Oolite Bulletins

Who has the copyright on that OXP, and under which license is it released ?

I guess Lestradae can answer that, as he has integrated it into his OXP, so I guess he already investigated those questions.

Thank you Vi... Commodore!

A genuine question not trolling.

Is it possible for somebody to own the copyright on a product which features clearly identifiable "stuff" from something where actual copyright belongs to George Lucas (LucasArts/LucasFilm etc)?

I can see why it would be "nice" to ask the original Starwars OXP creator to use their stuff (especially as this is an old OXP and almost certainly doesn't contain any of the nice Licensing disclaimers), but surely "copyright" is completely different?

DaddyHoggy wrote:

A genuine question not trolling.

Is it possible for somebody to own the copyright on a product which features clearly identifiable "stuff" from something where actual copyright belongs to George Lucas (LucasArts/LucasFilm etc)?

Very good point.

This goes to a slippery path anyway. The original OXP -warning, I am not a lawyer- for sure uses names that are registered by the named major. So having a ship named TIE could be harmful if somehow OOlite would harm the interests of G. Lucas somehow.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

I can see why it would be "nice" to ask the original Starwars OXP creator to use their stuff (especially as this is an old OXP and almost certainly doesn't contain any of the nice Licensing disclaimers), but surely "copyright" is completely different?

While the author could be charged of infringing the "intellectual property" (one of the most dangerous concept on the earth, after making water a commodity), nevertheless he is the author of the artifact that, processed by a computer program, create an image that looks like a starship from Star Wars. He concocted the data and the textures, not LucasFilm labs.

BTW, maybe we could rename the ship... knot, cravatta (italian for tie)...

Im not a lawyer, but I believe that it depends on the country.

In the UK, I think that it is possible for an artist to own the copyright of a derivative work, for example a photograph of a painting has its own copyright in adition to any copyright related to the original.

BTW, I added some to the TIE fighter EliteWiki page.

Hmm it seems to me that maybe we should be thinking about taking what's good about the tie model and plist and applying it to an original design?

That way all these copyright issues become moot.

Possibly, but the whole point of the starwars OXP was to have a starwars flavour. Whether thats a good thing or not is open to debate.

Using an original design could be a very good thing. But easier could be to use the shape (after all it looks the OXP looks like the crossbreed of the Greek uppercase phi and a water clock - if you really want make the side panels octagonal and any similarity with the movie is lost) and change ne name.

It is not just the plist that makes the ship, its look matters, and our "tie" looks like a "super deformed" version of the movie ones.

A few thoughts. I, too, am not a legal expert or anything.

DISCLAIMER: The following is, indeed, only my personal conviction. I am in no way entitled to give legal advice, nor is this my job or something. If you want to be sure, get yourself legal advice on the matter first!

First, oxps from Oolite are derivative works of a derivative work. Namely, they are derivatives from Oolite which they need to function, and Oolite itself is a derivative from Elite.

RS/OSE is in that sense a derivative work of a derivative work of a derivative work. It is based on the oxps it takes apart and puts back together in a new context. A starwars.oxp would be the same, essentially.

1) Anything originally Oolite is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

I cite the wikipedia entry about it:

"All current licenses "require you to attribute the original author". You have to give attribution to "the best of your ability using the information available". Generally this implies the following:

* Include any copyright notices (if applicable). If the work itself contains any copyright notices placed there by the copyright holder, you must leave those notices intact, or reproduce them in a way that is reasonable to the medium in which you are re-publishing the work.

* Cite the author's name, screen name, or user ID, etc. If you are publishing on the Internet, it is nice to link that name to the person's profile page, if such a page exists.

* Cite the work's title or name, if such a thing exists. If you are publishing on the Internet, it is nice to link the name or title directly to the original work.

* Cite the specific CC license the work is under. If you are publishing on the Internet, it is nice if the license citation links to the license on the CC website.

* Mention if the work is a derivative work or adaptation, in addition to the above, you need to identify that your work is a derivative work i.e., “This is a Finnish translation of the [original work] by [author].” or “Screenplay based on [original work] by [author].”"

Please note that for any Creative Commons license it is not only allowed, but a condition for its use, that anything created under this license is share-alike. Meaning that you have to credit the people who's stuff you are using, and must not claim that they condone your work (except they do so in written form), but you are not allowed to forbid the usage of this material, as this would breach the share-alike condition!

So while it is nice to ask before you use something, you are by no means obligated to do so, and I in fact didn't do that for OSE because it would not even have been possible to get hold of all those people the meta-oxp is derived from. But I will, in the final version, credit any and all of them as a matter of of course.

2) Anything that is derived from a copyrighted work (star wars or trek ships, etc. etc.) can be used if it is used in an absolutely-no-money-charged fanproduct sort of way, and these things are not under the CC license for sure!

There are already star wars mods out there for the X - series for example, complete with worlds and Jedi etc., and they are usually left alone as long as no one starts to charge money for them and they stay pure fanproducts.

Perhaps there could be problems if a project got so big that it might infringe on the income of the original creators, but Oolite with its download numbers in the few thousands will not qualify for that I guess. It is much more likely that Oolite can be considered free advertising for the things that it presents as noncommercial fanthemes.

3) Last but not least: If anyone wants to take anything from RS/OSE, if it is from me or partially from me or derivative, by all means do so. You really don't even have to ask, and if you do, I will help you with whatever you want to achieve. This is a fan project, everyone is doing this in their spare time for the heck of it, and I guess none of us should forget that.

Methinks this is a rather accurate summary of the situation.



L

EDIT: @saint & Cmdr James

Oh, yeah, sorry, about the original question. The star wars ships were made available by someone who named himself "Azzameen" on the boards, and has last posted on the forums on the 9th March 2007 ...

You can try to drop him/her a PM here: https://bb.oolite.space/profile.php? ... file&u=639 ... perhaps he or she will still react?

Plus if we keep putting bits of other Universes into the Ooniverse, Prof Burroughs will be round here asking for license fees for use of pantheistic multiperson solipsism...

Lestradae wrote:

EDIT: @saint & Cmdr James
You can try to drop him/her a PM here: https://bb.oolite.space/profile.php? ... file&u=639 ... perhaps he or she will still react?

Thank you, ping sent...

<EDIT date="20090805">
The original author replied

No license.
Mess with it as you like.
But in case you want to upload it again, it'd be nice to drop a line in the readme.

I asked if he minds if we repackage it with a note stating the author and the Public Domain notice.
</EDIT>

BTW, public domain means no copyright...

It seems that DaddyHoggy was right.

saint wrote:

BTW, public domain means no copyright...

It seems that DaddyHoggy was right.

There's a first!

Make a note somebody!