Mods and Copyrighting

[MrHappyFace]

Do I need to copyright my plugin before posting it or can I just put "All rights reserved" on the license and forum post?

[NoMrBond]

It needs license terms, but those terms are entirely yours to decide so "All rights reserved" is acceptable.

[Edit] You can specify pretty fine granularity with your license like Majiir has with Kethane

Abandonment terms are appreciated, but not necessary

Edited February 5, 2014 by NoMrBond

[softweir]

Please read THIS POST for the rules relating to plugin-powered mods. Basically, you have to publish the source code, and attach a licence to the plugin, meaning you have to decide what rules to impose on people who want to use/copy/learn from your mod.

[Faark]

And here we have Majiir's license guide. Yes, he basically recommends "all rights reserved" to anyone too lazy to think about licenses, though that is kind of a dick move towards the modding community.

[Guest]

though that is kind of a dick move towards the modding community.

It's not, really; it's a perfectly valid choice of license since the work belongs to the author, not the community.

[frizzank]

http://www.teachingcopyright.org/handout/copyright-faq

Original works are automatically protected unless you, the author, state otherwise. As far as copy right law is concerned "All Rights Reserved" is meant for works that are actually registered with the copyright office.

We are an awesome community. Simply putting you don't want it re-distributed without your permission is usually all you need.

[Diazo]

Well, I can see where Faark is coming from. We have a great modding community that is very open to helping each other out and letting people use other people's code as a starting point. However the All Rights Reserved license prevents this as the All Rights Reserved license means no one else can use your work in any way which is very much not in the spirit of the KSP modding community.

At the same time, if Majiir is going to recommend a license in his license guide, he kind of has to recommend the most restrictive one. Going from a more restrictive license to a more open one is easy, going from a more open license to a more restrictive one is problematic.

Having said that, I could certainly get behind rewording that line in the license guide so it's clear that we (the modding community) would prefer you used the All Rights Reserved as a temporary license and changed to a more open license of your choice once you have had a chance to go over your options.

D.

[Guest]

Having said that, I could certainly get behind rewording that line in the license guide so it's clear that we (the modding community) would prefer you used the All Rights Reserved as a temporary license and changed to a more open license of your choice once you have had a chance to go over your options.

I think you'll find that "we (the modding community)" have wildly different preferences regarding how an author licenses their work and that "we (the modding community)" would greatly appreciate words not being written in "our" collective name to give the impression that there is some sort of consensus on the matter.

[Diazo]

All I offer is that that has been my experience on the subject and still remains my opinion.

Having said that, I should know better then to make sweeping statements like that on the internet.

If I suggested rewording that line in the license guide to make it clear that when you pick the All Rights Reserved license you are playing it safe and can move to any other license as soon as you are ready to, would that work better?

D.

[Guest]

If I suggested rewording that line in the license guide to make it clear that when you pick the All Rights Reserved license you are playing it safe and can move to any other license as soon as you are ready to, would that work better?

Personally, I would prefer that the document stated that the license chosen is entirely up to the author, given that the work put into it is entirely theirs. Nothing more needs to be said on the matter to prospective modders.

[Faark]

Personally, I would prefer that the document stated that the license chosen is entirely up to the author, given that the work put into it is entirely theirs. Nothing more needs to be said on the matter to prospective modders.

That statement is doesn't make sense. The entire purpose of this document is to teach prospective modders about licensing, and they do not necessarily know about the risks of choosing a very permissive license and that they can't really "switch" to a more restrictive license later on. So yes, "hiding" possible problems when modifying licenses in a licensing guide does not make any sense. It had to be done, even if that means recommending sth very restrictive.

It's not, really; it's a perfectly valid choice of license since the work belongs to the author, not the community.

And i still say that "all rights reserved" just because someone is too lazy to think about licenses (in contrast to choosing this license for different reason) is a dick move towards the modding community. Most modders will heavily profit from other mods & their licenses, thus it would imo be appropriate for them taking take the time to properly think about licensing their mod as well, though its fine to release the mod as "all rights reserved" in the meantime.

[Seret]

Remember that your choice of licence terms is very wide. You can choose a licence that prohibits anybody from re-using any of your work, or you can go for a more permissive licence that allows anybody to use it and build upon it. Up to you.

[Guest]

That statement is doesn't make sense. The entire purpose of this document is to teach prospective modders about licensing, and they do not necessarily know about the risks of choosing a very permissive license and that they can't really "switch" to a more restrictive license later on. So yes, "hiding" possible problems when modifying licenses in a licensing guide does not make any sense. It had to be done, even if that means recommending sth very restrictive.

They most certainly can choose a more restrictive license later on, they just can't retroactively change the license on old code someone is already using. The author can also license copies to certain people under different licenses. All of this is covered in the document and the accompanying discussion, not to mention the multitude of other discussions like this that crop up every so often.

And i still say that "all rights reserved" just because someone is too lazy to think about licenses (in contrast to choosing this license for different reason) is a dick move towards the modding community.

How are you determining the licensor's motive here? Majiir's guide is written in a way that does not necessarily encourage the use of "all rights reserved", but that is still a perfectly valid choice of license. I mean, I could claim modders who use "viral" licenses like the GPL and CC SA are pulling what you consider "a dick move" because I can't benefit from their code if I want to use a more permissive license, but I'm not going to go that far. The work is entirely the author's and you have no right to demand that they license a certain way or call them "dicks" for their choices.

[rhoark]

I recommend anyone who doesn't want to be bothered thinking about licenses too much go with Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike

[Majiir]

From my license guide:

You can always change this to a more permissive license later, so be sure to come back and read the other options.

I think that's perfectly reasonable. I recommend a restrictive license by default, but I encourage people to consider a different license.

Yes, he basically recommends "all rights reserved" to anyone too lazy to think about licenses, though that is kind of a dick move towards the modding community.

I wrote my guide for the benefit of individual modders. Before that guide, modders were frequently coerced into releasing works under viral licenses like GPL without knowledge of the rights they were giving away. The "modding community" was frankly abusive to newcomers in that respect, and my guide aims to correct that. That said, the guide has made it much easier to enforce the licensing rule, and accordingly we see a lot of mods licensed under MIT or GPL where we used to see unlicensed (and thus unforkable) releases.

I recommend anyone who doesn't want to be bothered thinking about licenses too much go with Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike

My license guide references why CC is a bad idea for software. There are only two easy options: retain every right to your work, or give them all away. Anything in between requires more research and consideration.

[rhoark]

The objections to CC for software are mostly GPL-centric. If you don't care that things distributed under CC can't be relicensed as GPL, it's fine. GPL has many caveats and gotchas that make it far from ideal for someone who doesn't want to think too much about licensing anyway. MIT is a fine license if you don't want the Attribution or ShareAlike stipulations. Some point out that CC doesn't treat source and compiled rights separately - only a problem if you use the No-derivatives option and don't distribute binaries.

The bigger issue is whether you want people to build cool things on top of what you've done, or not. "All rights reserved" means no. Don't forget that everything in the Kerbal modding scene is built on the shoulders of giants, and many of the most popular mods would be dead now if under those terms.

My position stands that if you don't want to worry too much, but want to ensure you get credit, CC (with any options except NoDerivatives) is a good choice.