Creative Commons clarification

[Sigurd]

NeonKnight for "Community Poo-Bah"!


Sigurd

[Ascension]

We'll chip in and get him a fez...how cool would that be?!

[Steel General]

We'll chip in and get him a fez...how cool would that be?!

Great idea, it could be like one of the award icons.

[Sigurd]

There should be an icon that represents a couple of awards combined. Some of you big wigs are down right ostentatious with with your multiple embellishments .

The fez could 4 of an award or something.

Sigurd

[Torq]

Just to throw another spanner in the works (Call me the devil's mechanic), different international jurisdictions deal with artistic works in different ways, when it comes to copyright. However in most what is protected is the work itself, not the ideas behind the work. So nobody but 12rounds could claim copyright in his artwork, and it could not be said that he was infringing anyone else's copyright by producing that art just becasue he used ideas thrown up by the various maps.

The FT problem is one that goes to the heart of a very current debate amongst copyright lawyers all over the place, which is how do manage the distinction between computer assited works and computer generated works. The distinction is important becasue many jurisdictions give copyright in the first category to the creator of the software that created the work, rather than to the creator of the subsequent work. Everyone agrees that if you create a novel using Microsoft Word its computer assisted, not computer created. The trouble comes the less input there is by the user and the more work the software does. I think FT is on the cusp.

The CC license is just that, a limited non-exclusive license allowing certain things to be done which could otherwise only be done by the copyright holder. If someone infringed the copyright and exceeded the license then the only difficulty with co-authored or derivative maps would be the question of who gets to enforce the copyright, if they want to. The only other problem is where there is a dispute between two or more people as to who is the author. Most jurisdictions require "substantial input" before you can qualify as author. In the U.S. there was an example where one of the people who had advised Spike Lee on certain aspects of his script for Malcolm X, claimed to be a co-author. This was rejected because his input was found not to have been substantial enough. The same principles would probably apply if I ever claimed ownership of Rav's "Stormlit Cloister" map.

Torq

[Redrobes]

Thats interesting and you should know a lot about these kind of things too.

So what if I wrote a program that drew a black square about the size of an emoticon say - 16x16 pixels. Then it change top left pixel to slightly brighter - dark grey and saved that image out then a bit brighter and save. When white it moves to next pixel etc. So ok it would take a long time to fill a hard drive with the 16x16x256x256x256 images but its only 200 million and thats a program which produces every conceivable image inside a 16x16 pixel square. So I own everything future created which is a small image ?

This is a lot like the x number of letters domain names where every combination of letters up to about 5 now has been taken.

[Torq]

On a very theoretical level yes, but most copyright systems also have a requirement of originality. I dont think the results generated by that app would meet that requirement.

Also someone else could come to the same results completely independently of your program. If they did they wouldn't infringe because (and I am speaking with experience in only one legal system here) there are two aspects to copyright infringement of artistic works, firstly the infringing work must be objectively similar to the original work and secondly there must be subjective copying ie. the one must be the basis for the other. Thus is I come to the same result artistically without reference to the original work, I have not infringed.

Torq

[Redrobes]

Ok I see. On the flip side tho how is it possible that some people take obviously public domain works like these medieval bestiaries, scan them in with a flat bed scanner or take digi photos of ancient art and then copyright the photos when they publish to the web.

This one was the case in point.
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/bestiary.hti

Theres a link there to the copyright terms.

[waldronate]

In that case it's the compilation and images that are copyrighted, not the original artwork. You can put in the effort to make a similar compilation work from the same original non-copyrighted source materials and there won't be any infringement. Or at least that's that a copyright lawyer told me once when I asked much the same question.

The particular web site is applying the copyright restrictions to the images on their web site, not to the original items. If those items are privately owned and not available for public duplication then the only source may in fact be subject to the draconian restrictions listed.

[NeonKnight]

So, ok, if I understand correctly, the original wolrd image I did is copyrighted by waldonrate (aka Joe Slayton), and the folks at Pro Fantasy because of the Wilbur Engine and the FT Software.

BUT, If I then tweak that world, fill some areas, flatten others, is the copyright then mine or theirs?