So I see a lot of addons, many of them extremely popular, that use the "All Rights Reserved" license type. But really, this isn't a license at all.
All Rights Reserved means just that. It means that your code is yours, and that nobody can modify, use, or redistribute your addon without your express, written permission per copyright law.
So is it okay for me to download your addon? Is it okay for me to look at the code? Can I reuse one of your functions in my addon?
The answer to all of these questions, if you've chosen "All Rights Reserved" as your license, is NO. And yet, these are addons that are freely available on WoWace.com and on Curse. What does this mean?
If you make the code available, and I download it, you could make the argument that I did something illegal if you have your addon labeled as All Rights Reserved. Is that what's intended? Clearly that's not the case, since we all write addons for use in the community.
So really, I don't care which license you use. You can make your own license saying something to the effect of, "You may download and use this addon, with no warranty as to its functionality. But any other use including redistribution, copying, or reuse of code requires express permission from the addon author," if you intend to keep your code locked down.
I would advocate for the use of one of the open licenses, like the GPL (my personal favorite) or perhaps a more permissive license like the BSD license. These allow for free code sharing in the community, which can only result in better code. And since we can't sell our code anymore due to the changes in the Blizzard ToU, locking code down in a proprietary licensing model doesn't really make sense for UI mods.
But regardless of how you want to lock down the rights to your addon, you need to choose some sort of license for your code if you intend for people to use it. We, as users and addon authors, need to know what rights we have with your code. "All Rights Reserved" just isn't clear enough. It's really too bad that it's the default option when creating an addon, since it just encourages this lack of clarity for code use.
The term "All Rights Reserved" means, as you so succinctly pointed out, that the AddOn author reserves all rights to him or herself. The right for others to download and use personally is imparted, due to the fact that the author uploaded it to a chosen distribution site. Anything beyond that, such as re-distribution, is indeed forbidden.
Your definition is beyond pedantic - you're saying that we, as authors, are knowingly enticing others to break the law, which is simply not true. Some authors use ARR instead of a formal license because they don't want code forks.
AddOns are generally so small and the community so tight-knit that formal licenses which are used to foster forking and branching for other creative endeavors is usually unnecessary. Myself and other authors have in the past and will in the future grant permission to those who ask to use portions of the code, which we write and therefore belongs to us, in other AddOns.
I don't care that I cannot sell my AddOn under Blizzard's guidelines - I chose to control where, when, and how my projects are distributed, and would rather not have to field bug reports from modified versions which are included in a UI compilation or twelve which were non-supported the moment they were uploaded.
If you're just pissed off because you can't freely grab code and use it in your project (which doesn't seem to be the case), chill out - ask someone if you can do so...chances are the answer will be yes.
Many of us put the ARR label on our addons because it is easier to take action against those malicious sites that host our addons without our knowledge or permission and include keyloggers, fake installers, or hijacked ads in their pages.
Permissive licenses invite those site owners to argue and fight when we post take down requests. Posting those take down requests protects us from rumors that our addons are really keyloggers and protects the users from infection if they search for addons via Google, Bing or some other search engine.
As Torhal mentioned the authoring community is so small and tight-knit that using ARR doesn't really cut down on creativity or code sharing. People just PM on WoWAce or WoWI or post in the comments about wanting to use some code for another project.
It almost seems like you're arguing for the sake of argument...
And it's not that ARR is the default license when uploading a project on Curse/WowAce - it's that ARR is the default license when CREATING any work, be it an addon for a game, a book, a painting, a font, etc. By default, these things are ARR, unless and until the author of which chooses to give certain permissions.
As Torhal said, you are giving permission to have your addon downloaded and used by uploading it to the distribution site and by agreeing to the site's TOS (which I recommend you read).
And as Starinnia said, if you had an open license, then you have no defense for yourself. It is far easier to GIVE permissions, than to TAKE them away.
Books are ARR. Yet we can still buy these (or pick them up for free from the library, or get free copies) and open them up to read them and share the ideas within with our friends. But this is not illegal. By publishing your book and providing a (controlled) means of distributing it, you are giving people permission to have possession of your book and to read it.
