Poll: Reasons for using NC licenses

[everlaster]

I'm interested in better understanding why creators release their free resources under an NC license which restricts commercial use (CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA, and CC BY-NC-ND).

Select any reasons that apply to any of your resources. Some of the options might resonate to you even outside of the context of NC licenses. Only pick options that explain why you use an NC license!

Thank you!

 

[trety]

8. Other [ A ] - My resource is an result of porting NC assets.
Other [ B ] - My resource is AAA\Indie game character\asset port. I never felt safe using these for paid assets.
Sure i read somewhere that US law [patreon etc] allows using AAA games characters in porn as an parody. But somehow Nintendo is able to take down them if they want to.

 

[everlaster]

8. Other [ A ] - My resource is an result of porting NC assets.
Other [ B ] - My resource is AAA\Indie game character\asset port. I never felt safe using these for paid assets.

Added option

 

[DTB247]

8 other I am an amateur hobbyist and don't want the grief/pressure of supporting my free resource when it is part of a paid asset. I can imagine logging in to messages saying "I payed good money for this why is your sh** broke?" So I am more comfortable providing the level of support you would expect for something you get for free.

 

[atani]

Some more information about my choices in the poll, the use of NC in my resources is solely used in my template and template-based scenes. As their reason is to make new scenes quickly, I feel that not having NC in those would be a incentive to paywalling template adaptations for a quick buck.
I contemplated using SA instead, but paywalling would still be a option and I find SA to be a little confusing, while NC is very clear to almost everyone.

All others resources do not use NC, including non-template based scenes. In my mind they can be used as pieces of a potential new resource, but they're not like >90% of the work like a template is.

 

[everlaster]

@atani What's confusing about SA?

I've always known that people use NC to prevent paywalling, but I've never agreed with that approach because of how much NC restricts use in any commercial context. In my estimate, SA would be effective at preventing paywalling, because if someone is going to sell something that can be shared for free anyway, no one is going to buy it.

 

[redeyes]

I don't mind paid content using my work as a dependency of a scene - it's the danger they'll "sell" on what is free work - take a copy and release it. I mostly don't bother with the NC because it does stop paid content users using my stuff even as only a dependency which I don't mind.

 

[atani]

@atani What's confusing about SA?

I've always known that people use NC to prevent paywalling, but I've never agreed with that approach because of how much NC restricts use in any commercial context. In my estimate, SA would be effective at preventing paywalling, because if someone is going to sell something that can be shared for free anyway, no one is going to buy it.

Maybe I don't understand the SA license correctly, which is the point I mention, but I see no reason why paywalling something CC BY-SA would be a infrigiment to the license. Doesn't mean that someone would be doing anything wrong by taking that paywalled resource and sharing it for free afterwards, but still it wouldn't prevent paywalling in the first place.
Maybe for the paywaller this would not be a good long term strategy, but in the short term there would be some benefit, and everything would be compliant with licensing terms. It could be taken as a incentive for a quick buck without any penalty attached, you wouldn't even be banned from the Hub because you didn't break any policy (supposedly). However, paywalling a NC item would be far more risky (ban) to someone that wants to use the Hub to reach a broader audience.

I disagree with the assumption you make that people will not pay for something that can be shared for free. First they need to know that it exists outside of a paywall, then where they could get it, then finally get it. This knowledge or time use is not free, and I'm sure there's all kinds of other reasons. And it's expected that the resharing for free would come some time after the paywalled share; time is valuable, some people will pay for that, eg: payed early-access.

I hope this helps explain my thought process between SA and NC, and choosing NC for specific resources. Perhaps my understanding of SA is skewed and NC is too much, but as I see SA would be too little. There was some talks about having specific licenses for VaM resources, perhaps something worthwhile discussing again. Thanks also for bringing up the poll, it's really interesting the topic and answers as they come.

 

[NeMech]

The scene I uploaded recently is CC BY-NC-ND when viewed on VAMHU, but the license of the var file is PC.
My intention was to claim that there was no NC content inside, and I had no other intention or claim.
Also, since this is a scene, it is not suitable for reference, and there are no items to refer to from now on.
The reason CC BY-NC-ND is displayed for PC licenses in VAMHUB's free content is because it is out of consideration for people who don't need to worry about licenses (I think most people do). I am sure.

 

[everlaster]

The scene I uploaded recently is CC BY-NC-ND when viewed on VAMHU, but the license of the var file is PC.

I didn't even know that's possible. I thought the license tag is read directly from the meta.json file inside the var package.

The reason CC BY-NC-ND is displayed for PC licenses in VAMHUB's free content is because it is out of consideration for people who don't need to worry about licenses (I think most people do). I am sure.

Is this official info or are you just making an educated guess?

