License clarification

[Ellie Jane]

A resource is given under Creative Commons ShareAlike.


The license is summarised as:

• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
  
• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
  

for any purpose, even commercially.


The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Under the following terms:

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.


ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.


No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

It is the ShareAlike part that has me confused.


The first quote suggests I can use the material however I like, including in my case in a commercial video game. It explicitly says any purpose, even commercially.


But the ShareAlike portion suggests I would have to apply the license to it. Does this mean my entire game has to come under that license, does it mean I have to distribute the materials under that license in order to use them, or does it merely mean if I distribute them outside the game I have to use that license?


(If so I am happy to share the resources I end up with under the same license, but I cannot apply that license to my game).

 

[mlogan]

I understand it to mean if you were to redistribute the actual materials (the thing you edited) not the product it was used in.

 

[Sharm]

In general everyone agrees that it's meant to mean the materials separately, but technically by the wording it does mean the entire game, including the code used to make it.  This is why I don't like to use that license for my own stuff.  Plus there's the whole "no DRM" clause.  When in doubt, just ask the artist, we're usually pretty good about clarifying what they intend, which is way more important than what the CC license means.

 

[Victor Sant]

In fact, Creative Commons is a pretty bad way of sharing content that is intended to be used for commercial porpouse, since it says that anything 'build upon the material' must follow the same liscence

 

[Wavelength]

In fact, Creative Commons is a pretty bad way of sharing content that is intended to be used for commercial porpouse, since it says that anything 'build upon the material' must follow the same liscence

Not all Creative Commons licenses require that; only the ones marked with 'SA' for Share-Alike.


I can't contribute much to answering this question, since I too was wondering whether (for example) a game that used a music piece with a CC SA license would need to also be offered for free using the same terms.  I searched a little online and never found a clear answer either way.