So I see a lot of addons, many of them extremely popular, that use the "All Rights Reserved" license type. But really, this isn't a license at all.
its no licence - ie you the end user have no licence to do anything but read and run it. thats it.
All Rights Reserved means just that. It means that your code is yours, and that nobody can modify, use, or redistribute your addon without your express, written permission per copyright law.
yep, glad you understand it. comes in very handy for enforcing takedown notices on sites that just nick your entire mod and potentially charge people to access it. its my mod, i like to define the rules on how its used by third parties.
So is it okay for me to download your addon? Is it okay for me to look at the code?
yes, just like reading a book (or do you buy those and not read them?)
Can I reuse one of your functions in my addon?
try not to copy them verbatim, use your noggin, figure out what it does, code it yourself. if it happens to end up the same way then theres probably not many ways to code a specific function - and thats perfectly ok and not a copyright violation. its also unlikely that an ARR mod author would go after you over one function.
The answer to all of these questions, if you've chosen "All Rights Reserved" as your license, is NO. And yet, these are addons that are freely available on WoWace.com and on Curse. What does this mean?
its means, i, as the author, uplaoded them there with teh specific intent that you, the end user, should be able to download them - its part of the agreement when we upload our mods to those sites, we have to hand over distribute rights to that site.
If you make the code available, and I download it, you could make the argument that I did something illegal if you have your addon labeled as All Rights Reserved. Is that what's intended? Clearly that's not the case, since we all write addons for use in the community.
downloading and using is not a violation. copying it and pretending its yours is, making it freely available via your own personal web site is. doing anything we havent granted you a licence to do is - and we havent granted you a licence to do anything else with it.
So really, I don't care which license you use. You can make your own license saying something to the effect of, "You may download and use this addon, with no warranty as to its functionality. But any other use including redistribution, copying, or reuse of code requires express permission from the addon author," if you intend to keep your code locked down.
ARR is efectively the lack of a granting you a licence, it covers everything possible, no need for odd language to confuse the issue, and potentially be abused.
I would advocate for the use of one of the open licenses, like the GPL (my personal favorite) or perhaps a more permissive license like the BSD license. These allow for free code sharing in the community, which can only result in better code.
when you write a mod you can use whatever license, or lack there of, you wish. please dont try to force your software morality onto others.
And since we can't sell our code anymore due to the changes in the Blizzard ToU, locking code down in a proprietary licensing model doesn't really make sense for UI mods.
ARR has nothing to do with this. blizzard cannot force authors to hand over their copyright, that would cause the biggest sh*tstorm youve ever seen.
But regardless of how you want to lock down the rights to your addon, you need to choose some sort of license for your code if you intend for people to use it. We, as users and addon authors, need to know what rights we have with your code. "All Rights Reserved" just isn't clear enough. It's really too bad that it's the default option when creating an addon, since it just encourages this lack of clarity for code use.
ARR is perfectly clear - you have no rights to do anything but use and look at the code. thats it.
[...]Is it okay for me to look at the code? Can I reuse one of your functions in my addon? [...]
To hammer a different nail in that idea.
The smaller the function is, the more likely it is that really there is only one real way to do it. Some things simply cannot be protected by copyright as they are a process inherent to coding and thus not actually unique. IE auto-anchoring a tooltip or the basic sort functions.
In any case, as long as you're just asking for a small function or snippet of code, no author i know would say no to you, so asking is always preferred, no matter how much code we're talking about ;)
Some (including me) actually do get kinda annoyed when you copy stuff without asking, even when we would allow you to anyway.
I completely understand if you don't want people reusing your code, and I wasn't trying to say that adopting an open source license is something everybody should do. I personally believe in open source software, as I think it results in better code and fewer bugs when more people are using it, but I understand the other viewpoint as well and don't fault it.
And it's also why I said in my initial post that if you want to pick a restrictive license, that's absolutely fine. And I also fully understand the forking issue, and am obviously lacking in familiarity with the problems that entails. But I have a hard time seeing how leaving rights to an addon more ambiguous is helpful in keeping somebody from trampling your rights. I would think that a clear license, directly prohibiting 3rd-party redistribution of your addon would make things easier, not harder. You can simply say, "read the license, you broke the terms, so cease and desist." Again, maybe I don't fully understand how things work, but there's a reason software developers almost always have explicit licenses.
