[ORX] Creative Commons Release Question
greyorm:
You may have heard that I have been working on a stripped-down version of ORX, which I am very shortly planning on releasing into the commons. However, I haven't decided yet whether to release it under a commercial or non-commercial license and I am curious what the experiences of other designers who have gone either route have been? If you released it under a commercial license, looking back, do you feel it was it a good decision (would you do it again, etc)? If you released it under a non-commercial license, what was the effect?
pells:
Hi Grey,
my personal preference (I haven't done it yet, but that is what I'm going to do, according to my lawyer) : release under BY-SA-NC.
This has the advantage of :
- still protecting your work (separating IP from copyright).
- still allow distribution of your work, under a certain control.
- allows you to fail to see a commercial use.
Anyway, my two cents on this : CC is a trademark. Nothing more, nothing less. Deal with it (do you want to talk to talk about this in this thread ?).
pells:
I'm sorry ... It's late ...
I'm going to go with by-nc-nd
Still the same objective, but not exactly the same mean to obtain it. Thinking about this : you want to talk about the nd part or the nc part ?
greyorm:
Quote from: pells on February 26, 2010, 09:00:42 PM
Still the same objective, but not exactly the same mean to obtain it. Thinking about this : you want to talk about the nd part or the nc part ?
Hi Sebastien,
It's mainly the NC part that interests me (I'm allowing derivative works for ORX) as I'm curious about what other indie authors have seen from the release of a NC work versus a work they allow to be used commercially.
I'm also curious about your statement regarding CC being a trademark. Could you expand on what you mean by that?
Eero Tuovinen:
I've published Solar System and World of Near under the commercial CC license, but the choice was mostly made by Clinton, whom I'm emulating on this point. I can't speak for him, but my experience as his sidekick on the TSoY project has given me the impression that while Clinton started out with the non-commercial license, he switched to the commercial one for the simple reason that the distinction wasn't practically worthwhile; are you going to refuse it if somebody wants to do something with that material, really?
The Finnish edition of TSoY is available under the NC license, I think, as it's modeled on when Clinton was using a NC license. This has been rather irrelevant, it's not like there's any basis in Finland for somebody else to use the material in a substantially commercial manner. If there were, I'd definitely allow them to.
While I'm aping Clinton on this whole CC business (I wouldn't have used an open license in a completely independent project, most likely), I have to say that if I'm using a CC license, I might as well make it a commercial one, considering my leanings. The benefit of using an open license in the first place concerns publicity and co-operators and less hassle in cooperation. All of these three things are better served by a commercial license, which removes the artificial distinction and any friction related to that. If I want other people to use my work, then I shouldn't put up barriers for them - if somebody takes the work and runs with it and becomes so wildly successful that the commercial license starts seeming overly generous, then the project is already so insanely successful that my own association with it amply repays me in terms of satisfaction. Simply put, it's theoretically possible that somebody else might benefit from the project "more" than I do, but if I benefit from it more than I would without an open license, then I'm doing well, too.
I should also add that I would not myself start an ambitious project with CC-licensed material if I had to rely on a non-commercial license from the original author. Game design is too much like work and business for me, I couldn't enjoy it if I knew that I couldn't go all the way with the project if inspiration took me. When we made the Finnish edition of TSoY, for example, we had to make a separate deal with Clinton to get a commercial permission; not because we made any great profit, but just because that was a theoretical possibility. So at least I am the sort of potential audience for whom a commercial license is an important detail in whether I'm interested in working with some material or not.
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