Art Licencing concerns.

[Xoel]

I have a small concern. I use CGTextures.com to obtain my stock textures. It explicitly states that you can sell textures on commercially AS LONG AS they are bundled with a 3D model. However, according to their licence, it's not compatible with Open Source licencing as it doesn't allow you to redistribute any further.

May I use these textures in my Open Source (Creative Commons, GPL, etc) project?
No. These textures may not be used in Open-Source projects. The licenses are not compatible. Almost all Open-Source licenses allow redistribution of the materials, and redistribution is not allowed for these textures.

In other words, under a PlaneShift-like licence it is absolutely fine to use CGTextures.com textures, but under CC-by-sa it seems it isn't. If someone could clarify this it would be great. CGTextures is pretty much the only resource with that much in the way of free textures, I would prefer a licence that is compatible with it (though we could explicitly state in our licence that textures aren't Open Source whereas meshes are, to remedy this?).

Thanks.

[Tuxide]

Let me get this straight:  PS uses textures from this site?

EDIT:  On a side note, bundling when selling is an unusual requirement for open assets, but I've seen it before:  The Open Font License does the same thing.  But the OFL doesn't restrict you in this manner when you redistribute the font or derivatives without selling.  The CGTextures License seems to restrict you in this way since you can only use these for private or commercial use.

[Xoel]

PS uses textures derived from stock texture images on this site (everytime i have seen them they have been worked on in some way). The Amdeneir team (especially Niko) have used it extensively, and I used it for Kore Dsar in some places. Note that the CGT licence is perfectly compatible with PS's art licence. It isn't compatible with Open Source licencing, because they don't want the textures being redistributed and the usability of the site being diminished.

[Tuxide]

I fail to see how the CGTextures License is compatible with the PlaneShift License.

[Xoel]

You can't redistribute art under the PlaneShift licence. As the textures are bundled into the 3D client, it is fine. Art in PS isn't Open Source.

[Tuxide]

It's whether Atomic Blue claims originality on such images that I'm not sure about.  If I read the CGTextures License correctly, everything on that site is copyright either CGTextures or the contributor.  Being able to use them in your own work and claiming them as original work are two completely different things.

I always knew that indie game companies had been using resources such as these instead of developing in-house, but PlaneShift had always given me the impression that their assets were original.  Guess not.

[Xoel]

No, their assets are definitely not always original. The art team there is not really up to that standard. Though some of it I haven't seen anywhere else, there's quite a few textures that are definitely taken from stock resources like CGT and worked on.

[Xoel]

Arerano and myself had an interesting conversation on IRC to add to this:


[22:09] <Xoel> For textures... probably best to base them off photos (which is why I want to get the art licence changed to be compatible with CGTextures)
[22:10] <|Arerano|> Something like a more flexible licensing model wouldn't be wrong. something like a "per-asset" or "per-asset-set" license.
[22:10] <Xoel> per-artist is another option
[22:11] <Xoel> I'd personally prefer our artists to have more control over how their contributions are licensed
[22:12] <|Arerano|> well, that would work in a "per asset" model.
[22:13] <Xoel> Ie: I could submit mine exclusively to TA, closed to any further spread. You could license yours as CC or GPL or whatever license you want. A list of artists and their license choice can be put on the main site somewhere, and then they watermark their textures in the corner with their name or something. Don't know how we'd work models
[22:13] <Xoel> As far as my interpreting goes, though, models can be as OS as we like and won't conflict with CGTecxtures license. It's the textures (only textures derived from CGT) that must be restricted.
[22:14] <|Arerano|> So I could say "That bucket is 'do whatever you want with it'-license, that creature (which I am particularly proud of) is under 'attribution'-license"
[22:14] <Xoel> The thing is that would lead to long essays and people going "which bucket is his?" and a general mess, so we would need a way of streamlining that
[22:15] <Xoel> So that as you add an asset to the SVN, you can automatically add a tag that declares what license you're contributing it to TA under
[22:15] <|Arerano|> "which bucket is his" > that's why it's per asset or per asset set. You got a group of things inside a file, you got a "license.txt" for that file with everything in it.
[22:16] <|Arerano|> You got a single bucket, you got a txt file for that bucket with everything in it.
[22:16] <Xoel> Ok that makes sense
[22:16] <Xoel> So we upload to SVN in folders, add license.txt to each folder we upload.
[22:16] <Xoel> Well, I might have to start a thread on this.
[22:16] <|Arerano|> the assets or group of assets are bound to their "license" files.
[22:17] <|Arerano|> yeah, or you got "grey_bucket123.zip, and with it a grey_bucket123.txt"
[22:17] <Xoel> Ok, I'll add this convo log to my Art Licencing Concerns thread

This is a great idea. It also means we can close-license textures from CGTextures, and keep the rest open. All that must be done is a license txt file added with each submission. I'd like the department leaders to review this idea please. Note that it will only apply to art, not writing, or anything else.

[Dracaeon]

Heres another website that seems to fit with what you want to do.

Heres the license page: http://www.dougturner.net/blendersite/Terms.html

[Xoel]

It's not as varied and good as CGT imo. That and the license seems the same except CGT explicitly states that their license is not compatible with Open Source licenses.

My idea of the split/self-choice license is really a move to make TA contribution easy and not a source of debate. It will also allow us to use a variety of resources and make artists feel the power is in their hands.

Basic points of the license idea:

Firstly: Artist assigns to TA the right to use the assets they contribute in any way the TA team sees fit. The artist signs that this agreement is irreversible.

Secondly: The agreement explicitly states that the artist can use the asset they made in any way they see fit, and that they can contribute the same asset elsewhere should they wish to. This makes it clear that the artist still retains their rights.

Thirdly, the agreement states that the artist can choose a license of their choosing for each individual contribution. Collaborative contributions will need to be either sorted into seperate contributions by artist's licence choice or given an agreed license prior to contribution. All contributions are put in .zip files and 'license.txt' is added, which states the license chosen (either in full or a URL given). This means people can check the files out of our SVN, but legally cannot duplicate them, use them elsewhere, etc unless the artist has given an open license.

[XilliX]

I think cgtextures should be avoided. We should rather get everyone taking photos to build our own texture library that is completely CC.

[Xoel]

Well, for starters, textures are designed to be flat. Due to the fact lenses are curved, whether taken digitally or by film, they will always have a distortion of curvature unless taken on an extremely expensive camera that can automatically remove the distortion. CGTextures uses that.