All Rights Reserved does not confer any rights whatsoever. Unless explicitly stated, even if you make the software available on a website, it is a violation of the holder's copyright for anybody to take it. And maybe I am being a bit pedantic, but I just really prefer knowing exactly where I stand.
I'm not saying you should all switch to BSD license, and I'm certainly not trying to push people to give things away. All I'm trying to say is that authors should state explicitly what rights people have to their software. If those rights are simply the right to download and use the code, then say so. Maybe a license with language like this:
"Awesome Addon, written by Joe Developer, All Rights Reserved except for those explicitly stated in this license. By downloading this software you agree to abide by the terms of this license.
You are hereby given permission to install and use the software only as a user interface modification to the World of Warcraft client program. You may not redistribute or copy the software for any reason without express permission from the author/copyright holder."
It's pretty short, it's clear. And there is no mistaking what you aren't allowed to do.
Sorry, I've been using open source software for a long time, and that community really places a lot of emphasis on explicit statements of rights. I was really not trying to troll, and I'm not trying to steal your code. Just so that's clear.
"In addition you acknowledge and grant users of the Curse Websites a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Curse Websites (or its successors and affiliates) and to use such User Submissions as applicable by their respective licenses."
The section this came from is the one called "User Submissions" and mostly talks about the rights Curse has with respect to user submitted material. It confers Curse the right to transfer your stuff over their website, but it stops there.
The ToS allows users to download your code, but all other rights must be conferred by you. Once they grab the code from Curse's website, everything is between you, the author, and the user. And if it's ARR, the user is supposed to stop there. the sentenc that ends "and to use such User Submissions as applicable by their respective licenses" means you need to provide a license of some kind. And as somebody said, ARR is literally the lack of providing a license. I believe it was also said that ARR allows you to download the code, look at it and run it, but in fact that's not true at all.
I can't find anything in the ToS granting users the permission to run any addons they download. That permission has to come from the addon author, which is explicitly stated in the ToS.
Posting an addon to wowace, or curse, or curseforge does not give anybody permission to use your stuff, except curse themselves.
I guess you could always make the fair use argument, but that doesn't change the fact that ARR leaves ambiguity that could possibly be very easy to deal with by providing a clear set of things the user is allowed to do with your stuff. Fair use can be difficult to define, but a license is a contract, which is meant to clarify things.
And maybe this all doesn't matter in the end. I doubt anybody here would be going around suing people for the heck of it. All I'm saying is that many of you, if you wanted to, could sue lots of people. ;)
Hmm, the more I read about all of this stuff, the more confused I get.
Some stuff I'm reading seems to imply that copyright only applies to copying, distribution, and performance. So what is the use of software? I don't really know.
This is all pretty interesting, actually, but I'm sorry to have bothered everybody. Do whatever you want.
Actually, ARR mainly means you have to ask the authors the permission to do something with the code. If you did something without an explicit permission, the authors could decide to sue you if they wanted to. However they could also decide not to sue you. It is up to them.
One can always argue that by uploading it to an addon hosting site, which sole purpose is to provide addons to users, you implicitly allow people to use the addon. I mean, why else would you upload it? =p
And yes, licenses are mighty annoying, thats why i stopped bothering with it. Open Source licenses died back in the wowmatrix days, where they used our addons, provided outdated versions, modified versions sometimes even, and tried to earn big on advertising.
My stuff is all ARR now (except libraries), with the implied permission that users can use it when its up for download.
Many developers don't even think about licenses. When they upload it to Curse, they do kind of expect people to use it.
Off-topic: Is it naive or rather dumb to put ur addon in the Public Domain? Like any1 can copy ur code or even the whole addon and get away with it legally?
Some people do it, and i won't judge. Its their own choice, and in most cases, it won't matter a bit. Its still just WoW Addons, nothing anyone pays for.
Hmm, the more I read about all of this stuff, the more confused I get.
