Content Licensing - Questions and Answers

[LykosMactire 298]

would i be allowed to take chernarus and replace all the buildings and roads and trees with ArmA III ones?

[.kju 3245]

BI silently published a FAQ: http://www.bistudio.com/english/community/licenses/faq

Personally I find it bad not to enforce source model release for data released under SA..

Thanks for clearing up lots of aspects though!

[vilas 477]

What is the difference between the APL licenses and a Freeware License? I came across a mod that uses a Freeware license and nothing else. Where does that fall? It states that permission must be granted by the license holders prior to any use of said mod in any mission or mod.

I think I understand your question and indeed it would be good to confirm it in bold letters by BIS

many people confuse content made by addonmaker with content made by BIS when it comes to liceses

few days ago someone from Dayz community was.. trying to convince me that models made by me from scratch must be released as opensource and share-alike,

because he believes that BIS types of licenses that came along with BIS release of MLODs are touching also content NOT made by BIS

it would be good to have here confirmation from BIS (which we could link to dayz mods forums): "licenses prescribed on BIS websites are not touching models made by other entity than BIS"

cause currently another person from dayz community says that my addons are opensource and because they fall under BIS license they are share-alike and i must release source and i cannot permit/not permit anyone about any use/edition etc.

cause they say "if addon is downloaded from Armaholic and come to dayz it is open source and share-alike and you cannot argue with anyone cause you do now own it but it is share-alike opensource"

because as i see you confus "mod" with APL etc.

if you use BIS models released by BIS to make new stuff from copy-paste-edit them - it is under BIS licenses

if you wanna use model which was made by other person from scratch - it is not touching BIS license because content was not made by BIS

[orcinus 121]

Two questions. Purpose - to attempt a partial port of SLX_wounds to A3:

1) Is it permissible to extract a couple of animations from my CO installation? I'm generally limited to mobile BB & the animation packs alone would use about half my monthly bandwidth - which I need for other purposes. It might take me 3 months or more to d/l just the 2 animation packs.

2) Solus released the mod to the community, so would I be able to apply the more (?) restrictive APL / APL-SA licence without breaching Solus' licence?

TIA

Orc

[six_ten 208]

I'm a little confused by the licensing so I hope someone can put into plain English how I should proceed.

I'm making a map. All of the buildings and terrain are my original models, textures, etc. For trees and grasses so far I've used A3 plants only. If I update some A2OA plants and trees from the data packages and include them also, does that mean that the map cannot be protected, that it must be unbinarized and released as APL_SA or should I put the A2 plants into a separate pbo and release that as APL-SA while the rest of the assets remain protected?

[IndeedPete 1038]

Hello there,

I'm currently working on a project and took two sign textures from A2 and one image from the PMC DLC. I'm not familiar with licencing but I followed the flowchart and came to the result that I have to publish it under APL-SA. Touched PBOs are signs2 from A2 and missions_pmc from A2 PMC. Am I correct?

Thank you in advance!

[vilas 477]

I'm a little confused by the licensing so I hope someone can put into plain English how I should proceed.

I'm making a map. All of the buildings and terrain are my original models, textures, etc. For trees and grasses so far I've used A3 plants only. If I update some A2OA plants and trees from the data packages and include them also, does that mean that the map cannot be protected, that it must be unbinarized and released as APL_SA or should I put the A2 plants into a separate pbo and release that as APL-SA while the rest of the assets remain protected?

i believe that this second way , just put YOUR work protected, and make second PBO with BIS-work with which you do all what BIS license says, cause what YOU made belongs to YOU and is not "must be freeware, share-alike", cause next day you will find it on 3d-stock website, another day it will be in GTA, Man of War, Half Life, and 10 dayz mods gonna charge for it ,

2) Solus released the mod to the community, so would I be able to apply the more (?) restrictive APL / APL-SA licence without breaching Solus' licence?

it really need what i asked post before your post - someone from BIS/moderation to clearly say "BIS licenses apply to BIS work , if addonmaker made other license for his models/textures/code etc. it is not applying to BIS kinds of licenses like share-alike" (if you read my post Orcinus above yours, you should know what i say, cause till today many dayz-community members think that addons in Armaholic are freeware and "must be share-alike" cause they are under BIS dayz license they think (wrongly of course) )

[orcinus 121]

Thanks, Vilas. However I'm not sure our enquiries are identical - I was concerned that anything I released under, say, an APL-SA licence wouldn't seem that I was attempting to restrict anyone else's use of Solus code - which I would not want at all, and very much less would want to effect. As for the thieves (I suppress much more pungent phrases here!] it's really an issue for BIS if the stolen content in anyway breaches their IP rights. Individuals (or even large mod teams) do not have the resources to much more than protest to the hosting sites - not that that has any effect in a number of countries...

