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Author Topic: Copyright licensing for mods  (Read 1333 times)

Lemuria

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Copyright licensing for mods
« on: March 01, 2022, 05:30:37 AM »

Hello, I'm Lemuria, I recently discovered Starsector, and I'm thinking of creating mods of the game. I'm an open source developer, most of my software is open source. I read the Starsector license agreement and it says that I'm not allowed to distribute my mods for a fee, as it says in the agreement:
Quote
Fractal Softworks authorizes you to create and distribute Mods of the Game, provided you don't charge for the Mod itself or its distribution in any way.  Selling or otherwise charging for the access or use of Mods shall be a violation of this License and shall constitute infringement of Fractal Softworks's copyright in the Game.

I'm curious about what kind of copyright licenses the other modders here use for their mods, and I'm hoping that the licenses I put my mods under won't conflict with the agreement. Some mods I've seen on GitHub don't have a license, is this intentional? And will I be able to license my Starsector mods under an open source license?

And no, none of your replies constitute legal advice, I'm just curious.

EDIT: And yes, I'm planning on making the source code of my mods public, free, as in both price and freedom.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2022, 06:00:04 AM by Lemuria »
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Jaghaimo

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Re: Copyright licensing for mods
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2022, 06:59:36 AM »

Any licence is fine. Most projects are open source in some form (they distribute with their source code). All you are forbidden is charging for mods ("Selling or otherwise charging for the access or use of Mods").

Many modders just write that you can reuse, or modify, their mod as long as you give credits to the original author. If you want to be more formal with your mod, you can pick a licence that fits your ideology: https://opensource.org/licenses

For example, I don't mind my mods being forked and redistributed, as long as those forks have the same licence (and are open source). Thus, I picked GPL (3 to be precise, but 2 is also copy-left).
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Lemuria

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Re: Copyright licensing for mods
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2022, 07:21:53 AM »

Alright, cool. And it's license with an S.
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Lemuria

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Re: Copyright licensing for mods
« Reply #5 on: March 01, 2022, 07:40:04 AM »

Alright, cool. And it's license with an S.
In the proper language, the noun is spelled with a C.

I prefer to always spell it with an S. Personal preference.
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Harmful Mechanic

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Re: Copyright licensing for mods
« Reply #6 on: March 01, 2022, 05:48:52 PM »

All my mods are CC - Attribution - Noncommercial - No Derivatives. I seriously question whether anyone reads the license files, but I put them in there. No yelling from moderation yet.

My freebie resources are CC - Attribution - Noncommercial - Share Alike. I'd say that's a good default.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2022, 05:51:47 PM by Harmful Mechanic »
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Wispborne

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Re: Copyright licensing for mods
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2022, 08:37:44 AM »

Some mods I've seen on GitHub don't have a license, is this intentional?

It's pretty much just because it's a hobby and many mod authors don't know or care about licenses. "If there's no license, ask, and if there is, it's nice to ask anyway" is the standard advice.

I personally will be using GPLv3 for my current/future work, which forces anyone using it to use the same license. Makes it much harder for anyone to profit off of my work, as unlikely and flattering as that would be. I'd make an exception for Fractal Softworks, but to my knowledge Alex has never specifically integrated a mod into vanilla.
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AtlanticAccent

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Re: Copyright licensing for mods
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2022, 08:51:29 AM »

Disclaimer: I haven't actually written a mod, just an out of game tool.

I use MIT because it's generally quite permissive, and I use such a large number of open source libraries that I need the compatibility.

Most of the reasons for why modders don't include licenses are included above but my two cents:
  • Modders don't generally include other open source content outside of the vanilla libs or some of the utility libs (which are probably fine without proper attribution idk)
  • A lot of modders are not pro coder so it doesn't even enter into their thought process - many modders code purely on their own machines without the use of GitHub etc, and aren't totally aware of the distinction between source and compiled code. And that's fine! We all start somewhere, and if you only ever gain enough understanding to mod then that's entirely valid! Modding alone is awesome enough a hobby!
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Lemuria

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Re: Copyright licensing for mods
« Reply #9 on: March 02, 2022, 10:24:54 PM »

I suck at creating ship images, unfortunately. But the code I write, I'm putting that under an open-source license.
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