Rights to Star Control

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Rights to Star Control

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Topic: Rights to Star Control (Read 1276 times)

jorjitofilm
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Rights to Star Control
« on: September 22, 2009, 07:39:10 am »

What exactly are the limitations on this open source? Would it be against the law to make a version that synced up with the web and ran ads at the bottom of the page? Just curious, thinking out loud, wanna understand opensource and the righst surounding SC2. I love the game, been my favorite since I was a kid.


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meep-eep
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Re: Rights to Star Control
« Reply #1 on: September 22, 2009, 09:00:24 am »

The source code is GPL, which would allow this, but the content (graphics, sounds, music) are distributed as Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5, which does not allow this. So your scheme only works if you replace the graphics, sounds, etc.
You could try to ask (buy) a different license from the rights holders though.


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“When Juffo-Wup is complete
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Re: Rights to Star Control
« Reply #2 on: September 22, 2009, 09:06:58 am »

Quote from: jorjitofilm on September 22, 2009, 07:39:10 am

Would it be against the law to make a version that synced up with the web and ran ads at the bottom of the page?

The code is under GPL, which, in essence, allows you to modify the code and publish it as long as you also provide the modified source code. In other words, you could add ads, but you'd have to provide the source code for your modified version so people can study or remove the ads.

The contents are under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5, which prohibits distribution with the intent of commercial gain (which advertising would come under). However, "The content may also be copied freely as part of a distribution of The Ur-Quan Masters.", so you could probably get away with it if you leave the content file unchanged, if I'm interpreting this sentence right.


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