Distributing Copyrighted SQUAD Artwork in your Mission

[klesh]

Hi,

Since we're able to include our "own" custom banner art in Missions, I wanted to ask if we're being allowed to use Kerbal artwork made by SQUAD in the past for these banners? 

They've bundled a few sample banners with the expansion, 7 in total, but there is a trove of Kerbal art out there made by Squad as artwork for various game updates which would be a no-brainer to use.  The common sense answer would be "of course, use them", since no one is trying to sell their KSP missions etc.  But with the new Take Two guys on the scene, EULA changes, and the licensing of mods being a major concern with this game (far more so than any other game I've personally seen), I wanted to be sure and at least bring up the question.  Are we allowed to hunt down old Kerbal art made by Squad and include these in our missions to be distributed to the community?

When you export a mission, the banner art is included in the .zip intended for distribution even if the art you've chosen is from the default 7 that come with the dlc.  So, even if you choose the defaults, the game will bundle them and you'll be distributing their copyrighted artwork.

 What if, for example, someone were to make a little pack of banners for the community to use, taking from the tons of obviously copyrighted official art material from SQUAD over the years?  Would they be held complicit in the distribution of copyrighted material, served with legal letters etc, or is my tinfoil hat on too tight and this is totally what the intention of the banners has been in the first place?  No one expects us to create our own, personal kerbal artwork from scratch (yikes, even that would contain a copyrighted kebal likeness!) do they? 

According to this thread, the community's general practices (as expressed by a couple people who have posted in there so far) have been not to include Squad resources in your mods.  The content is copyrighted, and you are not allowed to distribute that.

The way the missions work, even if you were to choose the default banners packaged with the dlc you will be distributing those copyrighted materials in your mission bundle.  You will also be doing so should you include older Squad artwork not included with the DLC that you've found online and cropped to your liking as a custom banner.  Obviously this is how the mission builder was designed, by Squad, so am I to presume we won't be held accountable for distributing their copyrighted materials since the mission builder essentially forces us to do just that?

On the other hand, according to the EULA anything we post would automatically become the property of Take Two Interactive. Theoretically any mission you make, even one including a picture you took of your own cat as a mission banner, would be copyrighted by Take Two.   So any form of distributing anything from the mission builder is in violation of the EULA or some other type of license?

 

Edited March 28, 2018 by klesh
Added last paragraph.

[Lisias]

Also... Double licensing some assets are allowed?

For example, I made up my own "Space Agency" using my own logo. Such logo must be licensed to TTI, obviously, so they can use it on the game if they choose to.

But I want to keep rights over my logo, so I can use it on my own web page - and have some friends mentioning me (and the logo) on theirs without worries.

A way to do that is double licensing the logo - on one license, the usual GPL or MIT or anything, and on the other the full rights license TTI needs to do their business.

[Lisias]

No one? :-(

Perhaps we should address Squad and/or TTI directly? But a public answer would be best, however...

[Dman979]

I'll bring this to the attention of someone who works for Squad, since I can't answer it.

[basic.syntax]

Just for the sake of download sizes and bandwidth, why does MH include banner images in the zip, which MH users already have?  

 

 

[klesh]

 Thanks for raising the question, DMan.

 

Edited June 19, 2018 by klesh

[klesh]

On 4/10/2018 at 4:46 PM, Dman979 said:

I'll bring this to the attention of someone who works for Squad, since I can't answer it.

 

Hey Dman, thanks for that.  I suppose at this point we're not going to receive any clarification on the subject, huh?

[Dman979]

9 minutes ago, klesh said:

 

Hey Dman, thanks for that.  I suppose at this point we're not going to receive any clarification on the subject, huh?

It got passed along to legal. I imagine they're pretty busy, and might not be able to answer this question.

[klesh]

44 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

It got passed along to legal. I imagine they're pretty busy, and might not be able to answer this question.

 

Understood.  Thanks for the swift reply!