Content Licensing - Non-commercial use

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Mac_Fife
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Content Licensing - Non-commercial use

Post by Mac_Fife »

Broken out from the Content Licensing thread...
Deledrius wrote:
Mac_Fife wrote: A proviso on that is that the assets will be made available for community development of MOUL, and things like porting to other engines, or commercial (for profit) use will not be allowed.
Non-commercial use is pretty standard and easy to specify. Unfortunately it's much harder to define during the actual usage what constitutes "commercial", as I'm sure they've deal with then it comes to the donation system for CavCon. I know I've read some articles denouncing the unintentionally damaging consequences of non-commercial provisions, but I can't seem to find them at the moment to share.
I'm not about to argue the difficulties here but I think I understand where Cyan is coming from on this. Actually, on re-reading this again there are two aspects here:
a) Restricting the usage to MOUL, and
b) Limitation to non-commercial use.
Personally, I'm more comfortable with how b) might work than I am with a).

On the subject of b) I think where Cyan is at is that it wants to give the fans the freedom to work with the assets to the benefit of MOUL and the community but at the same time is caught by a desire to not "give away" those assets in a manner that would allow some other entity to exploit them for commercial gain. It's maybe a subtle point, but its the difference between simply "licensing the content" and "licensing the content to MOUL fans" - trying to ensure that those who've supported Uru over the years benefit and not some other third party. That's also kind of where a) seems to come in, but I see a much greater difficulty in defining what is or is not "MOUL usage", e.g. does the creation of an Uru based artwork utilising MOUL textures qualify? I can also see a connection between b) and having a list of named licensees, but that's a different topic.

As regards that non-commercial clause there is a further question I see: Is it intended that all content (and derivative works) should be free of all charges? It is often the case that even "free" products can request a reasonable service charge to cover the costs of producing a copy on DVD and mailing it (and even online downloads can have some "cost"). I'm not sure what the overall size of the licensed assets is likely to be, but I have a sense that it could amount to several GB :?.
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Hoikas
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Re: Content Licensing - Non-commercial use

Post by Hoikas »

I think I would agree to your concerns. Unfortunately, I think that attempting to limit usage to MOUL by requiring an explicit list of licensees will end up causing more aggravation than would be worthwhile. The only way I see to sufficiently ensure only approved users access the assets, we would be basically locking the assets down on one central server, which pretty much eliminates the possibility of updating max files to newer versions and shard-specific changes to Cyan areas (ie adding linking books to fan ages). This wouldn't be a problem if the only benefit we wanted to obtain was to improve Cyan's MOULa shard, but (to be honest) that isn't something I'm especially concerned with. I'd rather make it easy for fan artists and developers make their own changes to the game and get them deployed to the shard of their choosing.
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Re: Content Licensing - Non-commercial use

Post by JWPlatt »

Wording for MORE was to limit content to Plasma, now CWE, and I don't think the intent has changed. "MOUL" might be a misnomer. Not to say derivative use of CWE imagery (e.g., web pages) is not negotiable.

Realistically, once content is out, nothing is going to stop individuals from privately sharing with other individuals whether there is a list or not. If there is a registration, what do you think if anyone on that list has license to serve?

I have recommended we keep it simple. Cyan agrees. The less management there is, or needs to be, without giving away the farm, the less time wasted all around.
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Re: Content Licensing - Non-commercial use

Post by Deledrius »

So much to discuss, and I've been busy the last two days converting PotS Ages to MOULa instead of writing and responding...
JWPlatt wrote:Wording for MORE was to limit content to Plasma, now CWE, and I don't think the intent has changed. "MOUL" might be a misnomer. Not to say derivative use of CWE imagery (e.g., web pages) is not negotiable.
Incidentals like that make sense to be negotiated/FCAL'd.
JWPlatt wrote:I have recommended we keep it simple. Cyan agrees. The less management there is, or needs to be, without giving away the farm, the less time wasted all around.
That's good to hear, and reassuring too. :)
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