OGL Open Game Licence

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octalot
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Re: OGL Open Game Licence

Post by octalot »

Wussel, a few questions for you

a. How much would it cost to get proper legal advice to answer those questions?
b. You still have to pay for the legal advice, even if the advice is "you can't use them". How many images do you get to use then?
c. How much (GPL or CC BY-SA) licensed art could you get if you paid the same amount to an artist?

Since you want the answers specifically written to fit your own questions I'd suggest "No because the right to modify is specifically withheld, which is something that's expected for Wesnoth's community"; that's 1. and 2. with a comma between the two answers. IANAL.
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Celtic_Minstrel
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Re: OGL Open Game Licence

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

What Pentarctagon said. It doesn't matter what Paizo terms Paizo states regarding how you can use the art. If Paizo itself hasn't released it under either CC or GPL, then you cannot upload it to the add-ons server.

There is at least one exception to this, mind you. If Paizo explicitly assigned it to public domain, then you could upload it to the add-ons server. Also, if Paizo released it under a license that granted permission for it to be relicensed under GPL or CC, you could also upload it (for example, I believe the MIT license would qualify there).

The sticking point isn't how Paizo allows you to use the art. It's that uploading it to the add-ons server requires that you agree for it to be used under the terms of GPL or CC. Unless Paizo already released it under those terms (or terms that permit relicensing it under those terms), you don't have the right to agree for it to be used under those terms, and thus you cannot upload it to the add-ons server.

I may not be a lawyer, but this seems pretty simple and straightforward and even kinda obvious to me.
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doofus-01
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Re: OGL Open Game Licence

Post by doofus-01 »

I've moved this to "Art Workshop", since we wouldn't be using assets from elsewhere for mainline, even if they were licensed in a compatible way.
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Wussel
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Re: OGL Open Game Licence

Post by Wussel »

octalot wrote: April 8th, 2018, 11:58 am ... "No because the right to modify is specifically withheld, which is something that's expected for Wesnoth's community"...
This is the interesting bit. They are very careful to not allow the Paizo logos and cover pages to be recolored or distorted. That actually means to me: The art could be cropped, recolored, distorted, filtered or whatever would be needed to make it fit into Wesnoth UMC.

CC has this "do not change" version too. They specifically have it for logos and covers, but not the rest. The rest is non profit and give credit. However you have to give the disclaimer, that you acknowledge their ownership, which they do not relinquish.
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Re: OGL Open Game Licence

Post by Shiki »

CC has this "do not change" version too. They specifically have it for logos and covers, but not the rest. The rest is non profit and give credit. However you have to give the disclaimer, that you acknowledge their ownership, which they do not relinquish.
That would be CC BY-ND (and CC BY-NC-ND).
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Re: OGL Open Game Licence

Post by Tad_Carlucci »

The point about re-licensing is the important point. We require a certain set of licenses. Users are free to choose other licenses for their own use, but to place them on our servers, they must grant one of the approved licenses and they probably do not have authority to do that unless they created the artwork, or the license they have allows them to relicense.
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octalot
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Re: OGL Open Game Licence

Post by octalot »

Wussel wrote: April 9th, 2018, 10:33 pm
octalot wrote: April 8th, 2018, 11:58 am ... "No because the right to modify is specifically withheld, which is something that's expected for Wesnoth's community"...
This is the interesting bit. They are very careful to not allow the Paizo logos and cover pages to be recolored or distorted. That actually means to me: The art could be cropped, recolored, distorted, filtered or whatever would be needed to make it fit into Wesnoth UMC.
Why does it mean that to you? What logic are you following to see those permissions in that license?

Again IANAL, but my guess at what that license means is "Paizo don't want to sue their fans and customers. But trademark law says that they lose their trademarks if they don't defend them, so here's a very easy licensing scheme for all the fans and customers to make fan pages without diluting the trademarks." If my guess is correct, then using their art in a non-Paizo game would be something that they'd have to take legal action about.
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ghype
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Re: OGL Open Game Licence

Post by ghype »

there are some artworks tagged as CC on DeviantArt.
as far as I understood from this post, those would be free to use here in Wesnoth.

unfortunately DeviantArt has no filter, if you want to look only for those Images tagged as CC.
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Re: OGL Open Game Licence

Post by Wussel »

Well you can use it for "Whatever it is". (This is a citation!). They ramble in great length on not to abuse logos and covers. They do not mention any of their art pieces. There are versions on the net, where somebody used a recolor for the skin tone. So that should be save.

I did some in game testing. The best way to use it, is actually cropping a square and scaling it down to 400x400. So this is pretty simple. The lack of outer lines makes the portraits to pop out of the screen a lot less.

The idea of Paizo disliking computer games is not really supported by any evidence. The idea that they want to protect their property while allowing people to use it as hobbyist is very valid. But the conclusion is really exotic to me. IANAL, too ;)
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Pentarctagon
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Re: OGL Open Game Licence

Post by Pentarctagon »

I'm really not sure what else to tell you at this point.
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Re: OGL Open Game Licence

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Can you use Paizo's art in a Wesnoth addon? Sure, based on what you've said. Their terms seem to allow you to use it in Wesnoth. You can distribute such an addon as a download on your personal site, or even on some external addons server (ie, setting up a campaignd instance separate from the official one).

Can you upload Paizo's art to the official addons server? That's a definite no. Uploading to the addons server requires you grant rights to Paizo's art that you do not have. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't tell you the exact details of why this won't work, but I'm pretty confident that it won't. Still, since I'm not a lawyer, I could be wrong; but unless you have a certified legal opinion backing you up, I'm pretty sure an addon known to be using Paizo's art would be removed by moderators.
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