Some stuff I'm reading seems to imply that copyright only applies to copying, distribution, and performance. So what is the use of software? I don't really know.
This is all pretty interesting, actually, but I'm sorry to have bothered everybody. Do whatever you want.
The use of the software is implied when it is available for download. It does not need to be stated specifically. It's like saying you go to the store to buy a book, but you have no permission to read the book until the author gives you the right to do so - it doesn't work that way.
Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. Copyright does not protect ideas, only their expression or fixation. In most jurisdictions copyright arises upon fixation and does not need to be registered. Copyright owners have the exclusive statutory right to exercise control over copying and other exploitation of the works for a specific period of time, after which the work is said to enter the public domain. Uses which are covered under limitations and exceptions to copyright, such as fair use, do not require permission from the copyright owner. All other uses require permission and copyright owners can license or permanently transfer or assign their exclusive rights to others.
Initially copyright law only applied to the copying of books. Over time other uses such as translations and derivative works were made subject to copyright and copyright now covers a wide range of works, including maps, dramatic works, paintings, photographs, sound recordings, motion pictures and computer programs. The British Statute of Anne 1709, full title "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned", was the first copyright statute.
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Copyright is literally, the right to copy, though in legal terms "the right to control copying" is more accurate. Copyright are exclusive statutory rights to exercise control over copying and other exploitation of the works for a specific period of time. The copyright owner is given two sets of rights: an exclusive, positive right to copy and exploit the copyrighted work, or license others to do so, and a negative right to prevent anyone else from doing so without consent, with the possibility of legal remedies if they do.[35]
Copyright initially only granted the exclusive right to copy a book, allowing anybody to use the book to, for example, make a translation, adaptation or public performance
Blah blah. Long story short, copyright literally just means the right to copy - and then further extended to include derivative works and distribution. It does not mean anything related to the right to use the work and ARR definitely does not mean that people who download or bought the book is unable to use or read it.
You can definitely read the book, and read the code, you just aren't allowed to copy or make derivative works or redistribute it without explicit rights.
Look closely at some of the licenses you recommend such as BSD or GPL, none of them even says the user is granted the right to use or read the code - its already implied - all they add is that any consequences of using it is on the user's costs.
Look closely at some of the licenses you recommend such as BSD or GPL, none of them even says the user is granted the right to use or read the code - its already implied - all they add is that any consequences of using it is on the user's costs.
I wanted to bring that argument earlier, but i double checked :p
BSD:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
MIT:
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The GPL is too long for me to look for a comment to usage, but shrug.
Copyright says nothing of use. It talks about reproduction. Once you legally have a copy you can do with it what you want (except further copying if those rights are reserved).
But yes we do have a perversion of copyright and licensing going on that is confusing. Some software providers add additional contracts to their software. But the right to use is part of that extra contract and not copyright.
I think it is fair to say that common practice is that if no license is specified no restrictions apply except those that are outline by specific laws (like holding copyright).
It's a really murky territory where private entities (companies etc) basically made up the rules as they went and largely by adoption we got where we are. And here I talk about the "use" part.
Basically what has happened here is that the software authors have claimed rights to dictate use. This is different than copyright for books or other media where in general private use is in no way restricted and I don't know any indication that an author has rights to restrict that use.
Someone who is an expert on the state of those licenses would have to chime in to see how that goes. My own take is that it's quite clear that All Rights Reserved is not a statement/license with regards to use. And as no use-restrictions are given (and no law preventing use once you have a legal copy) use is fine.
Oddly all these other licenses that do talk about use are more specific.
Frankly I'm actually quite troubled that software licenses legal status hasn't been challenged enough. To me there is just way to much claiming of rights and conflation of copyright and contract law going on, with some key ideas of contract law undermined. But this is a whole other discussion.
Most of this discussion of use for addon users is academic. It's quite clear that addons are uploaded to addon sites with the intent of (a) granting the addon site rights to distribute, in fact the site can protect itself to have a statement somewhere that says that uploading is understood to have that purpose (b) having addon users use it.
I wanted to bring that argument earlier, but i double checked :p
The GPL is too long for me to look for a comment to usage, but shrug.
