Copyright exceptions with licenses such as public domain

All aspects of music, audio and sound effects development for all The Mana World projects.


Post Reply
User avatar
WildX
Source of Mana
Source of Mana
Posts: 2084
Joined: 07 Aug 2010, 14:13
Location: United Kingdom
Contact:

Copyright exceptions with licenses such as public domain

Post by WildX »

[Topic split from: viewtopic.php?f=37&t=19912]
Discussion about public domain music and other license exceptions for music & SFX development.

For public domain stuff and for maintaining consistency by using Creative Commons labels and licences you want CC0. I don't think there would be a problem at all. I remember there was an argument about consistency and using the same licence for every file but I don't think it should apply with licenses that are less restrictive than our standard CC BY-SA. In short, if anyone wants to suggest public domain classical music they can; if anyone wants to adapt it they just need to make sure they can apply a CC BY-SA license to the modified work.

TMW Team member

User avatar
Ledmitz
TMW Classic
TMW Classic
Posts: 566
Joined: 17 Aug 2011, 22:40
Location: The Mana World
Contact:

Re: Classics in the background

Post by Ledmitz »

"For public domain stuff and for maintaining consistency by using Creative Commons labels and licences you want CC0."

Yes it fits any public domain, just a fast way to say/type it. If the public domain file pre-dates CC, then really it wasn't made as CC, but CC0 still fits and is usable.

"if anyone wants to adapt it they just need to make sure they can apply a CC BY-SA license to the modified work"

Yeah. That was my question though. All CC licenses, except CC0, require attribution. I would like attribution for most things, but some technically don't fall into a CC category, though many authors license everything they make the same, you cannot , often, legally own rights to sounds we hear most everyday. There is a time limitation mentioned for short sounds and exceptions too and others regarding nature and many times I have heard questions in the past regarding original samples. If someone used a sound from a music making application or from a proprietary keyboard, they were informed that it could not be used. This has no legal standing. The reason those sounds are not licensed are for two reasons: They cannot license as anything other than public domain if they are making a music making device/machine/instrument, as it is meant to be used for that purpose and secondly and most important, they couldn't license them if they wanted to (except public Domain). It is not that the sounds have no license because they don't want to, they couldn't anyway since most samples are very short or are nothing but a pre-programmed algorithm that generates a sound and no matter what they would choose as a license, they would be PD sounds, regardless. I'm sure their lawyers have informed them of this, thus they don't put a license on sounds, because they are all PD anyway.

Damn license discussions always get long winded. So the actual question is more about why we can't submit, what is already considered a CC0 file as CC0? I can put whatever license on it I want to, but in the end, if it is predefined as public domain, then that is just what it is. I can't put a license on a sound that goes 'click'.
More even more to the meat of it...At present, to the best of my knowledge, there has never been a clear answer as to whether you can use CC with stipulations on it, but most all GPL/art things are like this because the art is separate and as long as the GPL maintainers stick to the author's stipulations, then there shouldn't be a problem. GPL and CC-by-SA do not go together, in a legal sense, but because it just works, no one bothers with the semantics. Software and Art have separate licenses. That is the real problem. I move that software should be considered art and therefore should be able to be licensed as CC, but the legal system has yet to catch up.

In any event, I agree with GPL + CC-by-SA and so does most everyone else. That is why it is used so often. We have been too particular in the past. I think that if someone wants to submit an original work as CC0, they should be able too, especially since there are NO legal restrictions or controversy about it being used with GPL now.

Sampling Plus is another that should be allowed as source. You can't license a new sound as Sampling plus anyway, but if the intent of the author was to create a free sound, then it should be able to be used as a source sound, in my opinion. You just need to know what stipulations there are on it, if any. You can still re-license to its CC equivalent anyway, in our case CC-by-SA. You could legally use any Sampling plus sounds that do not include an NC clause with this project.
EDIT: or ND clause

Ledmitz = Ardits = KillerBee = Mystic = Mystical_Servant = Tipsy Skeleton = BoomBoom = Cloak

User avatar
WildX
Source of Mana
Source of Mana
Posts: 2084
Joined: 07 Aug 2010, 14:13
Location: United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: Classics in the background

Post by WildX »

It all boils down to what the author wants to do. At least for music, if you wanted to submit anything you make as public domain I wouldn't personally have an objection to that. CC0 is just another way to say "public domain" that is consistent with our Creative Commons affiliation. I'd still recommend CC BY-SA whenever possible/appropriate for any original work, simply because having huge amounts of TMW content in the public domain could attract people wanting to pass off the work as theirs and even sell it. Obviously that's not a problem for the odd music track or something that is so clearly public doman (like an old piece of classical music) that no one could seriously claim as theirs.

tl;dr: if you think something should be public domain, CC0 is an acceptable license to label your work as such.