I notice I missed Edge's post which makes it clear that one doesn't need to download the pack, it's OK to dePbo one's game files - hope that helps anyone else with a similar issue.

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

Of course you can! ALDP packages serve only as a kind of repository indicating wich data BI released and under which license. We did it like this as it was more feasible method of releasing game data compared to releasing e.g. gigabytes of unbinarized textures.

Everyone is free to open the PBOs and use any data provided he respects the licenses under which they were released (so please be careful with attribution, non-commercial, Arma-Only and in case of APL-SA, also Share Alike).

Does this mean that since the Queen's Gambit files are included in the ALDP package that we can use, for example, the DC-3 as long as we use it in ArmA?

I know this question toes the line of the rules, but I wish to be clear in my understanding of the legalities of this. Are we allowed to use programs (which cannot be discussed, per forum rules) to debinarize the ALDP files when necessary and modify/release them for the ArmA series (and only the ArmA series) under the appropriate licenses as dictated by Bohemia Interactive?

[Edge 2]

Does this mean that since the Queen's Gambit files are included in the ALDP package that we can use, for example, the DC-3 as long as we use it in ArmA?

Hello, if it's in ALDP package, then you are free to use it in Arma and abide to the license's requirements.

---------- Post added at 08:57 ---------- Previous post was at 08:21 ----------

I think I understand your question and indeed it would be good to confirm it in bold letters by BIS

many people confuse content made by addonmaker with content made by BIS when it comes to liceses

The things are a bit different: Our (BI) content is licensed by our EULA and part of the game data were released inder certain licenses (APL, APL-SA). Content made by an addonmaker from scratch may be licensed in any way provided the license is compliant with our EULA. It is up to particular addonmaker to choose under which conditions he releases their work, with APL and APL-SA being among the options. In case somebody is using BI's data as basis for their work, they are required to follow the licenses' conditions (see the licenses selection chart).

few days ago someone from Dayz community was.. trying to convince me that models made by me from scratch must be released as opensource and share-alike,

because he believes that BIS types of licenses that came along with BIS release of MLODs are touching also content NOT made by BIS

Of course, this is nonsense. Your model is yours, and it is up to you how you limit its further usage. However, it is always good do define these things when you release something. Again, APL or APL-SA can be used.

it would be good to have here confirmation from BIS (which we could link to dayz mods forums): "licenses prescribed on BIS websites are not touching models made by other entity than BIS"

cause currently another person from dayz community says that my addons are opensource and because they fall under BIS license they are share-alike and i must release source and i cannot permit/not permit anyone about any use/edition etc.

cause they say "if addon is downloaded from Armaholic and come to dayz it is open source and share-alike and you cannot argue with anyone cause you do now own it but it is share-alike opensource"

Obviously, licenses always cover particular and well defined content, and are not universal to everything the community produces - you would have to state that paticular addon of yours is released under particular license. Even if you do not define licensing conditions for your work, you remain its author and your IP rights should be respected. You are definitely not required to release any sources, but it's welcome help expecially in case of APL-SA-licensed content.

Let me just add that everyone is welcome to use APL or APL-SA, which are based on CC but were tailored to be EULA-compliant and promote the spirit of openness and cooperation us veterans experienced in the early days of OFP community.

I also recommend to read through the Licenses FAQ and check the licenses selection chart which can help in understanding how we mean it. Hope this helps. :)

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

If you're not required to keep the work open source, may I ask what is the reason APL-SA even exists at all? SA = Share Alike, but if BI is not enforcing the SA part of APL-SA, then the license is essentially just APL, correct? This is something many addonmakers have been confused/annoyed about. I understand it is a general thing for the community to use as well, but I'm talking specifically about APL-SA as it applies to Bohemia content.

Share Alike - If you adapt, or build upon this material, you may distribute the resulting material only under the same license.

It was my understanding that the way it was supposed to work is...

