This is a little spinoff of something I posted last night, and I think it's something very discussionworthy.
Our entire community is based 100% on good will. I make skins, I upload them, I let you do whatever the hell you want with them. I trust you guys not to do anything rotten with them. And that's about the extent of it. Beyond a poor man's copyright, I've taken no measures to protect my work.
I bet you haven't either.
Now, hypothetical situation one. You make a badass wallpaper. Everyone loves it. Including Microsoft, who makes it the default wallpaper in Windows 'Longhorn'. Naturally, you complain, bitch, moan, and ultimately sue. But once it goes to trial, Microsoft has an airtight case against you: There was no license for use of the wallpaper, so they didn't know they couldn't use it for their software.
Hypothetical situation two is even worse. An undetected glitch in your new WA3 skin somehow causes damage to Windows 95 users. Someone gets pissed, and they decide to sue you. "Woah, wait," you say, "I gave that away for free!!". Tough luck, because you didn't apply a license to the software, there's no agreement between you and the damaged party. You're probably screwed.
You've probably at least seen a 'Terms of Use' license before, it's that big chunk of text you ignore when installing a new program. If you take a moment to read one of those, you'll learn some interesting stuff. That license says who is allowed to use the software, how they are allowed to use it, and most of all, it says that the developers are not liable for anything that goes wrong.
You may not realize it yet, but you NEED that protection.
One more hypothetical would be a situation where a technology or method we use in skinning would fall in to question. SCO may claim they invented the wallpaper, and come after you demanding licensing fees on all of your 4:3 aspect ratio images. Microsoft could swear they invented skinning when they let you change the colors in DOS 3. You never know.
What I propose is a new distribution license specific to what we do. It would involve specifics concerning issues like: - Recoloring - Porting - Redistribution - Corporate use - Screenshots - Remixing
Right now we're totally unprotected, and have virtually no control over our own binaries once they reach the web.
We need a condom folks. ;)
I'd very much like to hear your thoughts and comments on this.
: I paid $14 for a T-shirt and all I got was this stupid T-shirt :
04:05 pm, Wednesday, August 06, 2003 (6 years ago)
application skins is the more serious problem, i would go as far as recommend just adding a boilerplate "files come with no warranty, not even implied, about it's usage and effects on your computer" or someting akin.
as far as the microsoft one: to be honest, if microsoft takes something of yours, program, book, paper, wall, whatever, she be gone. they have a legal department that's bigger than the department of justice.
but for cases of just a minor person, well, if your stuff is GPLed you can report to EFF. if not, you have an automatic copyright on everything you create, as long as you have files of how you made it, you'd prolly win in court.
if it's worth it the lawyer fees and completely taking over your life for the next 12 months.
I was thinking about this as well today, after status pointed some things out about Wynton's BSA news. (Incidentally, I think the Boy Scouts of America should sue the Business Software Alliance for, uh, acronym theft)
miriku is correct. Anything you create like a wallpaper, drawing, photograph, etc. is automatically copyrighted. That's why we can't sell your wallpapers, skins, without permission. That's why when you sub to DA they automatically generate copyright info, and it's another reason why you should not incorporate work that isn't yours into walls or skins and not give credit. It's theft.
A question for miriku though: If you GPL something, do you lose copyright?
Yes, and no. By licensing your work under the GPL, you expressly give up your copyright protection by stating clearly in the license that anyone is free to modify and redistribute what you've done.
The thing is, the GPL really doesn't apply to artwork as in order to license anything under the GPL, the full "source" must be made available. Therefore, a PDF will full history data would have to be distributed WITH your work in order for it to be even considered for GPL licensing...and even then, I'm not sure it applies.
The artwork...very doubtful that under any circumstance the GPL could be applied to artwork.
As far as a skin is concerned, the skin code could be licensed under the GPL which would require anyone who copied that code to make it available with their version of the skin.
Ex. Say I write a skin for a program like.....StyleXP. I don't know how it works, but say I write some script that lets me do some cool effect and I release that script under the GPL. Under the terms of the GPL, anyone else who used that script in their theme would be required to distribute that script, and any modifications they may have made to it, WITH the theme.
True, we do have copyright, but that's ironically the problem. By not clearly laying out what we are and are not allowing the end user to do, we leave a world of potential hurt.
Let's say some snot-nosed kid - we'll call him 'Yoyo' because it's the first snot-nosed name that springs to mind - swipes Hermik's latest wall. He makes some changes, like turning it blue, adding some filters, pasting in a badly faked Britney nude pic, so forth. Then Yoyo posts it on his website, claiming ownership. Hermik gets pissed, asks Yoyo to take it down, and even contacts Yoyo's webhost over the matter.
There's a very good chance Yoyo gets away with it though. The reason is, Hermik owns the copyright on the original piece, but Yoyo can argue "Hermik never said I couldn' t modify and redistribute the image."