 

[everlaster]

Maybe I don't understand the SA license correctly, which is the point I mention, but I see no reason why paywalling something CC BY-SA would be a infrigiment to the license. Doesn't mean that someone would be doing anything wrong by taking that paywalled resource and sharing it for free afterwards, but still it wouldn't prevent paywalling in the first place.
Maybe for the paywaller this would not be a good long term strategy, but in the short term there would be some benefit, and everything would be compliant with licensing terms. It could be taken as a incentive for a quick buck without any penalty attached, you wouldn't even be banned from the Hub because you didn't break any policy (supposedly). However, paywalling a NC item would be far more risky (ban) to someone that wants to use the Hub to reach a broader audience.

I disagree with the assumption you make that people will not pay for something that can be shared for free. First they need to know that it exists outside of a paywall, then where they could get it, then finally get it. This knowledge or time use is not free, and I'm sure there's all kinds of other reasons. And it's expected that the resharing for free would come some time after the paywalled share; time is valuable, some people will pay for that, eg: payed early-access.

I hope this helps explain my thought process between SA and NC, and choosing NC for specific resources. Perhaps my understanding of SA is skewed and NC is too much, but as I see SA would be too little. There was some talks about having specific licenses for VaM resources, perhaps something worthwhile discussing again. Thanks also for bringing up the poll, it's really interesting the topic and answers as they come.

It seems you understand SA perfectly well

You're right, SA doesn't prevent paywalling. But that's just a technicality in my view because only non-NC non-SA CC licensed content can be relicensed to something that doesn't permit free distribution and then sold. This is the primary reason I think basically no one is going to even attempt to sell someone's SA content any more than NC content. Of course, I'm willing to have my mind changed on this if there's evidence to the contrary...

I'm not sure if there would be any benefit even in the short term. Who would pay for a Patreon that only offers freely distributable content made by other creators, especially when that content is already available for free on the Hub? You'd have to have an incentive to join someone's Patreon, and if all they're doing is saying "Here's a release XYZ (CC BY-SA) by atani, join now!"... is anyone going to join? The creator has to clearly mention the license of the content they're selling because attribution is part of CC license terms, and mentioning the license is part of the attribution. If they don't provide proper attribution, you can nail them on that just like you'd nail them on selling NC content.

The only way I see SA licensed content being actually vulnerable to being paywalled is the same way as with NC content: by breaking license terms. In the case of NC, it's the paywalling itself that breaks license terms, while in the case of SA content, it would be relicensing (to PC or any other).

 

[NeMech]

I have uploaded the PC license var package to the free board.
Naturally, no NC assets are referenced.
The notation of VAMHUB was CC BY-NC-ND.
this is true. I don't know why.

The rest is my opinion.


However, there is a possibility that various problems may occur, so I will change the license after a while. Just CC BY

 

[AshAuryn]

I have uploaded the PC license var package to the free board.
Naturally, no NC assets are referenced.
The notation of VAMHUB was CC BY-NC-ND.
this is true. I don't know why.

The rest is my opinion.


However, there is a possibility that various problems may occur, so I will change the license after a while. Just CC BY

PC is automatically converted to CC BY NC ND on the Hub. This decision was due to the fact that if PC items are released in the "Free" category, technically they cannot be shared. Only CC BY items can be distributed, so the license is displayed with the strictest CC BY license to prevent modification or commercial use.

 

[NeMech]

Sorry for wasting your time., I'll change it to CC BY.
I've read the rule that says if it contains NC content, it has to be NC, so there's no point in making it PC.

 

[CuddleMocap]

I think there's a somewhat special case with VaM animations/mocaps because the animations cannot be referenced as a dependency. If someone uses one of my mocaps, a copy of the animation is made in a new scene and re-packaged again. If I make new improvements, bug fixes, or modifications to my mocaps, it doesn't carry over to other people's scenes who copied it. It stays as the old version unless the creator decides to do the extra work to export and import the updated animation. It is almost impossible to track who is using my mocaps, how they are being used, whether it is being used commercially, and whether or not they are being modified. There's pretty much nothing linking the mocap to me other than the creator writing my name in the credits. To avoid problems, I use the CC BY-NC-ND license and reserve the animations only for me to distribute and modify. If animations could be referenced as a dependency, I would be more likely to use a less restrictive license.
I don't think this needs a special option in the poll, I just wanted to explain.

 

[atani]

It seems you understand SA perfectly well

You're right, SA doesn't prevent paywalling. But that's just a technicality in my view because only non-NC non-SA CC licensed content can be relicensed to something that doesn't permit free distribution and then sold. This is the primary reason I think basically no one is going to even attempt to sell someone's SA content any more than NC content. Of course, I'm willing to have my mind changed on this if there's evidence to the contrary...