Bohemia releases APL unbinarized content > Addonmaker uses it to create works > Addonmaker doesn't want his work modified > Addonmaker must release content under APL,

Bohemia releases APL-SA unbinarized content > Addonmaker uses it to create works > Bohemia wants APL-SA content to remain open to the community > Addonmaker must release unbinarized content under APL-SA

APL-SA was understood by many, in the beginning, to be the license used by Bohemia, and by community members, for when they want to release unbinarized content for others to modify as long as all versions, from the initial release to the end of time itself, are released under the same license, for others to continue to modify. This was thought to be why Bohemia released the majority of content under APL, and only the terrain source/etc. (Things that Bohemia wanted to remain open, if I remember correctly?) under APL-SA.

Bohemia coming out publicly and saying

we do not require the addon makers to publish unbinarized sources along with the binarized addons under the APL-SA license.

makes many feel that you have no idea what you're doing, and causes us to view what was initially a genuine attempt at improving the situation, as something that has muddied the waters even further.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Darkhorse 1-6

[sunshimaro 10]

Are single texture files being licensed under BI, if completly altered and/or selfmade? Is there such a term as "stealing" work from others, if using for yourself and keeping it private?

[SAS_Raptor 30]

Well, the licence model might not be perfect. But it seems pretty solid to me, and is for sure better than what many other developers offer. Thx BI

[das attorney 858]

So, from what I gather, it's okay to redistribute models used from the sample packs as long as they are under the same licence and are unbinarized.

I'd like to binarize them for performance reasons (so potentially users don't have to load lots of unbinarized data when running the mod).

With the licence in mind, would it be okay to binarize the models for my mod and also include the unbinarized models in a zip/7z or similar; included in the modfiles so that they could be reengineered by others?

Is that still in the spirit of the licence, or is binarizing anything a big no-no?

Just to be clear, for example: I take the fridge model from the sample pack, add some textures, binarize it in the mod but also include a fridge.zip file with the unbinarized fridge model alongside the download. Is that okay?

[gdscei 1]

So, from what I gather, it's okay to redistribute models used from the sample packs as long as they are under the same licence and are unbinarized.

I'd like to binarize them for performance reasons (so potentially users don't have to load lots of unbinarized data when running the mod).

With the licence in mind, would it be okay to binarize the models for my mod and also include the unbinarized models in a zip/7z or similar; included in the modfiles so that they could be reengineered by others?

Is that still in the spirit of the licence, or is binarizing anything a big no-no?

Just to be clear, for example: I take the fridge model from the sample pack, add some textures, binarize it in the mod but also include a fridge.zip file with the unbinarized fridge model alongside the download. Is that okay?

I don't take responsibility for what you do, but I am pretty sure you can binarise them. This has obvious improvements over not binarising them in terms of performance and logging too.

[JVB24 10]

Look at http://www.bistudio.com/images/licence_chart.jpg :) It could be useful for you.

---------- Post added at 11:43 ---------- Previous post was at 11:21 ----------

and http://www.bistudio.com/english/community/licenses

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

Look at http://www.bistudio.com/images/licence_chart.jpg :) It could be useful for you.

---------- Post added at 11:43 ---------- Previous post was at 11:21 ----------

and http://www.bistudio.com/english/community/licenses

These don't answer the various questions asked though, which is why people are asking in this thread...

[JVB24 10]

Adding a package of unbinarized models to the release seems like a perfect solution! The spirit of the license is to allow Arma community to share and build upon our (BI's) and their own works, and adding MLODs to make remixing easier accords with it.

Please note that if you are building upon our data (e.g. models) released under APL-SA license, you are required to release your remix under the same license, and the license text should be part of the release package.

In other cases, we definitely recommend to use the APL licence.

Thank you again for respecting our intellectual property, and best of luck with your modding work!

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

So, from what I gather, it's okay to redistribute models used from the sample packs as long as they are under the same licence and are unbinarized.

I'd like to binarize them for performance reasons (so potentially users don't have to load lots of unbinarized data when running the mod).

With the licence in mind, would it be okay to binarize the models for my mod and also include the unbinarized models in a zip/7z or similar; included in the modfiles so that they could be reengineered by others?

Is that still in the spirit of the licence, or is binarizing anything a big no-no?

Just to be clear, for example: I take the fridge model from the sample pack, add some textures, binarize it in the mod but also include a fridge.zip file with the unbinarized fridge model alongside the download. Is that okay?

