Re: Bug#487218: games-thumbnails: unclear copyright concerns

[Miriam Ruiz]

--- Friday 20/6/08, Jon Dowland <jon+bts@...> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm sorry for the unpleasantness of this bug report :(
>
> I don't think you can apply the BSD license to the
> screenshots for all games. I think there is a compelling
> argument that a thumbnailed screenshot is a derivative
> work, and in some cases, the BSD license is not
> appropriate.
>
> For example:
>
> /usr/share/games/thumbnails/sauerbraten.png could be a
> "derivative" of sauerbraten in contrib, or
> sauerbraten-data
> in non-free, neither of which are BSD.
>
> I think the best way forward might be to split the
> games-thumbnails package up into games-thumbnails and
> games-thumbnails-nonfree. Sauerbraten would be an example
> of a screenshot to go into the latter package.
>
> For stuff in the former, specific licenses per screenshot
> may be necessary (e.g. a screenshot of GPL material is GPL
> rather than BSD)
>
> What do you think?

I'm not exactly sure of the copyright and licensing issues of screenshots of games in general. I know that in some countries there's something call Fair Use which I'm not really sure I fully understand, but that won't apply to some others. Leaving aside trademark issues that could affect the rights, and just concentrating on license and copyright usage of screenshots of the games, I don't see any problem in allowing modification and redistribution, not sure about the freedom of usage part, anyway.

Could someone out there help clarify those issues, please?

Thanks,
Miry

PS: I'm CCing this bug report both to the Debian Games Team mailing list and to Debian Legal, to see if anyone there can clarify the issue.



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[Francesco Poli-2]

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:43:47 +0000 (GMT) Miriam Ruiz wrote:

[...]
> I'm not exactly sure of the copyright and licensing issues of screenshots of games in general.

I tend to think that a screenshot of a game is a derivative work of
that game, at least of the game graphics files.
If this is true, each screenshot is copyrighted by the copyright
holder(s) of the game (graphics), as well as (possibly) by the person
who took the screenshot[1].
Moreover, again if the above is true, the screenshot has to be licensed
in a manner allowed by the license of the game (graphics).

[1] his/her (not huge) creative input was choosing when to take the
screenshot, and, possibly, how to get to the game situation in which
the screenshot was taken...

> I know that in some countries there's something call Fair Use which I'm not really sure I fully understand, but that won't apply to some others.

Conventional wisdom on debian-legal seems to be that the Debian Project
cannot rely on fair use (or fair dealing or other similar legal
disciplines that apply to other jurisdictions) in order to comply with
the DFSG, because fair use provides very very limited rights and varies
wildly across jurisdictions.

AFAIK, there are only very few limited cases where fair use is
exploited to achieve DFSG-freeness.  Fortune cookies come to mind,
several of which are short quotations of other people's works, with
proper credit: however the right to properly-credited quotations seems
to be present in virtually all jurisdictions, being included in the
Berne Convention[2].

[2] http://wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P144_26032

Important disclaimers:
IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP.

>
> Could someone out there help clarify those issues, please?

I hope mine is a useful contribution.
What I don't fully understand is: what is the purpose of the
games-thumbnails package?

[...]
> PS: I'm CCing this bug report both to the Debian Games Team mailing list and to Debian Legal, to see if anyone there can clarify the issue.

I interpret this as a request to send my reply to you, to the bug
submitter, to the bug address, and to the two lists.
Please correct me, if I'm wrong.


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[Miriam Ruiz-4]

2008/6/21 Francesco Poli <frx@...>:

Hi Francesco,

>> Could someone out there help clarify those issues, please?
>
> I hope mine is a useful contribution.
> What I don't fully understand is: what is the purpose of the
> games-thumbnails package?

Yes, it definitely is a useful contribution. I guess I´ll have to
remove the thumbnails for the non-free games from the package and fix
the copyright notices accordingly.

The games-thumbnails package is needed for GoPlay!, so that game
descriptions can show a snapshot of how the game looks like.

>> PS: I'm CCing this bug report both to the Debian Games Team mailing list and to Debian Legal, to see if anyone there can clarify the issue.
>
> I interpret this as a request to send my reply to you, to the bug
> submitter, to the bug address, and to the two lists.
> Please correct me, if I'm wrong.

Thanks, I meant exactly that :)

Greetings, and lots of thanks,
Miry


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[Francesco Poli-2]

On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 17:23:06 +0200 Miriam Ruiz wrote:

> 2008/6/21 Francesco Poli <frx@...>:
>
> Hi Francesco,

Hi!  :)

[...]
> > I hope mine is a useful contribution.
> > What I don't fully understand is: what is the purpose of the
> > games-thumbnails package?
>
> Yes, it definitely is a useful contribution. I guess I´ll have to
> remove the thumbnails for the non-free games from the package and fix
> the copyright notices accordingly.

Let's wait for some input from more legally-knowledgeable people, first.
What I expressed is (obviously) my take on the subject, and my
disclaimers apply (once again: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP).