Another, more far fetched but still possible example would be Status, mad with power, discovering one of his skins used in a screenshot and taking legal steps against some poor kid who just wanted to show off his cool desktop. Those are, after all, my pixels. For that matter, I could go after anyone who's ever used one of my skins. I uploaded them, sure. But I never gave you permission to use them. Implied consent and consent are very different things.
It's true that if someone REALLY wants to screw you, they probably can by tying you up in legal knots. But a skin/wallpaper usage license would give us and our users one more layer of protection, and in our lawsuit-driven economy, you can't have enough of that. :)
A 'skinner's license' would be an agreement between us and the users detailing exactly what we do and do not want done with the work. That's a good thing, I think. And it could be easily modified to give digital artists of all walks a little more security.
: I paid $14 for a T-shirt and all I got was this stupid T-shirt :
Colossus, artwork can be licensed under the Creative Commons licenses. www.creativecommons.org
One option if the community were to adopt a standard of some sort would be to modify a Creative Commons license to reflect the specific needs of skinners and wallpaper designers.
: I paid $14 for a T-shirt and all I got was this stupid T-shirt :
if yoyo really did that much changing to it, he might be allowed to use it . . . sort of like you being allowed to do sound alike covers legally, see Weird Al dare to be stupid -> Devo whip it.
but as far as reposting yours: no, your work is copyrighted. that gives you specific rights in the united states, including that people cannot simply repost your work.
as far as proving it, yeah it would be an issue for the courts, and nothing automatic.
- -
that said, in our day and age i believe that digital plagiarism is simply we have to learn to work around. it's not going to go away and it's not going to get better.
i think the GPL, with it's "here's the program, if you want the code, dl it, if not dont. if you want to modify it, do so, make sure you credit me and also release under GPL" is the best solution. i think an art license like that, that requires that a jpg include a small license txt in it's release ZIP, as well as a optionally downloadable source .psd / .max / gimp / whatever files would allow people to learn, exchange and remix
but then again i'm an extremist utopian who likes sharing his art. my music available free below
darksheer: i have to correct you. hereīs a quote from Jimmacīs (Jakub Steiner) website: "Many folks (mostly from the windows world) ask for permission to distribute a derivate of the Gorilla theme. Gorilla theme is released under the terms of GNU GPL. All derivate themes need to be distributed under the same terms." so artwork can indeed be released under this license. as Jimmac is the one who is responsible for most of the designs at Ximian, you will hardly find anybody who should know better.
first, i missed this: colossus: the gpl is NOT a waiving of your copyrights, it is in fact A copyright. it actually is stronger than a copyright, by enforicing distribution constraints on derivative works.
ok, paragraph 0, note that it does apply to skins, or more precisely: work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License
issues come up with some of the more program specific stuff: by paragraph 3, does a .jpg qualify as the 'object form of a source' where the source is a psd? i would say not, but it is legally uncertain. it could be argued that if asked to you would need to provide your source files if GPLing (and while i think you should do so) it probably is not enforcable.
afterwhich most everything is fine: if you want to use the skin/wall then you implicitly agree to the license, distribution must be under terms of GPL, GPL must be included as a text file
and then, just for you original poster, a big fat NO WARRANTY statement. so you're ok there
it is ok to gpl skins, and doing so will give you: - legal grounds if someone rips you off - legal grounds if it breaks someone's computer - legal grounds to still sell it (contrary to urban legend)
furthermore, i believe customize should ask that people make zips that include their psds, max, bryce, notepad, photos, whatever files, so that others can learn and remix. i personally would think it amazing to see something submitted, then see others create spinoffs and themes on it.
perhaps EVO can include a GPL checkmark and an option to download sources for skins, and also allow others to credit who they are remixing, perhaps even setting up trees of links so we can see how an image morphed over time and between users
admins: hmmmmmmm?
cmon people, let's do something new here. are we artists or what?
GPL is only good for people who wish to give their work up for free. Organizations like the skinsfactory and their ilk will probably not find GPL to their liking since you know, GPL requires free distribution.
Thus, for people who are creating for fun, GPL is great for that, washes responsibility for damage, copyrights the work and any derivatives, and still keeps the work nice and free. A beautiful (and versital) memeplex at work.
I think that it's a good idea. Can't hurt, and it allows ppl to spell out things. It also lets ppl know what they are allowed to do with it. Certainly would make it a little easier to explain to noobies that they can't rip when they get caught. Right now there is an invisible licence on everything. No wonder it's so common. They don't know any better. I'm not saying it will stop ripping, or even prevent it, just make it a little clearer.
GPL is a good idea to be encouraged, but not everyone wants to release things open source.
Status: I think this is news worthy. I think it should be discussed a little more first though. The more ideas te better. Care to write an article or co-write one with me?
Futher more, I think a few versions of a skinner's licence would be good to have. That would give ppl a ready made choice. Just include the file, and you are covered.
1) The WA skin thing, if a bug in your code caused someone else's PC to crash, isn't that the fault of Nullsoft for making it possible for a skin to have the potential to do that?
2) If "Status" did decide to claim copyrights on screens, it's no use on stuff posted here because you/he agreed we could use the subs upon signing up. Taking, editing and re-subbing without permission is a different matter though.
