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Copyright Is Complicated!

Here’s something I got from StormFX today:

For future reference, you need read the license of an add-on before copying it, modifying one image, and then uploading it as your own.

I’m not going be an ass and ask you to remove it, but you need to adhere to the license and state on the download page that your skin is a modified version of Apathy, done with permission, and that all unmodified files are still credited to myself.

Thanks.

Now, this is in reference to my Not_Caith skin. On face we can see one problem – it is not modified Apathy, it’s modified Caith. That trivial (no, it’s not) distinction aside, let’s look at Caith’s license (as accessed today at 7:15ish pm EST)

The contents of this add-on, excluding third-party resources, are copyrighted to its author with all rights reserved, under United States and international copyright law. The author of this add-on hereby grants you the following permissions:

You MAY download, install and use this add-on for your own personal use.

You MAY use code from this add-on, in whole or in part, in your own project provided that the name and code of the target project contain no references to the name of this add-on or its author.

You MAY NOT redistribute this add-on or its contents, modified or unmodified, without the express permission of its author with the following exception:

You MAY include an unmodified version of this add-on in a compilation provided that the author of this add-on is credited in both the
compilation and the download page of the compilation, and that the download page of the compilation include a hyper-link or the URL to the project or download page of this add-on.

The interesting thing is that permissions two and three are contradictory, as “code” is generally ambiguous and the question of when something is simply modified or new product is not a very clear line. While I am ultimately choosing to take down the addon (both as a punishment to the community for StormFX’s failure AND because StormFX told me I didn’t have to and I have no intention of following his advice) I will point out that the license (as written) is a fucking disaster.

If authors are interested in extending legal take-down requests, their license shouldn’t read as though it were written by a student who failed 4th grade logic.

Oh yeah I also gave StormFX credit on the download page.

By: Rob | 10/18/09 | Oh My | Trackback | Comments [RSS 2.0]

28 Responses to “Copyright Is Complicated!” »»

Cigaras

Comment by Cigaras | 10/19/09 at 5:15 am

Download page? What download page?
Ground

Comment by Ground | 10/19/09 at 10:43 am

But it wasn’t caith, as clearly stated in the name of the addon.
Elsydeon

Comment by Elsydeon | 10/19/09 at 11:20 am

From the looks of it, you can use the code in your work, you just cant distribute your work.

Reading from BF-Caith’s project page on wowace, its a mod of his Apathy skin with Caith textures.

A quick search of wowace shows ALL BF skins to be from StormFX and with the same license.

Which means either:

StormFX will remove head from ass and rewrite/update his license.

or

BF will be buried next to cycircled and the community will just march over its corpse in favor of a new, less badly licensed addon.
Yellowstone

Comment by Yellowstone | 10/19/09 at 1:22 pm

I’m thinking it’s going to be “rActionbuttonstyler” from here-on-out

Rob, this blog is the greatest, post more, your posts make my day [no homo]
Ish

Comment by Ish | 10/20/09 at 5:26 am

I’ve known for quite some time that StormFX is a pompous pile of elephant manure.

He was painfully jealous that you made his messy BF skin aesthetically pleasing.

And, let’s be honest, a white square is a white square.

Its not like ButtonFacade_Caith was a ground breaking creation.

I’m most likely going to be switching to rActionbuttonstyler myself.

Addon authors that treat this crap like its their 9-5 need to get a friggin life imo.
Emolate

Comment by Emolate | 10/20/09 at 8:58 pm

I just think it’s funny that you got a “Plz take me srsly, SRSLY!” email from someone.
pHishr

Comment by pHishr | 10/21/09 at 12:14 pm

rActionButtonStyler is superior anyway :>
Coop

Comment by Coop | 10/22/09 at 9:13 am

So…. Not-Caith is getting taken off of WoWInterface. It’s still in Sov3 as well. Is that just a benefit for your loyal readers?
nin

Comment by nin | 10/22/09 at 1:39 pm

But…isn’t the modified image pretty much the whole point of the addon? Is he pretending like the intellectual property of a BF skin is in the skins.lua? That’s just delusional.

And in regards to credit, is it enough to do it in the .toc? Or do you need to make a shrine to the auteur!?
Rob

Comment by Rob | 10/22/09 at 5:26 pm

I did make a shrine, and asked his permission. In fact, I did everything he requested even before he had requested it. He forgot, went batshit, and now here we are.

To be 100% fair, Ishtara did absolutely warn me that this was going to happen. Like 100%.
Elsydeon

Comment by Elsydeon | 10/23/09 at 7:21 pm

in response to this, i have made an entirely FREE (except the threat meter, no OSI compatible licensed threat meters, so i used sthreatmeter2) UI, what few ace addons i use all have free libs (some ace libs have bullshit licenses)

quick addon list of free software addons and their licenses:

BossEncounter2, idChat, rActionButtonStyler, rBuff, rMinimap, rTextures, PerfectRaid, StarTip (BSD)
cargBags (GPLv3)
cargBags_Pernobilis (WTFPL)
Dominos and OmniCC (BSD and CC BY)

oUF (the core) had a very lax license until may 25 when it was axed for a simply date/author copyight notice, many oUF layouts are free licenses however
Jurandr

Comment by Jurandr | 10/24/09 at 3:00 am

Man… people are so uptight over the work they offer to the community for free.
Elsydeon