TMW Team member

User avatar
Ledmitz
TMW Classic
TMW Classic
Posts: 566
Joined: 17 Aug 2011, 22:40
Location: The Mana World
Contact:

Re: Classics in the background

Post by Ledmitz »

WildX ... looking for a non-existent like button so ... (Like). Finally an answer that makes sense. I would submit any works here as CC-by-SA to help prevent thieves, regardless, but some sounds if they need very little editing, would just be a faded out version of the same source sound and should probably keep the original authors license. I don't have many like this now, but I like the saying "no need to reinvent the wheel". There is a punch sound I like and use here. I need to check its original license because it falls in this category. I can't think of much else like that now, but I am getting license info together as well as a list of who submitted what (re: sounds).

Ledmitz = Ardits = KillerBee = Mystic = Mystical_Servant = Tipsy Skeleton = BoomBoom = Cloak

User avatar
WildX
Source of Mana
Source of Mana
Posts: 2084
Joined: 07 Aug 2010, 14:13
Location: United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: Classics in the background

Post by WildX »

The only thing that would cause problems is licences incompatible with CC BY-SA, which are any more-restrictive ones. So when you say about checking the original license, unless it's a public domain one it's best to take a look at the individual cases. I'll split this topic to make the discussion about licenses its own thing so I can sticky it for future reference. Feel free to post any questions about music licenses and individual tracks with an original license here. :)

TMW Team member

User avatar
ksso
Novice
Novice
Posts: 61
Joined: 26 Apr 2020, 17:32
Location: Colombia
Contact:

Re: Copyright exceptions with licenses such as public domain

Post by ksso »

how about requesting permission to use nasa' sounds (or similar places)
https://soundcloud.com/nasa/
policies:
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines/index.html
could apply by non-comercial use? or could even give a try?
there are lot of nice sounds, though...

User avatar
WildX
Source of Mana
Source of Mana
Posts: 2084
Joined: 07 Aug 2010, 14:13
Location: United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: Copyright exceptions with licenses such as public domain

Post by WildX »

From their guidelines it seems that for non-commercial use their material can be used as if it was public domain (so no need to contact them for permission). They could really make it all much clearer by using an open license such as CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 but I guess the whole point is that they want to be able to commercialise some material through indivudual agreements. Anyway, based on what their website says it seems their stuff could be used. It would be awkward to fit into our (somewhat) neat licensing system.

TMW Team member

User avatar
Reid
Lead Developer (SoM)
Lead Developer (SoM)
Posts: 1549
Joined: 15 May 2010, 21:39
Location: Artis
Contact:

Re: Copyright exceptions with licenses such as public domain

Post by Reid »

We never used any -NC (non commerical) or -ND (no derivs) Creative Commons license as they introduce some troubles such as:

  • incompatibility of combination (and sometimes derivation) of these samples with our current data
  • limit the reusability of our content within the FLOSS community
  • limit the project if it one day wants to follow a commercial model

Also, it has always been highly encouraged to only use original content for TMW to promote our local artists and composers!

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
-- Ford Prefect
User avatar
WildX
Source of Mana
Source of Mana
Posts: 2084
Joined: 07 Aug 2010, 14:13
Location: United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: Copyright exceptions with licenses such as public domain

Post by WildX »

Reid wrote: 30 Oct 2020, 20:08

We never used any -NC (non commerical) or -ND (no derivs) Creative Commons license as they introduce some troubles such as:

  • incompatibility of combination (and sometimes derivation) of these samples with our current data
  • limit the reusability of our content within the FLOSS community
  • limit the project if it one day wants to follow a commercial model

Also, it has always been highly encouraged to only use original content for TMW to promote our local artists and composers!

I agree, but I can't quite tell if this counts as NC. Regardless, every point you made applies so it looks like a no for NASA sounds.

TMW Team member

User avatar
jesusalva
Moubootaur Legends
Moubootaur Legends
Posts: 1438
Joined: 14 Nov 2016, 22:20
Location: Brazil
Contact:

Re: Copyright exceptions with licenses such as public domain

Post by jesusalva »

For the record, any creative commons with NC flag on it IS NOT considered a free license: See also https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

Free Software Foundation wrote:

This license does not qualify as free, because there are restrictions on charging money for copies.

It also is not an Open Source Approved License: See also https://opensource.org/docs/osd

Open Source Initative wrote:

1. Free Redistribution
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

...