I'm not sure if there would be any benefit even in the short term. Who would pay for a Patreon that only offers freely distributable content made by other creators, especially when that content is already available for free on the Hub? You'd have to have an incentive to join someone's Patreon, and if all they're doing is saying "Here's a release XYZ (CC BY-SA) by atani, join now!"... is anyone going to join? The creator has to clearly mention the license of the content they're selling because attribution is part of CC license terms, and mentioning the license is part of the attribution. If they don't provide proper attribution, you can nail them on that just like you'd nail them on selling NC content.

The only way I see SA licensed content being actually vulnerable to being paywalled is the same way as with NC content: by breaking license terms. In the case of NC, it's the paywalling itself that breaks license terms, while in the case of SA content, it would be relicensing (to PC or any other).

Just a update on a upcoming... hummm... update... on my template that is licensed as CC BY-NC.
Was thinking about changing to CC BY-SA considering your arguments that NC is too restrictive, but screw it, going CC BY instead.

 

[TBD]

I think there's a somewhat special case with VaM animations/mocaps because the animations cannot be referenced as a dependency. If someone uses one of my mocaps, a copy of the animation is made in a new scene and re-packaged again. If I make new improvements, bug fixes, or modifications to my mocaps, it doesn't carry over to other people's scenes who copied it. It stays as the old version unless the creator decides to do the extra work to export and import the updated animation. It is almost impossible to track who is using my mocaps, how they are being used, whether it is being used commercially, and whether or not they are being modified. There's pretty much nothing linking the mocap to me other than the creator writing my name in the credits. To avoid problems, I use the CC BY-NC-ND license and reserve the animations only for me to distribute and modify. If animations could be referenced as a dependency, I would be more likely to use a less restrictive license.
I don't think this needs a special option in the poll, I just wanted to explain.

That's actually an important distinction. For resources that can be referenced SA doesn't seem necessary and NC-ND forces all downloads to go through the proper channel (e.g. the hub). I'd rather not have my packages uploaded to some mega folder. If I publish something with SA and the resource is "worth it" I'll go the extra mile and make it open source on github.
Obviously, where ND falls flat is if vam requires the resource to be copied, like timeline animations. In fact, all that licensing does is mandate how the resource can/should be distributed and it has no impact on how it can be referenced.

A major reason for confusion is most likely the term "build upon" in licenses. It's not immediately obvious if it affects references to resources, too.

@everlaster I'm curious to hear about examples where you feel NC-ND is too restrictive. What does it prevent you from doing that should be permitted conforming to the intents of the creator?

 

[everlaster]

A major reason for confusion is most likely the term "build upon" in licenses. It's not immediately obvious if it affects references to resources, too.

That does sound like something that could be confusing, but honestly, I don't think I've come across any case where someone was confused by that. I think pretty much everyone understands that referencing a package isn't building upon (= modifying) it.

@everlaster I'm curious to hear about examples where you feel NC-ND is too restrictive. What does it prevent you from doing that should be permitted conforming to the intents of the creator?

For the ND part, if someone doesn't want their resource to be modded, that's their call. Either you want to allow or don't want to allow derivative works, and that's clear to both the licensor and the licensee. There are no reasons for using ND beyond that that I'm aware of, so I wouldn't say it's "too" restrictive, it's more like restrictive by design.

As for NC, you can tell based on the poll results that people use it for all sorts of different reasons. The NC license forbids *all* commercial use, so it is too restrictive in every case where the creator only wants to restrict *some* commercial use. The clearest example of that is when the creator wants to prevent paywalling their resource or a derivative of it, but as an unintended side effect they also prevent use by reference (as a freely available dependency) in paid content. As a result, paid content creators end up skipping over a lot of great resources in their scenes, looks, videos, etc. - resources which they could use if they only knew the creator's true intent for picking the NC license. This unnecessarily limits the options that are available for use in paid content, but also unnecessarily hurts the popularity and visibility of those NC licensed resources that are actually ok to use by reference.

I think it would be better for the community if there were additional VAM content specific license types that made a distinction between "commercial use by reference" and "selling/paywalling".

Obviously, where ND falls flat is if vam requires the resource to be copied, like timeline animations. In fact, all that licensing does is mandate how the resource can/should be distributed and it has no impact on how it can be referenced.

I don't understand what you mean by this... All ND says is "don't publish a modified version". It says nothing about distribution - only NC restricts distribution by preventing paywalling, but all non-NC CC licenses allow distribution in any channel or medium. In fact, what you said earlier about NC-ND forcing downloads to go through the Hub is also incorrect - nothing prevents anyone from sharing your NC-ND resource in Discord, mega, google drive, or via USB stick, as long as no payment is required.

 

[TBD]

You're right, ND does allow distribution as long as no modifications are made.

