[ubuntu-art] submissions policy

[volvoguy]

On 9/6/05, Henrik Nilsen Omma <henrik at ubuntu.com> wrote:

> 1. Suggested license: Apparently in order for a piece of artwork to be
> considered for inclusion in any of the official distros it needs to be
> under the  CC-Attribution-ShareAlike license (can someone confirm this?)
> I don't think we should require this specific license for uploading to
> the site, but we might want to make it clear on the uploads page so that
> people can choose the appropriate license from the start if they want
> their submissions to be considered for use in the distro. Whatever this
> license turns out to be, it should probably be the drop-down box default.

I agree that the artist should be able to choose which license they
want to use (taking into account the license of the Ubuntu logo), but
it DOES need to be made clear that if someone wants a piece of artwork
to be considered for a release, that it needs use the appropriate
license.

The last time I checked, the wiki page regarding use of the Ubuntu
logo didn't have a specific license referenced. Perhaps we need to
check with a Jane S, Jeff W, or Mark S type person to find this out?


> 2. Submitted by the author: Currently, the person submitting the piece
> is automatically identified as the creator. In cases where items have
> been uploaded elsewhere by the author under a free license, there is no
> reason why we could not re-upload it to the art site. This was done with
> several backgrounds from the Edubuntu wiki. What is our policy on this?

I'll admit. I'm a slacker and haven't tried submitting anything yet.
Does the submission page allow for attaching a note? I don't think
it's too much to ask for the person submitting someone else's artwork
to do the research and credit the artist. The admins can then change
these on a case-by-case basis.

It should also be pointed out that with the possibility of AGO
(art.gnome.org) and AUC (art.ubuntu.com) becoming "repositories" that
can be accessed with "gnome-art" (or other such app), that the artwork
on those two sites probably shouldn't be duplicated. Derivative works
are one thing, but just submitting all the AGO artwork to AUC wouldn't
be very productive.


> 3. Derivative works: some items are clearly based on existing images
> that we may not know the origin of. In some cases it may be a picture
> taken by the artist, which is fine if the whole thing is provided under
> a free licence. In other cases it may be a stock image. It may still be
> OK to use it in derivative works, perhaps for non-commercial purposes
> only. In such cases we must encourage the uploader to choose the right
> license (or should we avoid this altogether?) There is also the related
> question of what constitutes fair use. An example item where the origin
> of the base image may be in doubt is:
> http://art.ubuntu.com/backgrounds/ubuntu/1 (I'm still awaiting a reply
> from the artist on this)

This could be tricky, but not if the artists pay attention to what
they're doing. I for example use stock photography at times for "open
source" artwork. I specifically asked at istockphoto.com how licensing
worked and their answer was basically that if I modified the image
enough that it wasn't a bit for bit copy of the original, it was fair
to use that for open source projects. This may not be the case with
every photo or stock photography website, so make sure you only use
artwork that you're allowed to use.

As far as derivative works go, my own policy is to always mention the
original artist of the work that I modified. While it technically
might not be required by law, I consider it a common courtesy.

Having said all that, it should probably say somewhere on the site
that, "If you believe that a piece of artwork on this site is being
used without the creator's permission, please let the admins know...
blah, blah". You get the idea. :o)


-- 
Aaron

Ubuntu SVG Artwork - http://www.volvoguy.net/ubuntu
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Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere. ~ G.K. Chesterton