Types of Common VN Licenses

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noeinan
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Types of Common VN Licenses

#1 Post by noeinan »

PUBLIC COPYRIGHT LICENSES
Public copyright licenses do not limit their licensees. In other words, any person can take advantage of the license. There are several types of public copyright licenses.

Libre licensed works which may be used, modified, copied and shared without permission from the copyright holder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libre

Share-alike licenses require derivatives of the licensed work to be released under the same license as the original.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share-alike

The Creative Commons public copyright license suite includes licenses with attribution, share-alike, non-commercial and no-derivatives conditions. It also offers a public domain license and the Founders' Copyright license. This is the most commonly used license on lemmasoft, partly because of its flexibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons

Open supplement licenses permit derivatives of the work (specifically material that supplements the original work) but not duplicates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_gamin ... t_licenses

Since CC licenses are most common, I'll include a description for the different types here. In general, this is a good resource when looking into a CC license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

TYPES OF CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES

Attribution
CC BY

This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.

Attribution-ShareAlike
CC BY-SA

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NoDerivs
CC BY-ND

This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution-NonCommercial
CC BY-NC

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SA

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND

This license allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
Last edited by noeinan on Mon Mar 03, 2014 9:16 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Types of Common VN Licenses

#2 Post by noeinan »

I've been looking around, but haven't found a comprehensive list of the most common licenses used here on lemmasoft and was thinking maybe we could make one and sticky it?

For example, I want to make a game that is free to play and distribute, but players are not allowed to reuse any of the original content, such as art and writing. It would be cool to just look at a list with a brief description of each license, and maybe a link to a more detailed description. As it is, I'm having a hard time finding the right license.

From my research, the Creative Commons license allows others to adapt your work. The General Public License also allows others to change your work, but requires that any product made with it also be GPL.

So, I was wondering what kinds of licenses everyone uses for their completed games?
Last edited by noeinan on Mon Mar 03, 2014 9:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Ophelia
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Re: Types of Common VN Licenses

#3 Post by Ophelia »

Wouldn't the CC BY-NC-ND licence do the trick?
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en

There are short descriptions of the others.

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Re: Types of Common VN Licenses

#4 Post by noeinan »

Thanks, Ophelia. Someone else just sent it to me as well. I figure I'll add a brief description anyway, just so if someone looks up licensing on lemmasoft it may make it easier for them. Though, that site is pretty much the best resource, so I don't think there needs to be a sticky thread.

I was probably just derping earlier when I was searching and not coming up with anything.
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