I guess I'm still confused about the terms "use" and "build upon". They're probably distinctive for media but not so much for software. What makes me scratch my head is the possibility of support for optional dependencies. What happens if commercial software interfaces with NC or even other PC plugins or libraries? It's not against copy right law to build interfaces but the term "use" in CC might be interpreted to include these cases. Paid scenes should be allowed to reference PC/NC plugins or e.g. music as long as the user supplies them themself, too.

CC recommends against using their licenses for software and refers to GPL as a better alternative.

Frequently Asked Questions - Creative Commons

creativecommons.org

Maybe what VAM needs is content type specific licenses. Currently, a var is a big blob of heterogeneous content with a single license attached to it.

 

[everlaster]

I guess I'm still confused about the terms "use" and "build upon". They're probably distinctive for media but not so much for software. What makes me scratch my head is the possibility of support for optional dependencies. What happens if commercial software interfaces with NC or even other PC plugins or libraries? It's not against copy right law to build interfaces but the term "use" in CC might be interpreted to include these cases. Paid scenes should be allowed to reference PC/NC plugins or e.g. music as long as the user supplies them themself, too.

This is covered by NC license policy here: https://hub.virtamate.com/threads/new-non-commercial-nc-license-policy-enforcement.11860/

CC recommends against using their licenses for software and refers to GPL as a better alternative.

Frequently Asked Questions - Creative Commons

creativecommons.org

Most content isn't software, only plugins are software. But even plugins are content. The CC BY license that a VAM plugin is shared with applies to the package and its contents rather than the plugin's source code. It just so happens that, in most cases, plugin content is also source code because the plugin is shared as .cs files that are compiled to an actual runnable DLL only when the plugin is added in VAM (i.e. "at runtime"). However there are some plugins that are shared as pre-compiled DLL files, and those are not source code files. CC's recommendation to use existing software specific licenses applies more to the source code of software.

Maybe what VAM needs is content type specific licenses. Currently, a var is a big blob of heterogeneous content with a single license attached to it.

Yeah. I think bundling different types of content within the same package is a separate issue though. But it might be useful if we were able to create a project that consists of multiple packages with potentially different licenses, and upload the project as a single Hub resource that exists in multiple categories, or something like that. Currently, if you want to properly split up your look into a separate hairstyle, clothing set, skin texture etc. that the actual appearance depends on, and a separate demo scene to showcase the look, it's too much work and could also be considered resource spam that unnecessarily fragments the look into small pieces that you have to download separately.

 

[TBD]

Thanks for the link. You cleaned up some misconceptions and uncertainties I had.

The IL code in managed .net dlls is easily turned back into source code. It won't be exactly the same as the original but close enough. Is there a specific definition in licensing terms which defines IL as not source code?

 

[everlaster]

Thanks for the link. You cleaned up some misconceptions and uncertainties I had.

The IL code in managed .net dlls is easily turned back into source code. It won't be exactly the same as the original but close enough. Is there a specific definition in licensing terms which defines IL as not source code?

You're welcome . I don't know if there's a definition of "source code" that's specific to licensing, but Wikipedia offers a narrow definition which says it's the code that the programmers write, and a broader definition which includes even the machine code that is actually executed on the CPU. I don't particularly like the broader definition because it makes no distinction between code and source code. According to the narrow definition however, IL code is not source code because it's not the IL code that developers write.

When it comes to VAM plugins that are .cs files, I would view them more as end user programs rather than source code. The vast majority of users are downloading the plugins as resources for use in VAM rather than as code to be built upon or to be used as a library in a larger codebase. But, the fact that a plugin consists of .cs files opens up the possibility of modification, and a CC license is not ideal for that. (Some good info here: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/a/1718). Ideally if a plugin developer wants other developers to be able to share modified versions ("forks") of their plugin, they should share the source code along with its commit history in a public GitHub repository with an appropriate open source software license.

 

[DarkFantasy]

Like everyone else I try to be very respectful of what I am including and releasing. I match the overall licensing up back to back with the most restrictive licensing included in the package.

There is no way to recover my time or costs. I have a scene I am about to release that even if I charged for it the best I could do is pennies per hour. I hate the idea that my ideas, solutions, visions, etc would be lost forever if not shared. I don't expect my scenes to continue and I don't expect people to remember me. At least one person will learn something or be inspired to create a new and better solution. That is where we continue to live on through history.

Where would VAM be without creators like Macgruber, Spacedog, Acid Bubbles, CuteSvetlana, Molmark, CheesyFX, and many many others? Their legacy will be *everything* this platform turns into and inspires in the future whether people know it or not. That, to me, is real immortality. Not a name in a book for a piddly little few hundred or thousand years.

Corny, I know...