Does using CC-BY-SA art require code to be CC-BY-SA?

[nasarius]

I've spent some time searching for information, but I'm still not clear on one thing:

If I make a game using some of these assets, is my entire game considered a "derivative work" that also needs to be distributed under the terms of CC-BY-SA?

[ghoulsblade]

It's obviously meant to be used in games, you don't have to put other art or your sourcecode under CC-BY-SA, no game does that.

[qubodup]

If I make a game using some of these assets, is my entire game considered a "derivative work" that also needs to be distributed under the terms of CC-BY-SA?

I think this is unlikely (I would always feel safe using an -licensed asset when my game code is licensed under any open source license. Should my game code not be open source, I would probably have to ask a lawyer to feel safe.)

In case of Ryzom, which uses AGPL(v3 I think) for code it seems obvious that they intend it for use with code not licensed under .

PS: this reddit thread might be relevant

[titi]

Just add a file to your game were is stated what is what.

cc-by-sa are hello.gif, hello.3ds .......

my private copyright is all in data/hulk/.

And so on. If you mix things very heavily in one folder its maybe wise to release the whole result as CC-BY-SA in this case or this license info file will be very huge .
By this you clearly state which parts have which copyright. You are not forced to have one copyright for all your data!


This is different from sourcecode with gpl for example where you have one program and by this one license .
Its the same for a picture, when you use some parts of a CC-BY-SA picture and use it mixed with your own stuff in the same picture, the resulting picture is CC-BY-SA.

Tricky is a movie for example where you use CC-BY-SA stuff . From my understanding the result must be cc-by-sa. So thanks god we make games and files still live seperated in the installation folders.

[jonan]

Code and media can have completely different licenses with no legal issue. You can have GPL code with non-free media or CC-by-sa media with non-free code.

Anyhow, I hope you're not planning in creating non-free code to use Ryzom's art :P

[qubodup]

A similar question has been asked earlier this year: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8893 ... ource-game

The answer more or less "I don't think so, but a court might think so."

I have been consulting that with Nathan K. from Creative Commons organization. The problem is what it means to derive from other work. This is what ho wrote to me (cut from our email conversation):

The ShareAlike clause is only activated if your use of the work is considered to be a derivative of the original. What is and isn't a derivative can often be hard to determine.

What does and doesn't constitute a derivative work isn't something that CC can answer. It's a legal question that has to do with copyright, and may even vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The only person who could answer it with certainty is a judge in a court of law.

It's not the CC license which is vague, but how copyright law defines a derivative work (adaptation) which is vague. Remember that the CC licenses are just based on copyright law, so the question here is no how the CC licenses define a derivative work, but how copyright law does. If applicable copyright law considers the use to be a derivative, then so does the CC license.

I have also asked him whether the source code is considerer to be a derivative work of used resources and he replied:

Your question about source code is just one of the reasons why CC doesn't recommend using the CC licenses for software, because they were designed for content and software has special cases like the concept of source code, and even linking to libraries, etc. As to what would need to be released under the same ShareAlike license in the case of a derivative, I don't believe that the source code would necessary need to be released since the source code doesn't have anything to do with the music you included, but only the final, compiled product.

So it seems to me that it is OK to use CC-BY-SA music in a closed source game. But there is always a possibility that you will be sued and the court will have to decide whether your code derives from the music.