
Further Info

Code: [Select]

:ccby:

Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License
This License states that people are free to remix, use commercially, and distribute your work as long as you are given credit for it and the work is distributed under the same license standards as your original product.
Further Info

Code: [Select]

:ccbysa:

Creative Commons Attribution No Derivative Works License
This License states that people are free to use commercially distribute your work as long as you are given credit for it and the original work is not altered in any way.
Further Info

Code: [Select]

:ccbynd:

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License
This License states that people are free to use, distribute, and remix your work as long as they are not using it for commercial purposes, and you are credited appropriately.
Further Info

Code: [Select]

:ccbync:

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works License
This License states that people are free to use and distribute your work, so long as you are given appropriate credit and it is not used in a commercial endeavor.
Further Info

Code: [Select]

:ccbyncnd:

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike License
This License states that people are free to use and distribute your work, and remix your work, so long as you are given appropriate credit, and they share the work under the same license standards as the original product.
Further Info

Code: [Select]

:ccbyncsa:

More information regarding Creative Commons can be found at their webpage:
Creative Commons.org

Be sure to read this Before Licensing information before you decide if Creative Commons is right for you: link

I read this post in Professor Farnsworth's voice.

Awesome! This will offer some added protection against people who would claim Original the Character as their own creation. For those who are confused by the differences between these licenses, just look at the symbols on the Creative Commons stamps:


BY (Attribution) means that people must credit you as the author of the piece. This is the most basic of rights that you'll want. Even if someone owns all of the rights to your work, they cannot claim authorship. This license simply makes sure that they have to credit you as such as well.

SA (Share Alike) means that people are allowed to alter your work and redistribute it, but they can only release it under the same type of license that you did. This is so that someone doesn't take your work, alter it, and then hog all of the rights to the altered copy for themselves.

ND (No Derivative) means that people are allowed to redistribute or copy your work, but they can not alter it in any way. No remixing, no touching up, nada. What they see is what they get. This is so that you don't eventually see your work come back to you completely different than how you had intended it to be.

NC (Non-Commercial) means that people cannot sell your work. They are free to copy it, redistribute it, but they cannot profit from it. This is probably the one right that most people think of first when they think of copyrights. NC does not mean North Carolina or non-consensual.

Oh this is bad ass! Great job guys, thanks for this.

I think it's a great idea. But "protect" is probably a deceptive word. Creative Commons Licenses don't "protect". They license. They exist to make it easier for people to use your work without expressly asking your permission. Generally, anything you create is automatically copyrighted to you, and you have a cause of action against anybody who uses your work (unless for fair use or otherwise authorized by the Copyright Act). Using a creative commons license reduces the scope of your copyright, meaning that it gives everybody a license to use it under whatever conditions you specify.

What the license does is give permission in gross to everybody to use it as long as they abide by those conditions.

So, once you license your work you no longer have any legal right to enforce against anyone who uses it so long as they abide by the conditions you specify, whereas if you don't take out a license, you are able to enforce against anyone who uses it without your permission in a way not allowed by the Copyright Act. So, generally, a CC license will reduce your protection.

However, if you post something on an RM forum intending people to use it, there is probably an implied license (by RM Community Custom and unless otherwise specified) of "use in an non-commercial RM game with attribution; no distribution". So a Creative Commons License would only really "protect" you if you make it more restrictive than that.

So yeah, I've always thought CC was awesome for RM, since sharing resources is what it's all about. But it doesn't "protect" the author; it enables others to use your work by giving any member of the public a license. And you should also mention that they are irrevocable. But yeah, I love Creative Commons. I even applied for a job there this summer, but didn't get it. I would've loved San Francisco too :'(

I said it protects because there's something there saying "here's the conditions, here are my rules."  If you don't want someone distributing or modifying your stuff, and they do?  You had said not to and licensed it that way and they still blatantly did not, so the fight is on your side.

It is a way of easily putting your conditions out there, and I expect to see more or than anything else around here, but it is still a way to protect your intellectual property if you actually -can- do something about it when someone breaks your terms.

By giving specified conditions, you can more adequately restrict the use (or misuse) of your work.

Well, the fight's always on your side though. Once you prove that you own the copyright, the onus is on them to prove that you licensed them to use it or that it doesn't apply because of fair dealing, etc... If they can't do that, you win! I see what you mean in that you could point to the attribution condition if someone fails to attribute you and that would make their burden to show that they were allowed to use it without attribution harder, but the rights you would have without the creative commons license are much greater; you could not only say, you have to attribute, but you could say, I don't want you distributing it at all. And I think you would win in court either way unless the other person could argue that you gave them a license. IDK, it seems to me that it does the opposite of protect, and it's irrevocable. So, for instance, were someone to post Blizz-ABS (which has a by-nc-sa) on this site, then as long as they credit Blizzard he would have no legal recourse against them even though we know he doesn't want his scripts posted here. He could also never revoke the license he gave to that person (or anybody ever) to distribute. CC licenses exist to make things easier to share, and it does that by stripping away the author's ordinary rights which would require anyone who wanted to use it to ask permission. I don't know, I don't think most people would characterize that as protection, so I just think it's misleading to use that word.

blizzard would be using a because he allows modifications and doesn't want people distributing it.  How do you share alike if you aren't allowed to share?

