What can I do under a creative commons license?
calliopebrook0905
Posts: 0
In layman terms, what is a creative commons license and what are the restrictions of it? I want to use a sewing pattern that is under a creative commons license but I'm not sure what restrictions I would have to abide by. Any help would be a big help!
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It is my understanding that all forms of CCL still require the original creator of said works to define it's use, so basically whatever restrictions the artist puts in place is how they can be used.
Hi, you might like to take a look at the Creative Commons website it has lots of information:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
The basic premise of a creative commons licence is that the creator retains copyright over their creation but allows more freedoms on what someone can do with it than normal copyright. So for example you may be able to copy or distribute something and use it commercially as long as you give credit. There are a number of licences under Creative Commons covering both commercial and non-commercial use. Best thing to do is to check exactly what the licence says attached to the pattern and refer to the link given above to be clear on what the license means.- it should be clear from that.
It depends on what type of Creative Commons license it has. An "unrestricted" or "zero" license means you can do whatever you want with it.
The others are summarized in the link given above.
The author may also stipulate that their works are not to be used to portray certain themes, such as violence, sexual crimes, sexually explicit material, animal cruelty, etc.
I have encountered one on Blendswap that I don't see mentioned which stipulates their resources may only be used for educational or journalistic purposes.
Unfortunately, one area of murkiness is what the license is for the software as opposed to (non-software) products created from the software. I'm primarily speaking of renders, here, both 2D and 3D.
Genetica is a good example-- I err on the side of caution and simply plan not to distribute textures created from their free viewer software, even though their definition of "texture" in their ToU is unclear. (I might email them at some point-- too lazy for now)
Many vendors are like this, sadly. I have found way too many brush, model, pattern, etc. freebies that do not specify whether or not "give credit" or "non-commercial use" or whatever refers both to renders/images or merely the software itself.
Also, a warning about Creative Commons: some businessmen view CC as a plague. Partly because they're dumbasses who don't realize that the Supreme Court already deemed CC to be enforcable (that said, there are also plenty of businessmen who couldn't care less what the USSC rules and expects the world to follow their own personal rules-- e.g. the RIAA and MPAA, who insist that personal backup copies and media transfer are a breach of IP.) Others don't like it because the legalese is too vague, instead of 20 pages or more about the specifics about liability and the like. Others simply hate it because it's a "new" way of doing things. You know those types.
Educational facilities OTOH view CC as a godsend, for obvious reasons.
In this context I have another question regading "terms of use" of textures:
Many sites (e.g. texturer.com) and other texture collections do not allow "to redistribute these textures in an underived form".
If I get this right, than it is forbidden to include the original file of such a texture in a zip-file of a 3D model freebie that I normally would publish on e.g. ShareCG.
But when is an image considered to be a "derived form"? A quite "fuzzy" term in my opinion.
- if I delete more than 50% of the picture
- if I resize or turn the picture significantly
- if I adjust the color of the image
- if I just modify one pixel...
What is the legal meaning of an underived/derived (unaltered/altered) image?
With the site that you quote it means basically that you can use the textures to create a texture for a model, but you can't distribute anything where it is possible to extract the original texture for anyone else to use in the same way as you have used it.
Thanks for your answer, chohole. But what is "the original texture"? Then it should be enough to change one pixel out of a million, because the resulting texture is NOT the original texture anymore. It would be impossible to extract the original texture - therefore, it would be legal... now I am just wondering how many / what kind of changes are necessary to let a texture be considered as "derived".
The original texture would be the one you downloaded from, as referenced, texturer.com.
You cannot distribute the texture AS IS.
Lets say you create a skin for V4 and you use that texture as an overlay to create some skin effects, because the original texture cannot be pulled from the skin, you can distribute the skin, providing either a) you created the initial V4 skin, or b) you used a merchant resource that allows freebie distribution (since you mentioned ShareCG).
If you apply the texture to a UV map and use it as part of a clothing texture, that should be fine too as it's not the original tile and would be cut in a manner that the full tile cannot be pulled from it (I'd do some color swapping too just to be on the safe side).
What you CANNOT do, distribution wise, is slap the original jpeg into your runtime textures and create a shader or mat preset that calls directly to it.
The amount of changing required varies from creator to creator. The safest way to be sure is to contact either a) the creator directly, or b) the site who hosts it if it is out of the creators hands once uploaded.
As far as texturer.com is concerned, you CANNOT just alter the texture jpeg and call it good. It says it cannot be distributed as another texture/within a pack, even if modified. See the bold:
"However you are not allowed to sell or redistribute these textures in an underived form or if the modified product is a texture or a textures pack."
http://texturer.com/terms/
The change would have to be big enough as to be noticeable without zooming in. If on comparison your textures still look roughly identical then it's not truly a derivative as much as it is a direct copy.
In general, the amount of "changes" required varies by vendor. Also, some will make special exceptions for people who ask, sometimes. For instance, Mayang's Textures as a rule prohibits "derivative works" of his stuff for redistribution, but has made a special exception for the fanbase (who create free images) for Dundjinni, a commercial 2D dungeon-mapping tool (but with a mostly-functional, lifetime long demo that simply cannot read the dundjinni native image filetype w. the exception of the few images it comes with). *the exception still requires that alterations be made to the image-- usually at the very least, that it be rendered seamless)
Cgtextures from what I recall is not nearly as stringent, as one of the primary purposes for the textures they offer is to create seamless tiles.
There are certain things you can do with an image file however which AFAIK does NOT count as a derivative work-- since it bears zero resemblance to the original. The main example I can offer you is a large texture of a precious opal I've been working on for awhile. It was taken from a high-res image from Ebay or somewhere like that. Originally it was a cabochon (round or oval jewel without facets), and I cropped it down to a section of the inside of the cabochon
I haven't worked on it for some time, but most of my time has been spent making it manually seamless in GIMP (I already ram a seamless filter, but also saved a version of the image where I deleted out everything except for the blurred/faded areas of the seamless texture.)
I actually have quite a few photoshop patterns I created this way (but with far less effort), though they're much smaller and not square. At some point I plan on recreating some of the seamless amber and fire agate textures I created.
Thank you a lot for your answers! Not an easy topic...