The GPL also explicitly conveys use rights.
Now that I've looked a bit further into copyright law, it appears that ARR does allow for use and only restricts distribution and copying. There are some subtleties involved though as far as what "copying" means, but I think most of those would be covered by fair use principles.
I guess I'm just so used to seeing licenses that spell out all terms of use that I expected the default to be at least as strict. But it seems that most software licenses are, in fact, contracts covering terms beyond those of copyright law. While copyright law may allow fair use, you can curtail that fair use by imposing a more strict license.
I just find this stuff kind of interesting, I guess. Incidentally, if you do pick the GPL for a license for anything you work on, you can get pro bono (free) legal representation to help you enforce the license from the guys at the Software Freedom Law Center. They're experts in the GPL, and there are lots of terms in the license to protect the developer from people misusing your code.
For instance, if somebody takes your software and modifies it, they have to explicitly state that they've done so, and if they don't they have violated the license and thus have no rights whatsoever to your software. You can issue take down notices for this reason, and many others.
So when the WoWMatrix debacle was going on, I'm absolutely sure that the SFLC would have been happy to help any GPL developers regain full rights to their own code.
Just so everybody knows that, if you'd prefer to use an open license like the GPL, there are resources out there to help. :)
So when the WoWMatrix debacle was going on, I'm absolutely sure that the SFLC would have been happy to help any GPL developers regain full rights to their own code.
In most cases, WoWMatrix was merely redistributing the software without modifications, which is explicitly permitted under the GPL. Even forcing them to remove all (unmarked) modified versions, or mark them as modified, wouldn't have done much to stop what they were doing as a whole.
I'm by no means a lawyer and while this whole thing is somewhat pedantic my take on it is that ARR alone indeed wouldn't convey any use rights. When developers upload stuff to Wowace or Curse they grant Curse the rights to redistribute their work but don't grant anything to end users. I didn't go through the terms of service in detail (although I probably should have seeing as I have submitted addons myself), so I'll just trust what's been said in this thread. Maybe you could argue that there is an implied right to use the addon you downloaded because it can be assumed that the author knew what would be done with the addon when they submitted it. But that certainly is less vague than explicitly saying in the license that users are granted the permission to use the addon.
Copyright law may have originally only covered actual copying but these days it certainly goes beyond that, at least as far as software is concerned. How else would all the different licenses be enforced. About the analogy to buying a book, isn't buying software exactly the opposite of that. You buy something off the shelf and then before you use it you still have to accept a license which grants you some very specific rights instead of allowing you to do whatever with it. You can also legally download the whole wow client for free but that certainly doesn't give you the right to do what you want with it. For example connect to private servers. Similarly you may download addons from Curse but maybe not actually use them.
If I remember right, GPL only requires you to keep original copyright statements intact in the source and reproduce any copyright statements and the license in the manual, about dialogs, credits or whatever is the usual place for such things in your software. And of course to offer the source code along with any binary files, which doesn't really apply to wow addons as they're distributed in source form anyway. So as long as Wowmatrix didn't go out of their way to specifically remove any copyright notices in addons or try to change the license then I don't think there was anything you could have done. Also you're allowed to sell GPL software made by someone else, the license doesn't prohibit this at all.
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All Rights Reserved means just that. It means that your code is yours, and that nobody can modify, use, or redistribute your addon without your express, written permission per copyright law.
So is it okay for me to download your addon? Is it okay for me to look at the code? Can I reuse one of your functions in my addon?
The answer to all of these questions, if you've chosen "All Rights Reserved" as your license, is NO. And yet, these are addons that are freely available on WoWace.com and on Curse. What does this mean?
If you make the code available, and I download it, you could make the argument that I did something illegal if you have your addon labeled as All Rights Reserved. Is that what's intended? Clearly that's not the case, since we all write addons for use in the community.
So really, I don't care which license you use. You can make your own license saying something to the effect of, "You may download and use this addon, with no warranty as to its functionality. But any other use including redistribution, copying, or reuse of code requires express permission from the addon author," if you intend to keep your code locked down.