3. Derived Works
The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

So yes, it goes against the project's philosophy on regards of licensing. I myself would never push a submission under any NC or ND license.

Personally, for general purposes, licenses more lax than GPLv3 are "probably okay" while licenses stricter are not. So CC-BY would be "generally OK" (it is more lax) but CC-BY-NC would not (it adds restrictions not present on GPL).

Fun fact: Although the OSI website is licensed under CC-BY 4.0, it also is not listed as an OSI-approved license :shock:

Jesusalva (aka. Jesusaves)
Donate to the project! ─ (Note: If you want to support me instead, Buy me a coffee!)

Former system administrator, project lead and developer.
Do not contact me regarding The Mana World inquiries.

User avatar
Hello=)
TMW Classic
TMW Classic
Posts: 648
Joined: 11 Jun 2009, 12:46

Re: Copyright exceptions with licenses such as public domain

Post by Hello=) »

Few more things on NC and ND...

  1. Say, if someone donates $ since they like e.g. content/game/something, does it qualifies as "commercial"? Is it OK to sell TMW T-shirt or something? Where "commercial" border is, when it comes to complicated thing using combination of resources and code like RPG?
  2. What if at some point people would need or want, say, convert file or resample, would -ND really do? Especially if some processing on the way turns out to be really desirable? At least, Manaplus once had to resample all its sounds to uniform samle rate. Just because libsdl proven to do a bit strange things in some selected configurations - if you give it "quite unusual" sample rates (and there were some rather uncommon sample rates, not sure how respective authors came with these, but it happens). Or maybe someone would want e.g. uniform level on all sounds, or so. Would such processing qualify as derivative work?
  3. How does that mixes and matches with e.g. GPLed content/code/etc? GPL explicitly prohibits to put extra restrictions beyond what's set in license.

Realistically -NC and -ND are non-free licenses. Pretty much shareware version of content or so. -ND also okay to listen and so on, but can be a problem e.g. game sound track/FX where it could readily turn into problem.

User avatar
Ledmitz
TMW Classic
TMW Classic
Posts: 566
Joined: 17 Aug 2011, 22:40
Location: The Mana World
Contact:

Re: Copyright exceptions with licenses such as public domain

Post by Ledmitz »

So much talk about compatibility over the years, but notice all licenses we use require attribution and yet, no license file has a spot for it. I have added attribution in my MRs to rEvolt as it is required by the licenses themselves. An example is something like a sprite created for another server, then it gets recoloured for use on TMW(example). The recoloured sprite should state it was recoloured by __________, but original author stays the same. Also changing content and not saying what was changed is like assuming the author's endorsement, which is not the case at times and not proper licensing. I do make small fade ins and outs, volume tweaks and such. These changes do not require a notice though and do not change the author and contributor is often deemed to be whoever made the push on git, but there are many types of contributors and these should really be specified better in our licenses.

Altered by, Added by, Filtered by are all things that are supposed to be shown in our licenses, but we call who added the sound a contributor.... really they are contributing to the whole project and not the individual sound/sprite when they add new content. I also notice that all art is licensed, but finding out who made code changes is harder to find. I do feel that code and XML changes and such should always have a comment added showing who worked on a file, though it would be too hard to document everything, it would give some reference as to who to contact if there are questions. Also dates are needed for all licenses to show the year of the copyright which is usually done like, "Ledmitz (2020)". I noticed dates are missing from some license files and also add them where I can, like the music license. IDT it is absolutely required, but a date is supposed to be shown going by CC examples and more.

One more thing. A lot of free art is licensed wrong online. I just go by the author's intent and wishes, but I sneer at those that make a single sample equivalent to a keyboard sound and then try to license in any manner other than CC0. Because all samples of single short sounds, technically, automatically fall in the public domain, the makers of electronic instruments simply do not license their samples at all as there is no need to.

Ledmitz = Ardits = KillerBee = Mystic = Mystical_Servant = Tipsy Skeleton = BoomBoom = Cloak

User avatar
jesusalva
Moubootaur Legends
Moubootaur Legends
Posts: 1438
Joined: 14 Nov 2016, 22:20
Location: Brazil
Contact:

Re: Copyright exceptions with licenses such as public domain

Post by jesusalva »

XML licenses are stuff often completely overlooked. Most of XML files do not even apply for copyright eligibility.

Jesusalva (aka. Jesusaves)
Donate to the project! ─ (Note: If you want to support me instead, Buy me a coffee!)

Former system administrator, project lead and developer.
Do not contact me regarding The Mana World inquiries.

Post Reply