Comment by Elsydeon | 10/24/09 at 12:23 pm

Agreed, some i can see because they dont want people getting bad software, but everyone either gets addons from friends emailing them or the usual ways which are curse/wowace, wowui, and wowinterface so thats not a real issue

as for “i want to be credited for my work”, note that many free licenses require attribution (all of the creative commons ones do) or reproduction of the copyright notice (BSD, MIT, UoI/NCSA, zlib/libpng) which is still attribution
Ferous

Comment by Ferous | 10/25/09 at 3:32 am

he said the same thing to me about my buttonfacade: svelte, so I never did take it down and ended up crediting him to full although i only used his code and not his base of his skin. meh, oh well i guess. i was a tad offended only cause i felt like HE thought i was ripping him off although i was just sharing my stupid little skin idea and sharing it.
Ferous

Comment by Ferous | 10/25/09 at 3:36 am

Regarding to what you said Ish, I feel that sure, they need respect for what they make or people will go and release interfaces andor addons and call it their own, much like to what 5 people are doing currently to tapestry’s uis in addition, I just saw a new one uploaded that is basically YOUR interface, but slapping a different name on it. but i completely agree when I say they not need to bring in crap about licenses, are they really going to pursue a legal suit against me? that would be the day
Ish

Comment by Ish | 10/26/09 at 9:23 pm

I just find it humorous that StormFX wants to take credit for “designing” a white square.

And what is even more entertaining is that his “design” is merely someone else’s work (Caith) copied over into a different application.

Its just silly that StormFX wants to play license police when he/she/it isn’t licensing something that was an original design to begin with.

Its kind of like me taking Roth’s orbs and changing their purpose from health/power display to experience/reputation display then putting a license on it. Its just dumb.

And in regard to people uploading my work as their own: Each Ui that I have come across that has drawn significant inspiration from my work has had credit given to me on the download page. That is plenty enough for me.

With that said, I am beginning to feel pressured into releasing a new aesthetic. As much as I enjoy my thin lines with squared caps on the ends, they are beginning to be overused by too many people at this point I think.

I’ve been working on a couple new projects though, so, we shall see
Ferous

Comment by Ferous | 10/26/09 at 9:37 pm

can’t wait to see as always Ish
Led ++

Comment by Led ++ | 10/30/09 at 9:17 am

Glad I only made UI’s an not addons. Little they could do to me for actually using their AddOns.

And copies of interfaces will always be there. I see my UF set-up in “a lot” of UI’s without me getting any credits. But I don’t mind, if there using it they’ll probably like it nonetheless . ;o)
ALZA

Comment by ALZA | 10/31/09 at 7:23 pm

Actually that’s how it usually goes. If someone spots an interesting UI element design or addon/code that he likes – he will most probably just copy/take it without event asking tha author.
For example Tukz added addon named “tMark” into his latest version of Tukui. Actually that’s not tMark, that’s a part of code from aSettings addon that can be found in Shestak UI only. More of this, this is MY code. Is was stolen without even renaming addon’s frame name (“aSettingsMarkingFrame”). And ofc there are no credits – not in .toc file, not on the site.
But actually i’m almost ok with it. I don’t want to accept donations or earn money from addons, i don’t really care about licensing my code. I’d only be pleased to see credits to my work if someone use it, and i doubt any other addon creator wouldn’t.
Ferous

Comment by Ferous | 11/01/09 at 4:40 am

Tuk must have seen this as he updated his package crediting you, or so his change log says so. I love your interface btw Alza, great work. I love it
Elsydeon

Comment by Elsydeon | 11/01/09 at 6:38 am

his forums are stolen too btw, even down to the blizzard logos and blue text (with the “BLIZZ” icon on the post) for his posts

i actually thought he cut a deal with blizz for hosting for a second, but he has a tiny tiny “not the official forums notice”
ALZA

Comment by ALZA | 11/01/09 at 10:07 am

Yea Tukz was very nice and updated it right after i asked him. Thx =)
pHishr

Comment by pHishr | 11/01/09 at 12:04 pm

Tukz is nice, he credited me, but I have no idea why :3
Elsydeon

Comment by Elsydeon | 11/02/09 at 12:43 am

im thinking of naming my ractionbuttonstyler skin “because StormFX is a douchebag to people who make skins for his addon”
brakhage

Comment by brakhage | 11/02/09 at 1:42 am

I’ve been checking out this new (?) compilation during the many long lag spikes I’ve been enjoying. It’s pretty sweet, and the “pixel perfect” nature of it (via 1xmultisampling) is a neat innovation.

http://www.tukui.org/news/

Thoughts, etc?
brakhage

Comment by brakhage | 11/02/09 at 3:32 am

Interesting to note: I should read ALL the comments before posting them; y’all have been talking about this dude already.
Ferous

Comment by Ferous | 11/02/09 at 6:57 am

Haha yeah, they have. Tuk UI has been out for a while now, far from new
Lootifer/btu10

Comment by Lootifer/btu10 | 01/25/10 at 11:56 pm

Haha, I was so close to adding in a “license” into my BF design that contain nothing but “Licenses are for chumps; steal my shit please, makes me feel better about myself.” since BF layouts aren’t exactly the height of design prowess.

Kinda glad I didn’t now, sense of humor on Storms part seems decidedly absent…

Copyright Is Complicated!

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