I would advocate for the use of one of the open licenses, like the GPL (my personal favorite) or perhaps a more permissive license like the BSD license. These allow for free code sharing in the community, which can only result in better code. And since we can't sell our code anymore due to the changes in the Blizzard ToU, locking code down in a proprietary licensing model doesn't really make sense for UI mods.
But regardless of how you want to lock down the rights to your addon, you need to choose some sort of license for your code if you intend for people to use it. We, as users and addon authors, need to know what rights we have with your code. "All Rights Reserved" just isn't clear enough. It's really too bad that it's the default option when creating an addon, since it just encourages this lack of clarity for code use.
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Project AuthorYour definition is beyond pedantic - you're saying that we, as authors, are knowingly enticing others to break the law, which is simply not true. Some authors use ARR instead of a formal license because they don't want code forks.
AddOns are generally so small and the community so tight-knit that formal licenses which are used to foster forking and branching for other creative endeavors is usually unnecessary. Myself and other authors have in the past and will in the future grant permission to those who ask to use portions of the code, which we write and therefore belongs to us, in other AddOns.
I don't care that I cannot sell my AddOn under Blizzard's guidelines - I chose to control where, when, and how my projects are distributed, and would rather not have to field bug reports from modified versions which are included in a UI compilation or twelve which were non-supported the moment they were uploaded.
If you're just pissed off because you can't freely grab code and use it in your project (which doesn't seem to be the case), chill out - ask someone if you can do so...chances are the answer will be yes.
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Curse PremiumPermissive licenses invite those site owners to argue and fight when we post take down requests. Posting those take down requests protects us from rumors that our addons are really keyloggers and protects the users from infection if they search for addons via Google, Bing or some other search engine.
As Torhal mentioned the authoring community is so small and tight-knit that using ARR doesn't really cut down on creativity or code sharing. People just PM on WoWAce or WoWI or post in the comments about wanting to use some code for another project.
It almost seems like you're arguing for the sake of argument...
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Curse PremiumAs Torhal said, you are giving permission to have your addon downloaded and used by uploading it to the distribution site and by agreeing to the site's TOS (which I recommend you read).
And as Starinnia said, if you had an open license, then you have no defense for yourself. It is far easier to GIVE permissions, than to TAKE them away.
Books are ARR. Yet we can still buy these (or pick them up for free from the library, or get free copies) and open them up to read them and share the ideas within with our friends. But this is not illegal. By publishing your book and providing a (controlled) means of distributing it, you are giving people permission to have possession of your book and to read it.
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Curse Premiumits no licence - ie you the end user have no licence to do anything but read and run it. thats it.
yep, glad you understand it. comes in very handy for enforcing takedown notices on sites that just nick your entire mod and potentially charge people to access it. its my mod, i like to define the rules on how its used by third parties.
yes, just like reading a book (or do you buy those and not read them?)
try not to copy them verbatim, use your noggin, figure out what it does, code it yourself. if it happens to end up the same way then theres probably not many ways to code a specific function - and thats perfectly ok and not a copyright violation. its also unlikely that an ARR mod author would go after you over one function.
its means, i, as the author, uplaoded them there with teh specific intent that you, the end user, should be able to download them - its part of the agreement when we upload our mods to those sites, we have to hand over distribute rights to that site.
downloading and using is not a violation. copying it and pretending its yours is, making it freely available via your own personal web site is. doing anything we havent granted you a licence to do is - and we havent granted you a licence to do anything else with it.
ARR is efectively the lack of a granting you a licence, it covers everything possible, no need for odd language to confuse the issue, and potentially be abused.
when you write a mod you can use whatever license, or lack there of, you wish. please dont try to force your software morality onto others.
ARR has nothing to do with this. blizzard cannot force authors to hand over their copyright, that would cause the biggest sh*tstorm youve ever seen.
ARR is perfectly clear - you have no rights to do anything but use and look at the code. thats it.
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Curse PremiumTo hammer a different nail in that idea.
The smaller the function is, the more likely it is that really there is only one real way to do it. Some things simply cannot be protected by copyright as they are a process inherent to coding and thus not actually unique. IE auto-anchoring a tooltip or the basic sort functions.
