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I've got a big dynamic mission of the cusp of release (representing literally years of work).  I know I need to protect my release, but not sure what is important in a license.

 

Curious which Release License you guys go with and why?  Thanks!

 

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Whatever license you choose, you want to make sure it complies with the Arma 3 license : no commercial use.

If your work uses content created by other people, you also need to make sure you respect their own license (do they allow re-using it, and under what conditions?). Usually people who allow re-use of their work only ask to be credited, but some might require that you use the same license as well. In absence of any defined license, the Arma 3 license goes.

And, ultimately, you need to decide if you want to restrict re-uploads/re-use or not.

 

Plenty of stuff to read here : https://www.bohemia.net/community/licenses

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Interesting. I always wondered if a simple note like suggested in your link:

The best practical solution for attribution is to attach a readme file clearly stating under which license the work is released.

was enough (legally). It's a kind of "auto-attribution", no? So, enough as far as we are in a non-commercial scope?

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You could allow commercial use for scripts you wrote. Only the mission file itself (units, object, trigger, etc placement) is done by BI tools and thus covered by the A3 license.

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6 hours ago, .kju said:

You could allow commercial use for scripts you wrote. Only the mission file itself (units, object, trigger, etc placement) is done by BI tools and thus covered by the A3 license.

While they might use BI tools "under the hood", you are not using BI tools directly, in fact you are "just" using Arma 3 via. the EULA I guess. Of course this raises the question whether you have a license to do anything with a mission file .sqm at all - I guess it enters the same category as whether you may legally sell a save game.

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Read through a bunch of stuff, getting a clearer picture.  Couple of questions though.

 

Here is @haleks licence text from Ravage as an example:

 

Quote

License

Ravage Mod by Haleks is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available on request.
Using Ravage Mod on monetized servers is strictly forbidden.

 

OK please forgive my ignorance but once we have selected an appropriate license, is application as simple as declaring it?  (In other words there's nothing to register anywhere, right?)

 

Also, I have looked at the release text for ~7 medium to large sized mods, and most of them have applied licenses.  However, then I looked at ~15 popular missions, and have yet to see anyone apply a license.  Any idea why not?  (Seems I must be missing something here.)

 

 

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20 minutes ago, madrussian said:

OK please forgive my ignorance but once we have selected an appropriate license, is application as simple as declaring it?  (In other words there's nothing to register anywhere, right?)

 

Also, I have looked at the release text for ~7 medium to large sized mods, and most of them have applied licenses.  However, then I looked at ~15 popular missions, and have yet to see anyone apply a license.  Any idea why not?  (Seems I must be missing something here.)

 

 

 

Yeah, nothing to register or anyhting : what you state on your forum thread or WS page goes. Creative Commons licenses are just an easy way to define a license.

 

As for people not declaring a license, it's one of two possibilities :

- They don't care about that stuff; wether they are aware or not, they are protected by the Arma 3 license.

- They are aware of how licenses work, and simply choose to rely on Arma 3 license : it is the one to apply in the absence of a license definition.

 

Note that the "monetized servers" part is a bit special (IMO) : technically, BIS is granting limited commercial use for server owners (wich is problematic as 3rd party content are often used as such, while the content creator usually is denied such rights). You are perfectly free to deny that to server owners.

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18 hours ago, pierremgi said:

Interesting. I always wondered if a simple note like suggested in your link:

The best practical solution for attribution is to attach a readme file clearly stating under which license the work is released.

was enough (legally). It's a kind of "auto-attribution", no? So, enough as far as we are in a non-commercial scope?

 

Yeah it's enough, and it has the advantage of having a clear license definition bundled with the content itself : but let's be honest, nobody reads readmes.

The best practice as far as I'm concerned : state your license everywhere - in an attached text file, and on the workshop too.

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OK good deal.  Also, once we release (with license applied), seems like we are pretty much stuck with selected licence, right?  We couldn't, for instance, change it later?


I'm guessing that's where the bit about "Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available on request." would come into play, to give creator flexibility later.  Because once the cats out of the bag, seems you couldn't put it back in.  But instead you could always divvy out parts of the cat to individuals for particular uses, on a case by case basis, along the way.  Hmmm...  Please correct if I've got any of this wrong!

 

(Curious b/c I think I saw something on RHS release about reserving the rights to change the terms later, or similar...)

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No license means you apply the strictest rules. Aka dont modify, dont mirror.

Arma 3 license from BI does NOT apply to your work automatically in some way. You have to explicitly state that if you want anything to apply.

 

You can always given exceptions to individuals/groups.

 

You cannot change a license after that fact for existing release. It will only apply for new releases since that moment.

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21 hours ago, haleks said:

you want to make sure it complies with the Arma 3 license : no commercial use.

Actually no need to. Everything you make with Arma/Arma 3 tools is automatically not allowed to be used comercially (unless specific permission by BI) so unless you are worrying about approved monetized servers, no need to specify that in your license.

But even if, monetized servers still need permission from the mod/mission authors who's stuff they use.

 

20 hours ago, pierremgi said:

was enough (legally)

It is

 

6 hours ago, Muzzleflash said:

in fact you are "just" using Arma 3 via. the EULA I guess.

Which also forbids commercial use.

 

1 hour ago, haleks said:

they are protected by the Arma 3 license

No they aren't. No license means no permission to do ANYTHING with your work. Technically not even download and play.

 

1 hour ago, haleks said:

it is the one to apply in the absence of a license definition

No.

 

1 hour ago, madrussian said:

We couldn't, for instance, change it later?

You can change it, and it will apply to everything you release after that, but nothing that was already released under the old license.

 

You don't have to put any license on your work. By default it's all protected. But some ... brain-power-limited people might think "no license means I can do whatever I want" which is not the case, so you might just add something like "all rights reserved" to remind them that that's actually not the case. Though it's not like these kind of people would care, if they want to take your stuff they'll just do it, no matter what license.

 

 

 

 

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