Poll About jME's New Implied Content Sharing Policy

Site & Project
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I am seeking feedback from the community to help in deciding what is the best policy when it comes to sharing content posted here on hub.jmonkeyengine.org

The plan is to create a new implied policy, stating that, by posting your content to the monthly WIP thread (and possibly the whole jme hub) that you give the jME organization permission to use that content for promotional purposes for the engine.

And of course there will be an option for requesting your content not be shared, so you can easily opt out on a per-user or per-project basis. (Here’s a quick Opt-Out list I made to keep track of this)

So here are the 3 options for this new policy for you all to vote on.

Which content should this new policy give the engine permission to share?

  • All content posted on hub.jmonkeyengine.org
  • Only content posted to the Monthly WIP Thread
  • Neither; there should be no implied content sharing agreement; permission should be asked every time
0 voters
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I voted the “all content” option because generally speaking there is an implied license to JME to publish the material else the hub couldn’t function. (It’s republishing it, after all.)

But “Monthly WIP thread” is probably safer from the perspective of ruffled feathers.

2 Likes
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Obligatory I Am Not A Lawyer:

Be aware, if you haven’t double-checked already, that the TOS for hub includes the clause that posting here EXPLICITLY grants JME license under the terms of CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. The Non-Commercial part of that license is not just “for monetary gain” but also includes “for market advantage”. Creative Commons Corporation is a little hazy on how exactly this applies, (As is true of anyone that is not a lawyer acting in a professional capacity) but they are clear that a Non-profit organization can very much find itself in breach of this clause. If anything could trigger that clause, I’d expect promoting the engine to be it.

Might want to check with a copyright lawyer, but I’d suggest:

  1. Modify the TOS to state that new posts in the monthly WIP threads are additionally licensed for use in promoting the engine and its capabilities in various venues, including but not limited to social media posts and on third-party websites that cover game development tools and libraries.
  2. Put up a globally pinned post explaining this very clearly.

Alternatively, just PM users if you want to use the stuff. Yeah, it could be a bit of a pain. Nobody wants the legal headache surrounding misuse of someones game trailer.

1 Like
4

By talking with ryan, my understanding is that this is all about posting links and screenshots from the hub.

Eg. a tweet like This is what people are using jme for: <screenshot> <link to wip thread>.

As long as the content is not remixed into some marketing material (eg. a slideshow, montage etc) to promote the engine directly, i think the permission is implicit.

3 Likes
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Does remix to a slideshow mean putting it into the hero section of the JME website, right?

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I’d say yes. Anything that changes the intent of the original post is a remix.

So

  • if something is posted as a wip and shared as a wip → it’s just sharing
  • if something is posted as a wip but shared as a showcase of the engine → remix
2 Likes
7

In that case, I would change my answer in the poll to reflect that I view this as an acceptable use for content I post here.

2 Likes
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How other communities handle this? I feel hesitant to vote because I can align with all the points.

1 Like
9

I would say all content is by any chance public anyway, so they could be re-used on other social media and forums. But, preserve the user copyrights (simply by attribution or posting the original link not only forums redirect). The user who did the original work.

2 Likes
10

Thank you all for voting and providing feedback.

Based on the feedback, we have chosen to make this policy cover only things shared in the monthly WIP thread, and not the entire jME hub.

From now on, there will be a notice in the WIP thread stating that posting to that thread gives implied permission for your images or videos to be used by jME, unless a user chooses to opt out.

And in order to obtain permission to use anything else, there will be a new marketing thread where jME users can opt-in to be listed in the new jME Marketing Pool as a way of giving permission for projects to be routinely posted about and used as promotional material for jME.

6 Likes
11

Regardless of that poll, I personally grant permission for JME stuff to use any content I share publicly—here or elsewhere—for JME promotional purposes.

4 Likes
12

As I mentioned in the other thread, I grant permission to use any images and videos I publish of my games for promotional purposes for jME. And here, I extend that permission to any images I’ve already posted or will post in this hub.

2 Likes