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Forum ModeratorSome (including me) actually do get kinda annoyed when you copy stuff without asking, even when we would allow you to anyway.
I completely understand if you don't want people reusing your code, and I wasn't trying to say that adopting an open source license is something everybody should do. I personally believe in open source software, as I think it results in better code and fewer bugs when more people are using it, but I understand the other viewpoint as well and don't fault it.
And it's also why I said in my initial post that if you want to pick a restrictive license, that's absolutely fine. And I also fully understand the forking issue, and am obviously lacking in familiarity with the problems that entails. But I have a hard time seeing how leaving rights to an addon more ambiguous is helpful in keeping somebody from trampling your rights. I would think that a clear license, directly prohibiting 3rd-party redistribution of your addon would make things easier, not harder. You can simply say, "read the license, you broke the terms, so cease and desist." Again, maybe I don't fully understand how things work, but there's a reason software developers almost always have explicit licenses.
All Rights Reserved does not confer any rights whatsoever. Unless explicitly stated, even if you make the software available on a website, it is a violation of the holder's copyright for anybody to take it. And maybe I am being a bit pedantic, but I just really prefer knowing exactly where I stand.
I'm not saying you should all switch to BSD license, and I'm certainly not trying to push people to give things away. All I'm trying to say is that authors should state explicitly what rights people have to their software. If those rights are simply the right to download and use the code, then say so. Maybe a license with language like this:
You are hereby given permission to install and use the software only as a user interface modification to the World of Warcraft client program. You may not redistribute or copy the software for any reason without express permission from the author/copyright holder."
Sorry, I've been using open source software for a long time, and that community really places a lot of emphasis on explicit statements of rights. I was really not trying to troll, and I'm not trying to steal your code. Just so that's clear.
The ToS allows users to download your code, but all other rights must be conferred by you. Once they grab the code from Curse's website, everything is between you, the author, and the user. And if it's ARR, the user is supposed to stop there. the sentenc that ends "and to use such User Submissions as applicable by their respective licenses" means you need to provide a license of some kind. And as somebody said, ARR is literally the lack of providing a license. I believe it was also said that ARR allows you to download the code, look at it and run it, but in fact that's not true at all.
I can't find anything in the ToS granting users the permission to run any addons they download. That permission has to come from the addon author, which is explicitly stated in the ToS.
Posting an addon to wowace, or curse, or curseforge does not give anybody permission to use your stuff, except curse themselves.
I guess you could always make the fair use argument, but that doesn't change the fact that ARR leaves ambiguity that could possibly be very easy to deal with by providing a clear set of things the user is allowed to do with your stuff. Fair use can be difficult to define, but a license is a contract, which is meant to clarify things.
And maybe this all doesn't matter in the end. I doubt anybody here would be going around suing people for the heck of it. All I'm saying is that many of you, if you wanted to, could sue lots of people. ;)
Some stuff I'm reading seems to imply that copyright only applies to copying, distribution, and performance. So what is the use of software? I don't really know.
This is all pretty interesting, actually, but I'm sorry to have bothered everybody. Do whatever you want.
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Forum ModeratorAnd yes, licenses are mighty annoying, thats why i stopped bothering with it. Open Source licenses died back in the wowmatrix days, where they used our addons, provided outdated versions, modified versions sometimes even, and tried to earn big on advertising.
My stuff is all ARR now (except libraries), with the implied permission that users can use it when its up for download.
Many developers don't even think about licenses. When they upload it to Curse, they do kind of expect people to use it.
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Curse PremiumThe use of the software is implied when it is available for download. It does not need to be stated specifically. It's like saying you go to the store to buy a book, but you have no permission to read the book until the author gives you the right to do so - it doesn't work that way.
Now go read Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
I'll bold the important parts:
Blah blah. Long story short, copyright literally just means the right to copy - and then further extended to include derivative works and distribution. It does not mean anything related to the right to use the work and ARR definitely does not mean that people who download or bought the book is unable to use or read it.
You can definitely read the book, and read the code, you just aren't allowed to copy or make derivative works or redistribute it without explicit rights.