>
> The games-thumbnails package is needed for GoPlay!, so that game
> descriptions can show a snapshot of how the game looks like.

Ah, I see.

This is why it has to be a centralized package, and it cannot be
scattered into the various game packages (I mean: each screenshot
included in the corresponding package, just like a menu configuration
entry, an icon, or something similar...): it has to be installable,
without having to install *all* the game packages.
Did I get it right?

If this is the case, it's unfortunate, because, speaking from a
modularity standpoint, I think the place where a screenshot would
"naturally" belong to is the very package of the game from which the
screenshot was taken...

BTW, is there an on-line web-based version of GoPlay!, by chance?
Apart from http://packages.debian.org/testing/games/ , of course...  ;-)

>
> >> PS: I'm CCing this bug report both to the Debian Games Team mailing list and to Debian Legal, to see if anyone there can clarify the issue.
> >
> > I interpret this as a request to send my reply to you, to the bug
> > submitter, to the bug address, and to the two lists.
> > Please correct me, if I'm wrong.
>
> Thanks, I meant exactly that :)

I'm re-adding the bug submitter to the list of recipients, then.


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[Arnoud Engelfriet-2]

Miriam Ruiz wrote:
> The games-thumbnails package is needed for GoPlay!, so that game
> descriptions can show a snapshot of how the game looks like.

I would argue that this is a kind of 'announcement' of the game
which is covered by quotation rights under Berne. It is certainly
extremely common today to show small screenshots when announcing,
discussing or flaming a game.

Of course that's just my opinion but I'm afraid you will not get
a more definite answer. Proprietary game licenses likely do not
contain permission to make screenshots, and I very much doubt
their creators would bother with giving you specific permission.

Arnoud

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[Ben Finney-2]

Arnoud Engelfriet <arnoud@...> writes:

> Miriam Ruiz wrote:
> > The games-thumbnails package is needed for GoPlay!, so that game
> > descriptions can show a snapshot of how the game looks like.
>
> I would argue that this is a kind of 'announcement' of the game
> which is covered by quotation rights under Berne.

That may well be true, and would be a good result in this instance.
Can you cite which particular provisions in the Berne convention
you're thinking of?

> It is certainly extremely common today to show small screenshots
> when announcing, discussing or flaming a game.

Unfortunately, this (popularity of a particular practice) is no guide
as to whether it's an acceptable risk for the Debian project to take
on behalf of Debian users. So I'd advise anyone making decisions to
ignore whether or not it's "extremely common" to use works in a
particular way.

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[Arnoud Engelfriet-2]

Ben Finney wrote:
> Arnoud Engelfriet <arnoud@...> writes:
> > I would argue that this is a kind of 'announcement' of the game
> > which is covered by quotation rights under Berne.
>
> That may well be true, and would be a good result in this instance.
> Can you cite which particular provisions in the Berne convention
> you're thinking of?

That would be article 10: "It shall be permissible to make quotations
from a work which has already been lawfully made available to the public,
provided that their making is compatible with fair practice, and their
extent does not exceed that justified by the purpose, including quotations
from newspaper articles and periodicals in the form of press summaries."

> Unfortunately, this (popularity of a particular practice) is no guide
> as to whether it's an acceptable risk for the Debian project to take
> on behalf of Debian users. So I'd advise anyone making decisions to
> ignore whether or not it's "extremely common" to use works in a
> particular way.

I agree in principle. However at some point you just have to
"go for it" even without irrefutable proof. To pick a different situation,
the Debian project seems to basically trust any license indication
as valid and complete without any proof. The assumption there seems to
be that you can always remove it once a rights holder complains.
Why would the same not apply here?

Arnoud

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[Bernhard R. Link-2]

* Arnoud Engelfriet <arnoud@...> [080622 14:46]:
> That would be article 10: "It shall be permissible to make quotations
> from a work which has already been lawfully made available to the public,
> provided that their making is compatible with fair practice, and their
> extent does not exceed that justified by the purpose, including quotations
> from newspaper articles and periodicals in the form of press summaries."

The problem is that "fair practice" and "justified by the purpose" are.
Picture excerpts in books seem to be an highly regulated area, and many
courts and lawyers have come up with absurd rules for that here in Germany,
so I'd guess there is a relatively high risk in this when looking at it
world-wide.

> I agree in principle. However at some point you just have to
> "go for it" even without irrefutable proof. To pick a different situation,
> the Debian project seems to basically trust any license indication
> as valid and complete without any proof. The assumption there seems to
> be that you can always remove it once a rights holder complains.
> Why would the same not apply here?

I think the assumption is more that those people could only force us to
stop and not punish us for believing something we were told with no
hints against. (Strange, though, that people are assumed to know the law
(or know that they do not know and ask a lawyer), but not assumed to
know all the facts. Perhaps that's because lawyers make those rules).

Hochachtungsvoll,
        Bernhard R. Link


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