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The GNU GPL license and artwork (images, 3D models etc.)

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The GNU GPL license and artwork (images, 3D models etc.)

Postby Johan G » Sun Oct 04, 2015 9:46 pm

Some posts was split off from the topic Seeeeriously FlightProSim?

legoboyvdlp wrote in Sun Oct 04, 2015 8:50 pm:... is it legal to have a GPL picture of something non-GPL?

Yep, unless a software's license says otherwise. The GPL do not care how the software is used though.

Using screenshots and disregard the license the "photographer" chose to publish them under is pretty much the same as theft though. :|


Side note:
A bit of an issue regarding screenshots uploaded to the wiki without the uploader specifying a license is that they can be assumed to implicitly have the license of the rest of the content on the wiki. That would mean the GPLv2 license, whatever that means for screeshots. It is really not a license suitable for artwork. The biggest issue is probably how one would define "source code" in an artwork context.* While the "source code" could most probably be regarded as a *.blend file for a rendering from Blender, or an *.svg file for a raster image exported from Inkscape, what would it be for a screenshot, photo or drawing?

* See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-lis ... erLicenses
Last edited by Johan G on Mon Oct 05, 2015 2:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Some posts was split off from the topic Seeeeriously FlightProSim?
Low-level flying — It's all fun and games till someone looses an engine. (Paraphrased from a YouTube video)
Improving the Dassault Mirage F1 (Wiki, Forum, GitLab. Work in slow progress)
Some YouTube videos
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Re: Seeeeriously FlightProSim?

Postby sanhozay » Sun Oct 04, 2015 10:13 pm

If GPL is not suitable for artwork, how does that affect the liveries database (and aircraft that have bundled liveries)? The uploads are .xml and .png files but the "sources", which are usually .xcf or .svg are not uploaded. The same is probably true of a lot of textures in aircraft.
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Re: Seeeeriously FlightProSim?

Postby Johan G » Mon Oct 05, 2015 3:44 am

I have sometimes wondered about that myself. :?
Low-level flying — It's all fun and games till someone looses an engine. (Paraphrased from a YouTube video)
Improving the Dassault Mirage F1 (Wiki, Forum, GitLab. Work in slow progress)
Some YouTube videos
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Re: Seeeeriously FlightProSim?

Postby bugman » Mon Oct 05, 2015 7:17 am

The GPL is only problem for artwork from the perspective of the original artist, in the sense that the fine legal implications are not perfectly clear (what is the "program" and what is the "source code"). However, this is offset by the fact that the original artist can dual-license the work. To date, no one has challenged this in court, but the wish of the artist to license the copyrighted material with the GPL is almost guaranteed to hold up in court. A court is unlikely to rule that the use of the GPL is invalid. But if so, the fall back is to an unlicensed copyrighted work. Hence the person challenging the licence would be even more restricted with what they can do with the artwork, so will be at a disadvantage (probably why no one has bothered challenging the concept in court). So the problem is pretty much black and white. Anyway, for artwork distributed with software, it is recommended that the licences match, or are 100% compatible. So for GPL software, the standard in the open source world is to use GPL artwork. And the original artist can relicense the work as they wish (just not revoke the GPL on the original work). It's like putting a circle shaped block into a square hole - it's ugly, but the circle fits snugly into its square hole.

Regards,
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Re: Seeeeriously FlightProSim?

Postby sanhozay » Mon Oct 05, 2015 10:34 am

Regardless of license, It would certainly be easier to modify artwork if the "source" was provided. I create liveries as .svg files, with layers, scalable paint objects, information about fonts, etc. Deriving a new livery would be much easier with the source. That's also true of things like panel textures, where it's virtually impossible to match the font for a new label using a bitmap image. Apart from the basic font shape itself, bitmap images usually have some anti-aliasing which cannot be duplicated without having the same tool, set up in the same way as the original author.

Sorry for continuing the drift off topic.
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Re: Seeeeriously FlightProSim?

Postby Johan G » Mon Oct 05, 2015 2:59 pm

sanhozay wrote in Mon Oct 05, 2015 10:34 am:Sorry for continuing the drift off topic.

No worries. :)

bugman wrote in Mon Oct 05, 2015 7:17 am:...the wish of the artist to license the copyrighted material with the GPL is almost guaranteed to hold up in court. A court is unlikely to rule that the use of the GPL is invalid. But if so, the fall back is to an unlicensed copyrighted work. Hence the person challenging the licence would be even more restricted with what they can do with the artwork, so will be at a disadvantage (probably why no one has bothered challenging the concept in court).
...
It's like putting a circle shaped block into a square hole - it's ugly, but the circle fits snugly into its square hole.

Interesting and good points there. It seems entirely logical to me now. Thanks!
Low-level flying — It's all fun and games till someone looses an engine. (Paraphrased from a YouTube video)
Improving the Dassault Mirage F1 (Wiki, Forum, GitLab. Work in slow progress)
Some YouTube videos
Johan G
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