Look closely at some of the licenses you recommend such as BSD or GPL, none of them even says the user is granted the right to use or read the code - its already implied - all they add is that any consequences of using it is on the user's costs.
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Forum ModeratorI wanted to bring that argument earlier, but i double checked :p
BSD:
MIT:
The GPL is too long for me to look for a comment to usage, but shrug.
But yes we do have a perversion of copyright and licensing going on that is confusing. Some software providers add additional contracts to their software. But the right to use is part of that extra contract and not copyright.
I think it is fair to say that common practice is that if no license is specified no restrictions apply except those that are outline by specific laws (like holding copyright).
It's a really murky territory where private entities (companies etc) basically made up the rules as they went and largely by adoption we got where we are. And here I talk about the "use" part.
Basically what has happened here is that the software authors have claimed rights to dictate use. This is different than copyright for books or other media where in general private use is in no way restricted and I don't know any indication that an author has rights to restrict that use.
Someone who is an expert on the state of those licenses would have to chime in to see how that goes. My own take is that it's quite clear that All Rights Reserved is not a statement/license with regards to use. And as no use-restrictions are given (and no law preventing use once you have a legal copy) use is fine.
Oddly all these other licenses that do talk about use are more specific.
Frankly I'm actually quite troubled that software licenses legal status hasn't been challenged enough. To me there is just way to much claiming of rights and conflation of copyright and contract law going on, with some key ideas of contract law undermined. But this is a whole other discussion.
Most of this discussion of use for addon users is academic. It's quite clear that addons are uploaded to addon sites with the intent of (a) granting the addon site rights to distribute, in fact the site can protect itself to have a statement somewhere that says that uploading is understood to have that purpose (b) having addon users use it.
The GPL also explicitly conveys use rights.
Now that I've looked a bit further into copyright law, it appears that ARR does allow for use and only restricts distribution and copying. There are some subtleties involved though as far as what "copying" means, but I think most of those would be covered by fair use principles.
I guess I'm just so used to seeing licenses that spell out all terms of use that I expected the default to be at least as strict. But it seems that most software licenses are, in fact, contracts covering terms beyond those of copyright law. While copyright law may allow fair use, you can curtail that fair use by imposing a more strict license.
I just find this stuff kind of interesting, I guess. Incidentally, if you do pick the GPL for a license for anything you work on, you can get pro bono (free) legal representation to help you enforce the license from the guys at the Software Freedom Law Center. They're experts in the GPL, and there are lots of terms in the license to protect the developer from people misusing your code.
For instance, if somebody takes your software and modifies it, they have to explicitly state that they've done so, and if they don't they have violated the license and thus have no rights whatsoever to your software. You can issue take down notices for this reason, and many others.
So when the WoWMatrix debacle was going on, I'm absolutely sure that the SFLC would have been happy to help any GPL developers regain full rights to their own code.
Just so everybody knows that, if you'd prefer to use an open license like the GPL, there are resources out there to help. :)
In most cases, WoWMatrix was merely redistributing the software without modifications, which is explicitly permitted under the GPL. Even forcing them to remove all (unmarked) modified versions, or mark them as modified, wouldn't have done much to stop what they were doing as a whole.
Copyright law may have originally only covered actual copying but these days it certainly goes beyond that, at least as far as software is concerned. How else would all the different licenses be enforced. About the analogy to buying a book, isn't buying software exactly the opposite of that. You buy something off the shelf and then before you use it you still have to accept a license which grants you some very specific rights instead of allowing you to do whatever with it. You can also legally download the whole wow client for free but that certainly doesn't give you the right to do what you want with it. For example connect to private servers. Similarly you may download addons from Curse but maybe not actually use them.
If I remember right, GPL only requires you to keep original copyright statements intact in the source and reproduce any copyright statements and the license in the manual, about dialogs, credits or whatever is the usual place for such things in your software. And of course to offer the source code along with any binary files, which doesn't really apply to wow addons as they're distributed in source form anyway. So as long as Wowmatrix didn't go out of their way to specifically remove any copyright notices in addons or try to change the license then I don't think there was anything you could have done. Also you're allowed to sell GPL software made by someone else, the license doesn't prohibit this at all.