GPL license for Artistic works -long post- sorry!

[toneddu2000]

Also, nobody of Alientrap has the millions of dollars (or billions? Some MP3s apparently already count as millions of dollars) to pay damage compensation for copyright violation in case Bethesda (new owner of id software) sues us for GPL violation on the Quake 1 code, in case it is NOT legal to mix a GPL engine with non-GPL data.

Why someone should pay a penny to Id or Bethesda or whatever?On the net there's a lot of games that use quake GPL license for CODE and other license (often proprietary)for media.
1 example? (font:wikipedia)
alien arena 2009 GNU GPL (code), Proprietary license (media)
war§ow GNU GPL (code), Proprietary license (media)
World of Padman GNU GPL (code), Proprietary license (media)

I don't think they'are worried that they can be sued by someone for committing no crime!
Code and media are separate things and are released under separate licenses.
But I think there's no problem about Nexuiz. If you're sure that actual GPL license can protect code and media, I'm fine. My question was only about the weak protection that GPL could give to artistic contents, but if we think of Nexuiz as a single program, maybe there's no problem.

[divVerent]

I am sure the PROTECTION the GPL gives is quite strong enough, more likely too strong. Worst abuse case is selling GPL software for money, like GIMP sold as "image editing app like photoshop" and OpenOffice as "office suite like MS Office". GPL protects stronger than CC-BY-SA, and less strongly than CC-BY-NC-SA, basically.

As for the games you mentioned: who says Bethesda won't sue AA2009 or Warsow? There has been NO decision about this yet.

Maybe they are not worried about it. But that doesn't mean what they're doing is entirely legal. Fact is, nobody knows whether it is. And we don't want to be the first ones brought in court for it.

As for the GPL using the word "Program" for everything, this is explained at the top of the license. It is used as a word for whatever the license applies to. It is not required to be a "program". It's odd wording, nothing more. Same goes for other terms with a capital letter in the beginning. These are sort of variables and to be set to what you apply the license to.

[Irritant]

As for the games you mentioned: who says Bethesda won't sue AA2009 or Warsow? There has been NO decision about this yet.

Maybe they are not worried about it. But that doesn't mean what they're doing is entirely legal. Fact is, nobody knows whether it is.

I can tell you that we are not even remotely worried about it. We don't believe it's illegal to begin with, but the very fact that you can see the vagueness of the issue in the GPL means that it would never stand in court anyway.

The difference between libraries and data is simply this: You can swap data, but not libraries. The libraries are "programs" in and of themselves as well, they are created directly by using a programming language. The game engine requires them to compile or run, but the data can be anything the end user wants provided it works with the engine.

In my mind, and most judges minds, the word "program" means "computer program", which means an executable binary created with a languge, not game art.

[divVerent]

You can swap libraries just as fine too. Nothing prevents you from making your own library with libcurl's interface, for example.

And if you say the GPL would not stand in court anyway, this means regular copyright would apply, i.e. nobody would have ANY license to copy the stuff. That is the absolutely worst that can happen.

But in any case, it's too late. We cannot provide this content under this license, that content under that license. Even if the code and content license CAN be separate - which I don't think we should rely on - having every content under its own license would be a huge mess and basically mean nobody would want to distribute the game as it's too dangerous (who knows which file may have an evil license...).

New content however could easily come as GPL + CC-BY-SA dual licensed. No problem with that. In case the GPL is void then, CC-BY-SA still applies. And the GPL will be used in case loading the content does count as linking, otherwise the more permissive CC-BY-SA. But for this, of course, source files must be provided.

As for the word "program": a judge would rather follow the definition given in the very same license text:

GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".

Also, note the "or other work", and the subtle difference between "program" and "Program".

[Flying Steel]

I think Nexuiz should continue to use only free content, regardless of what is allowed. Because it is a FREE game, everything about it should be totally free to use.

And seriously, what good free projects are out there whose credits you'd actually want to have your name in, but that are such asshats that they wouldn't credit you for using your work, simply because they weren't legally obligated to? Any serious successful project is going to want to give credit where credit is do.

[Irritant]

"This License applies to any program or other work which contains
a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
under the terms of this General Public License. "

I think this answers the question. id only owned the copyright of the source code that was used in Warsow, Alien Arena, WOP, not the game data. When the license discusses the "whole work", it really depends on how it is interpreted, whether or not a game engine as a "whole" also includes the game media. Since id only released the engine sources, and not the game media, this is really a moot point. They cannot sue for copyright infringement over something they do not hold the copyright of.

By definition, a game is a collection of "works". The engine, each model, each texture, is a work upon itself. Since the "Work" that was released by id was only the engine, the definition of "work" in this case would only apply to the engine, and not include the game data.

At this stage though, since Nexuiz defined the "work" as the entire game, including media, it is now impossible to change the license, without completely redoing all game media from scratch. So in all, again, a moot point here as well.

[TVR]

A unique combination of works in technically a work of its own, which permits lists & compilations to be valid for copyright.

A license that affects derivatives, therefore affects the license of the work as a whole.

[divVerent]

Since id only released the engine sources, and not the game media, this is really a moot point. They cannot sue for copyright infringement over something they do not hold the copyright of.

Exactly that is wrong.

If you use a 20 lines function from a GPLed project, and put it in a big non-GPL program, you're still committing a copyright infringement. In this case, Bethesda would sue us for using the Quake code not according to the license it came with - and NOT over violations about the content.

A unique combination of works in technically a work of its own

Exactly.

[Irritant]

Exactly that is wrong.

If you use a 20 lines function from a GPLed project, and put it in a big non-GPL program, you're still committing a copyright infringement. In this case, Bethesda would sue us for using the Quake code not according to the license it came with - and NOT over violations about the content.

Well of course, but that's not what we are talking about here. Warsow content is not part of the Quake code, and therefore not covered by the GPL, nor is it considered part of the "work" released under the GPL by id Software.

[Irritant]

A unique combination of works in technically a work of its own, which permits lists & compilations to be valid for copyright.

A license that affects derivatives, therefore affects the license of the work as a whole.

Again, factually correct, but game content is not derivative of the source code released by id Software. Again the "work" that was released under the GPL was the engine source code, not game content, and in the scope of the license, all that is covered.

It would be another issue entirely if id Software released the entire game under the GPL, but they did not. I hope that explains it a bit.