Copyright Issue with PhantasyRPG.com

[turin]

they are not ambiguous at all. look at this link.

[dms]

From http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2014:

Posting any contributions to this game on this web forum is a tacit acceptance of the fact that you are placing them under the GNU General Public License.

You maintain your own full rights to the contributions, and may continue whatever you, the owner, wish to do with them, but you have given us the right to use them under the limitations of the GPL.

(emphasis mine)

I think this means that artwork posted here is only provided to the Wesnoth team under the GPL, not to everyone. Is that correct? Can anyone clarify?

If so then PhantasyRPG would have to ask permission before using artwork that isn't in Wesnoth

[Dave]

Well, a technical reading of that could come to the conclusion that they are only provided to the Wesnoth team under the GPL, however the only use the Wesnoth team would have for them is to redistribute them to anyone else.....and we would have to do it under the GPL.

I think it is reasonable for someone to thusly expect to be able to license anything thus posted under the terms of the GPL.

Basically, I think we should accept that what PhantasyRPG.com is doing with our work is fine according to its license. And why shouldn't we be happy with that? If they can benefit from our work, as long as they don't try to restrict the freedoms of others, why shouldn't we be happy for them to be able to do so?

David

[AT]

Dave: I agree.

[Jetrel]

I think one clever way to handle things would be to politely ask them to reference us, saying something like the following: "link us, we'll link you"

Couldn't hurt to have a wikipage of links to things that have used wesnoth's art.


OTOH, we could just simply ignore them.

I personally don't care either way.

[pg]

They seem a bit fishy to me. Personally I think they should link to Wesnoth, and give credit individually to the artist's whose work they are using. It seems a bit weird to just say "Graphics are © their respective owners, or are licensed under the GNU GPL" IMO.

Also what is "A Division of GamersBrand Entertainment" supposed to mean? Sounds sorta like they want to make money in the future. Also -

GamersBrand Entertainment respects the intellectual property of others, and we ask our users to do the same. GamersBrand Entertainment may, in appropriate circumstances and at its discretion, terminate the accounts of users who infringe the intellectual property rights of others.

If they are using Final Fantasy stuff they don't even follow their own rules.

If you send GamersBrand Entertainment or it's Websites scripts, creative suggestions, ideas, notes, drawings, or other information (collectively, the "Submissions"), the Submissions shall be deemed, and shall remain, the property of GamersBrand Entertainment. None of the Submissions shall be subject to any obligation of confidence on the part of GamersBrand Entertainment, and GamersBrand Entertainment shall not be liable for any use or disclosure of any Submissions. Without limitation of the foregoing, GamersBrand Entertainment shall exclusively own all now known or hereafter existing rights to the Submissions of every kind and nature throughout the universe and shall be entitled to unrestricted use of the Submissions for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation to the provider of the Submissions.

Maybe they'll claim you submitted the artwork and now they own it?

[Circon]

A-holes. Somebody point out that
*they're breaking the law and their own rules (stolen graphics)
*and breaking the GPL rules (if it contains GPL, the whole thing must be GPL iirc)

[AT]

While IANAL (yet:-) I do belive they are complying with GPL, albeit in a maner that Circon discribed well with his abreviation. The relevent parts require you to redistribute under the GPL, and to maintain all previous copyright notices (in code, usually). Since, to the best of my knowlege there arn't any in these graphics, they are probably doing enough by saying that some are GPL. Technically, they probably should seperate those that arn't, but that might be unreasonable considering the amount of graphics on the site.

They may be infringing on Final Fantesy's graphics, but since we arn't a copyright holder of it, its really not our problem.

[scott]

It seems a bit weird to just say "Graphics are © their respective owners, or are licensed under the GNU GPL" IMO.

As Miyo pointed out, these cannot be exclusive things.

I wonder if they consider themselves the owners of the graphics they take from other sources (since they take ownership of submissions).

[freim]

It seems a bit weird to just say "Graphics are © their respective owners, or are licensed under the GNU GPL" IMO.

As Miyo pointed out, these cannot be exclusive things.

I wonder if they consider themselves the owners of the graphics they take from other sources (since they take ownership of submissions).

Yes, this is not correct at all. The images from Wesnoth are licensed under the GPL and Copyrighted the respective artist.

[tigrezno]

What licence have those neo images? GPL? if they are GPL, they must release their source code because they load GPL images in memory, joining with the rest of code.

[Dave]

As far as we know they are conforming with the GPL. They don't have to release the code. We even asked the FSF and they agreed.

I don't see what everyone's problem is. If they want to use our graphics, what's wrong with them doing so, so long as they conform with our license? The GPL doesn't require them referencing us, so why should we be demanding that they do so?

David

[tigrezno]

They MUST release source code if their product is PUBLIC

[AT]

They MUST release source code if their product is PUBLIC

Which, being a program that only runs on their server, it isn't.

Except for maybe not being specific enough (which I don't think it worth bugging them about) they are complying with the GPL.

[tigrezno]

They MUST release source code if their product is PUBLIC

Which, being a program that only runs on their server, it isn't.

Except for maybe not being specific enough (which I don't think it worth bugging them about) they are complying with the GPL.

They offer you a product, an online rpg or something, so its a public product and they must release their code (if under GPL). Rather simple.