Adding a package of unbinarized models to the release seems like a perfect solution! The spirit of the license is to allow Arma community to share and build upon our (BI's) and their own works, and adding MLODs to make remixing easier accords with it.

Please note that if you are building upon our data (e.g. models) released under APL-SA license, you are required to release your remix under the same license, and the license text should be part of the release package.

In other cases, we definitely recommend to use the APL licence.

Thank you again for respecting our intellectual property, and best of luck with your modding work!

According to the wording of the licenses themselves, if you use APL-SA content you must release the unbinarized source of the -SA derivative content. Except then Bohemia went and publicly stated that nobody was required to release any source files for anything whether it's -SA or not. Either things are really confused at BI these days, or they have no idea what they're doing with the licenses, or possibly the people who wrote the license FAQ didn't consult the people that wrote the licenses.

JVB24, can you see if you can get a final decision on this? Whether SA requires source material to be released, or if there is no such requirement? Because so far Bohemia has stated both things.

[jimmyjjohn 10]

What is the difference between the APL licenses and a Freeware License? I came across a mod that uses a Freeware license and nothing else. Where does that fall? It states that permission must be granted by the license holders prior to any use of said mod in any mission or mod.

[Vigil Vindex 64]

I don't understand why BIS felt the need to make their own licenses. Creative Commons has licenses to cover all use cases. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

If I intend to release anything it will be under a CC-BY-SA license, as that license has much better standing in court as it is in use all over the world and internationally recognised. These BIS licenses are something they cooked up themselves and has never been tested in court or seen in wide-spread use.

Plus it qualifies as a free cultural work, which is what creativity is supposed to be about, contributing to our societies culture, not squeezing financial benefit out of society for as long as possible.

https://creativecommons.org/freeworks

Edited June 6, 2014 by ssechaud

[10t 12]

Creative Commons has licenses to cover all use cases.

CC isn't compatible with this clause:

Arma Only - You may not convert or adapt this material to be used in other games than Arma.

I think it's pretty reasonable for BI to limit the use of their work to the Armaverse.

[vilas 477]

I don't understand why BIS felt the need to make their own licenses.

maybe because Dayz community cheats overrun previous stage of licensing cause first time in Arma history (since OFP) free addons were used to earn money by people who not made those addons ?

maybe because with relase of MLODs next day 90% of those models would be on all 3d-stocks and GTA mods and ManofWar mods and other games and BIS was tired of 20 mails everyday "hi i want to import it into garry's mod", maybe cause BIS want to give models to encourage people to make more modding in Arma3 , it is BIS property and BIS can do whatever they want with their models me thinks,

[Edge 2]

The explanation why we "cooked" our own licenses is pretty easy, as 10T put it: CC don't address some specific things we wanted to promote or legalize, e.g. limited usage of content only withing range of our products. Also, BI's licenses are based on the latest version of CC licenses. :) Of course you are free to use a suitable CC license provided your work is 100% yours and does not contain any remixes.

Anyway, back to the hard work: regarding the questions about whether unbinarized models need to be provided as part of modifications released under APL-SA, it is NOT required. I would say the FAQ is pretty clear about this:

Does "Share Alike" mean that I need have to release the source models of my modification?

The license does not specify in which format the data ought to be shared, and we do not require the addon makers to publish unbinarized sources along with the binarized addons under the APL-SA license. Obviously, it's better to release data in unbinarized format for their further use, which is what we would consider as beneficial for the Arma creative community. Also, we recommend respecting the original data under APL-SA you modify: if somebody released his addon in MLOD format as well, it would be a matter of courtesy to release it likewise.

We have released plenty of past Armas' data ourselves, with APL-SA parts of the Arma Licensed Data Packs containing binarized models. The intention behind the cited FAQ answer is not to impose rules on community we did not abide ourselves. :) If you, the community, would feel there is need to enforce the release of unbinarized models in order to allow easier remixes, we are open to discussion (but please start it in a separate thread).

[slatts 1978]

A user has contacted me claiming my mod is illegal and I have to share the source data because my mod uses data from the sample packs. However there is also data from another user who does not want to share their work through me. The sample data (ironsights and grenade launcher model) is used on the 3rd party p3d.

Surely this is not the case that I have to share what I am not permitted to share?