Re: Licenses of templates/material for user-created content

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IANAL

On Monday 05 January 2015 01:56:19 Friedrich W. H. Kossebau wrote:
> I would like some assistance what licenses to propose/use for media (files)
> which are not used as part of the applications, but provided as (raw)
> material for the user-created content. I assume/hope this has been
> discussed before, here or in some other place I can be pointed at.

[snip]
 
> These template and media files themselves usually are copyrightable content,
> and could be of composed nature again, thus also different objects with
> different licenses.
> 
> The only KDE wiki page I found which had some related content was
> https://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Licensing_Policy
> where the relevant point might be
> "
> 11. Standalone media files such as images may be licensed under the Creative
> Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence at
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ . This does not apply to
> icons or anything which is likely to be mixed with content under our normal
> (GPL etc) licences.
> "
> 
> What means "may" here exactly?

I think "may" just means that for "Standalone media files such as images" 
other rules apply than for the files mentioned in the first 10 numbered list 
items. IOW you can license those files under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 or under one of 
the other licenses permitted by our licensing policy.


> Should this also include templates, media gallery files and export mix-in
> media?

No. Yes. I don't know what "export mix-in media" means.

IMHO templates need to considered separately from media gallery files because 
documents are derived from the templates, but documents are not derived from 
media gallery files. Usually, the latter get included in a document, but 
usually this doesn't make the document a derivatives of those media gallery 
files. Of course, the author of the document needs to add proper attribution 
to each included media gallery file (if the license of the media gallery file 
requires attribution).

IMO templates that are part of the standard Calligra distribution should be 
licensed CC0. If the templates are super trivial (i.e. not a creative work) 
then they might not even be copyrightable, but it's better to explicitly state 
your intention. I think document templates are somewhat similar to code 
templates used by code generators. There are often special exceptions making 
sure that the generated code can be used under any license.

Templates that are not part of the standard Calligra distribution could be 
licensed CC-BY-SA. The license should be made clear to the user choosing such 
a template (e.g. by explicitly mentioning the licenses in the template 
chooser). The same applies to media gallery files and other stuff that's meant 
to be included unaltered in documents.


> Another open question for me which might influence what we would like to
> recommend/require as licenses (and where the answer ideally could be noted
> somewhere as FAQ):
> how does the license of the used template and media files influence the
> license of the created content? There is a term "Derivative work" but I have
> no clue what it means actually & how it can be applied, also not researched
> it yet, hoping that someone here has done that before and can enlight me &
> else.

See above. I wouldn't add anything to our FAQ because we should avoid anything 
that could be mistaken as legal advice.


> Example: someone creates a new presentation from template A, inserts the
> images B & vector graphic C from the media gallery and then exports this as
> HTML slides (like you can do with Stage), where the presentaion shell uses
> image D, CSS file E and HTML/JavaScript code F.
> 
> How would licenses game up here?

Ask this in the Legal and Policy Issues devroom at FOSDEM. But be prepared to 
leave the room with more questions than you had when you entered to room. ;-)
There is no easy answer. It always depends.

 
> If e.g. the license of the template influences the document, then requiring
> CC BY-SA 3.0 means every text document written in Words, presentation done
> in Stage or images painted with Krita needs to follow the Attribution and
> ShareAlike requirements, which would be a big blocker surely.

Yes. That's why I propose to use CC0 for basic templates.

You might also take a look at how LibreOffice or other office suite developers 
ensure that their users can use the templates provided with the office suite 
without restrictions. LibreOffice only seems to include templates for 
presentations (and templates used by its wizards, but they didn't work here). 
The template chooser doesn't show license information. :/ And the source of 
the one template (DNA.otp) I looked at also doesn't seem to have any license 
information. :/


> Slightly off-topic, but still related, if the licenses of the templates and
> media files have an influence on the created content, the user should be
> able to see that somehow in the UI, so they know about the legal bounds
> their content gets by using the templates, media files and the mixed-in
> media on export (which might be even more important if hopefully soon also
> more offer/integrate templates and media from online resources, so outside
> of what we control in the KDE repo and releases).
> Is that done already in any software, so one could be inspired from how to
> do it?

IMHO any software that allows "in-app" downloading (or even just choosing) of 
user-created content should do this, e.g. GHNS (or whatever it's called 
nowadays). For a not ideal example see Firefox's Get Add-ons (where the 
license resp. the EULA is hidden behind a link).


Regards,
Ingo

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