This is a site for sharing of resources, which is why we have several resource sections, that's why this is a form of protection, because it allows you to apply the same standard to everyone who wants to use your work, and if someone does something you don't like you can do soemthing about it.  It makes things more clear cut and you don't have to sift through legal mumbo-jumbo just to have a case against them, so I'd say it counts as protection :/

ND prohibits modifications, and he doesn't use it, at least not for Blizz-ABS. He uses

Besides, every standard Creative Commons License allows distribution. So even if he did use :

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works License
This License states that people are free to use and distribute your work, so long as you are given appropriate credit and it is not used in a commercial endeavor.

And there is no legal mumbo-jumbo to sort through in general. Normally, you have a legal cause of action against any person who uses any work you own the copyright for. Copyright protection is automatic and all you have to show is that you own the copyright and that that person used it without authorization.

I agree that it makes things more clear-cut, but it makes things more clear-cut for the purpose of sharing the resources; it doesn't make it any easier to enforce the legal rights you retain, and it forsakes the legal rights you don't.

I don't know, it just seems to me that people who read the word "protect" would think that obtaining a creative commons license would confer some legal rights on them, not take away some of the legal rights they have. And I think the fact that it's irrevocable should be mentioned as well, since people should know that once they confer a license that allows anyone to use or distribute their work (subject to the conditions they choose), they can never recover the rights they forsake, or take the license away from anyone who chooses to use or distribute their work.

true, it's for sharing resources.

if you don't want people to distribute, then you say as much as Blizzard has repeatedly in the source of his scripts.  If copyright by its nature gives you this ability, then do that, however I'm talking about protecting shared resources which is what this site is about.  I just mean that it's easier to get terminology and permissions in order so that people know what's up, and thus easier to make a case without having to figure out if you even have one.  Laws about anything is confusing, and this helps.

As far as the CC license info, I will add the FAQ before licensing with CC to the first post.

Since we're all about sharing resources here I figured it'd be something good we could add.

I agree. I think it is a great thing to add and makes it very easy to set out the rules for using the resources you create. I have CC licenses on all of my scripts.

Still, I am pretty certain Blizzard has no legal right to insist that nobody distribute his scripts once he conferred the license. It's a matter of courtesy though and I am sure there is no forum in the RM community that would refuse to take an owner's resource down if he/she didn't want it there.

I agree. I think it is a great thing to add and makes it very easy to set out the rules for using the resources you create. I have CC licenses on all of my scripts.

Still, I am pretty certain Blizzard has no legal right to insist that nobody distribute his scripts once he conferred the license. Still, it's a matter of courtesy and I am sure there is no forum in the RM community that would refuse to take an owner's resource down if he/she didn't want them there.

Creative Commons licenses are non-exclusive, meaning you can give them to some people, and then come up with individualized (or enhanced) licensing terms for others.  He did so if I am not mistaken, by adding in an additional clause of non-distribution as well, also available only to the general public.

Well, maybe he did for some scripts. For Blizz-ABS, the blurb is:

Spoiler for:

Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ )

You are free:

to Share - to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to Remix - to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

Share alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

- For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.

- Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.

- Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

I think you are right that you can customize CC licenses, but once you confer it to the general public, you can't further restrict them for any specific individual. You can waive additional rights for specific individuals, but you can't retireve the rights you've already forsaken. So I can't confer a license to the general public and then require that you specifically only get a , but I could confer a to the general public and then waive the nc requirement for you, so you specifically get a

I think the reason he used it is because if you use the script in your game, you are technically distributing it.  But he wants to be the only one to make an original post.

Well, only if you release the open project. Otherwise it's just using it. Still, I know what you mean. But once he conferred that license he really has no legal right to insist that he be the only person who can post the script anyway, no matter what he intended. The actual legal code for that license quite expressly forsakes that right:

Spoiler for Legal Code for Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported:

...
1(c). "Distribute" means to make available to the public the original and copies of the Work or Adaptation, as appropriate, through sale or other transfer of ownership.
...
1(g). "Work" means the literary and/or artistic work offered under the terms of this License including without limitation any production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain...
1(h). "You" means an individual or entity exercising rights under this License who has not previously violated the terms of this License with respect to the Work, or who has received express permission from the Licensor to exercise rights under this License despite a previous violation.
...
3. License Grant. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright) license to exercise the rights in the Work as stated below:
...
(c). to Distribute and Publicly Perform the Work including as incorporated in Collections; and,
(d). to Distribute and Publicly Perform Adaptations.
The above rights may be exercised in all media and formats whether now known or hereafter devised.
...
4. Restrictions. The license granted in Section 3 above is expressly made subject to and limited by the following restrictions
(a). You may Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work only under the terms of this License. You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) for, this License with every copy of the Work You Distribute or Publicly Perform. You may not offer or impose any terms on the Work that restrict the terms of this License or the ability of the recipient of the Work to exercise the rights granted to that recipient under the terms of the License. You may not sublicense the Work...
...
(d). If You Distribute, or Publicly Perform the Work or any Adaptations or Collections, You must, unless a request has been made pursuant to Section 4(a), keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g., a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution ("Attribution Parties") in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means, the name of such party or parties; (ii) the title of the Work if supplied; (iii) to the extent reasonably practicable, the URI, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and, (iv) consistent with Section 3(b), in the case of an Adaptation, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Adaptation

s. 3 confers to anyone who hasn't previously violated the restrictions on the license the right to post the script to another forum so long as he gives credit, keeps the title, and the URI. None of the restrictions would prevent that. No matter what Blizzard says outside of this license, he can't go back and insist on rights that he's already conferred.