The Mana World Forums

I was just about to sleep when this question entered my mind, and I felt the need to write it off before I could catch any numbered sheep in the happy lands of No Worry.

What would be the license of screenshots taken with the tmw client on an official server? GPL?

The content shown is GPL, but would the composition of the shot per se have any “height”, making it a derivative work? Or are they no derivative works at all... My rather tired conclusion is that they should be GPL in any case. Ah. Licensing is the business of lawyer wannabies not ordinary beings, we just want to be able to use and reuse to our hearts content.

*goes back to sleep*

They should obviously be GPL, though probably you can use them also under certain fair use policies. In any case if they wouldn't be GPL then you would be able to use the art in any other non-GPL game by ripping it out of the screenshots...

The screenshot is a picture taken by you, just as a photograph so you would hold the full rights?

This however does not mean you would own what you took a picture of. (Taking a picture about a building and owning a building are rather different.)

True, true. Thanks for your answers.

Actually as a computer image technically based on GPL graphics, wouldn't the license transfer?

I would consider a screenshot of GPL licensed graphics a derivate work.

It all boils down to how you use your piece. There is fair use and all sorts of legal minefields around this.

I cannot imagine the GPL hopping onto a screenshot in a meaningful way, but I do encourage you to prove me right or wrong. I'm quite intrigued to find the scenario in which the license of the screenshot would matter.

Hence I'm going to stand by my opinion until shown a court record or a plausible scenario to reverse it.

Mostly around the world, judges try to uphold the spirit of the law, not the letter of it. In this case the letter of the GPL might actually dictate so, but I don't feel ripped off by screenshots at all.

Also for things to go to court, someone needs to benefit from winning the case enough to go through with it. I wouldn't chase after screenshots. Especially if used in parody. (Webcomics, anyone?) Even there the revenue would most likely not be generated by selling our material, but rather by advertisement. Then again putting our pixel art on a t-shirt and selling it would be illegal. (Or would you just have to provide the vector format image which goes to the shirt press to the public?)

The license is out there just to protect someone making money from our work, but does not for example prevent the software as a service approach at all (anyone can still charge monthly fees for a TMW server if they want to.)

A bit of an incoherent tired ramble, but there should actually be some points in there too.

The GPL has in fact a section which is relevant to this situation:

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

Do screenshots constitute a work based on the mana world?

Crush wrote:Do screenshots constitute a work based on the mana world?

I would think so, yes.

In the opposite end would be creating a map in tiled or a document in OpenOffice, they may use the data of the programs to be created but they will not contain it. At least, that is my impression.

Debian had a recent discussion about a package with screenshots of the games in their distribution:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepor ... =487218#50
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/20 ... 00028.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/20 ... 00016.html

Haha! Debian and their (in)famous licensing discussions. Though, it seems they have come to the same conclusion as we did here; in general it’s best to consider a screenshot a derivative work (with Fair Use applies as/when appropriate).