Licensing

[Crallion]

Are maps that are on the public list for BZFlag available and editable by anyone? If not, then should there be a -saveworld function?

[joevano]

You are really confusing two different issues. One is the ability to see and review a work and the other is the right to use, copy or distribute a work. The client downloads the world file whenever you connect to a server. But it does not give you any rights over the intellectual property. Let me explain it in terms of an internet browser. Your internet browner downloads all text and images on a website when you visit it, but that does not immediately give you the right to use, modify or distribute the text or image. It is the license for those works that control your ability (or lack there of) to use or modify them. That holds true for any media be it movies, music, works of art, or any other form of intellectual property (including map files). Using these items in violation of their license is stealing, and stealing is not tolerated in any way shape or form here. BZFlag has a license that we expect others to respect and so we enforce the licensing of others works (if using official BZFlag services, e.g. forums, the wiki, etc). Violators are dealt with in swift and harsh manner.

Many people are under the false impression that if they download something that it is theirs to use any way they see fit. That is just not true.

See here for more discussion on this topic as well http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=10575 .

PS Shouldn't school be starting soon?

[tobylane]

So your changes to someone else's unreleased maps are illegal? What is legal/acceptable on the forums, diff file?

[joevano]

If it was not released with a license that allows modification... nothing is legal, and nothing can be posted. And that includes all works that are derived from the unreleased map. It is all stealing of intellectual property and is not tolerated here, AT ALL. We take all claims of intellectual property rights violations very seriously, and investigate thoroughly.

[trepan]

BZFlag 3.0 will allow map creators to insert copyright and licensing
information in the new 'info' world objects. This information is saved
into world files, and can be viewed in clients using the /worldinfo
command.

[Bambino]

Very nice. Is there any possibility of removing the /saveworld capabilities? Like

-nosaveworld ?

[joevano]

It is pointless as the client has to download a copy of the map anyway. They already have it...

See here for more discussion on this topic as well http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=10575

[blast]

If someone really wanted to use /saveworld, they'd just have to tweak their client a bit.

And a while back I did have an instance where someone lost their .BZW file, and I was able to tweak bzfs to load the cache file directly so that I could /saveworld it.

[Crallion]

Thats a very good point, blast.

And I was wondering, and I have for awhile, does CC really have any legal value? Don't you have to go through some process to get something copyrighted? If I just say "Creative-Commons Attribution Share-alike", does someone really even have to follow those guidelines?

[joevano]

Yes they do. Here do a little research and you will find all kinds of resources showing that you are not thinking about this correctly. Take this example (from the sites listed below):

Under the Berne copyright convention, which almost all major nations have signed, every creative work is copyrighted the moment it is fixed in tangible form. No notice is necessary, though it helps legal cases.

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copyright.html
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

Now criminals will do what they want with anything and you cannot stop them, but there is recourse if you want to pursue it. Just like a felon can buy a gun in the US from someone on the street. It is illegal, but it doesn't mean that just because there is a law against it that it will not happen. But... if it happens and you are caught the law is there to restore order (in theory).

BZFlag has successfully had things that are based on our work, that violated our licensing terms, removed from web sites. Follow the licensing terms and there are no problems, don't and there is definitely recourse available to the owner of the intellectual property.

[Crallion]

Thanks, joevano. That's exactly what I meant. But doesn't that mean that anything I do is copyrighted?

[joevano]

Pretty much, as long as it isn't violating some other agreement/arrangement/copyright/license and is your own work. If it is a "creative work" and it is put into a tangible form (eg written, printed, painted, recorded etc) then it technically is copyrighted at that point. Then the license that you attribute to it defines the terms of use.

[blast]

Copyright isn't the same as a license either.

[Crallion]

Isn't copyright saying that its yours, and a license is saying who can use it and how?

[joevano]

Yes, that is the basics of it in a nut shell.