I've got a few hours of free time this evening, so I may actually try my hand at writing something.
At the very least I can come up with a draft, which can be polished up with imput from the community.
As far as multiple versions, options are cool. It'd be very easy to whip together a little JavaScript 'License Generator'. That would be faster for all involved I think.
And yeah, once the concept has been fleshed out, and we have something that can actually go in the zip instead of a nice idea... this should definitely be a news article. We should take it to the other sites too. :)
: I paid $14 for a T-shirt and all I got was this stupid T-shirt :
On your first point Moose, it depends. If it was a bug in WA3 itself, then you're right. But it's just as likely that something like that could be caused by custom scripting. It's very possible to do some damage with any advanced scripting engine, and people are figuring out new stuff MAKI still to this day.
To pull an example out of my ass (not saying this is possible in WA3, just an example of what *could* happen), you decide to store your skin's configuration in the registry, but a little typo like a missing slash results in the registry being somehow damaged. Somehow this goes by undetected, maybe it's only applicable to a certain version of Windows. Yes, the damage was done using the skin program, but you wrote the program code that caused the damage.
The next generation of skins is going to be heavily plugin-oriented. Stuff that's already in development such as Sakura for Winamp 3 depends as much or more on it's own programming than the Winamp core. The more power a skinner has, the more damage they can accidentally do.
In regards to your second question, you've actually got me re-reading the submission agreement. :)
While Custo certainly appears to have that right, I'm not sure (In fact, I'd go so far as to say I don't think) that the right to reuse a representation of submitted graphics is extended to the end user as well. That would indicate an agreement between the submitting party (you) and the end user (the screenshot guy), or that customize.org is allowed to arbitrate such agreements.
So it's hard to say.
: I paid $14 for a T-shirt and all I got was this stupid T-shirt :
colossus: yes, i released all of my latest stuff under GPL. (a lot of it is not at Custo as the sections are missing). i think that sharing ideas can have nice results. for example TNL did edit one of my latest Rainmeter skins and i like his additions to skin as much as i like my original. strange enough in the Windows world it seems a few people are scared of the GPL. i got permission requests for ports of Garam Masala to NextStart and HoverDesk. when i told these guys that there is no permission needed and the only condition is that derivative work has to be released under the same license i never heard from them again ;)
after all the programmers do much more work than we skinners and if they share their code why shouldnīt we share a few of our graphics?
Status: Dude, this is me. If I'm invovled it will be everywhere. Had an idea though. How about an article for teknidermy? This is somethign right up thier alley.
Status: LiteStep is a realword example. You could use the text edit module to over right the shell in system.ini incorrectly. Then in 9x you get an error saying to reformat. The person does so, losses everything, and your skin can be blamed. Hows that for an example? >;} You don't even want to know about my skin virus ideas. =^.^=
Moshi: Ya it is a little wierd to just open things up for all to use. Look at how we view ripping. This seems like giving too much freedom to some I guess. There are also licence comflict problems to concider too, that isn't what the ppl you are talking about are thinking.
well, if they port my stuff then they shouldnīt have a problem to release the graphics (which are often the same images, only other config files are used) under the same terms and conditions they were released originally. ;)
donīt think thereīs a need bring ripping in the discussion, in the end itīs the same: respecting the authors terms and conditions.
btw: the LS scenario isnīt really valid. if one writes malicious code (and overwriting system.ini as you described is malicious) then of course he/she should be held responsible for that.
moshi, lots of older LS themes DID modify the system.ini and registry, so it's valid. I think he means a typo like I described earlier, a missing quote or slash, not malicious code.
I'm maybe halfway through the first draft by the way. Just thought I'd mention that.
Send coffee.
: I paid $14 for a T-shirt and all I got was this stupid T-shirt :
Moshi: That could be a feature though: biult in shell changer. Built in reboot to explorer to. Other valid uses can be thought of. I'm saying they accidentally mess it up. Malicious stuff is way off topic, but I just said that I've thought of some create things that could cause such problems. In other words, I could think of some things that could be done accidentally if I put my mind to it.
Miriku: Nothing wrong with it, but it isn't right for everyone. If you want permission to be asked first, then it isn't right for you. If you want it to not be public domain, then it isn't right for you. If you want credit, I'm not sure how that works in GPL. There are several things rather unique to skinners that warent our own licences.
Tree thing sounds good to me. We need to be careful of conflicting licenses, and mindful of creating a naming convention. Perhaps try and figure out what the most common licences would be, and this a skinner could include the licence name in the description too. Something like: "This skin is under Open Type Skinner Licence" :or: "AskFirst Skinner Licence, so ask first before porting" :or even: "Closed Licence of Skinners, so don't even ask for anything" :and finally: "Custom Skinners Licence - see file or link for licence agreement".
You could have custom links created that show what parts of the licences they observe right in the description. What site would host this is beyond me, but I'm sure someone would do it. No reason why it couldn't be a new site, or part of custo.
