Unvanquished Forum
Unvanquished is an open-source FPS game featuring team-based strategy and RTS elements, pitting humans against aliens in a futuristic setting.
https://forums.unvanquished.net/
Copyright approval
https://forums.unvanquished.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2138
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 8:02 pm UTC
by Ghudson
Hello I work for a media company, I am looking to get copyright approval to utilize game footage for a product on tv.
Contact me at ghudson@wgem.com
Re: Copyright approval
by illwieckz
Hi @Ghudson, welcome!
I'm just writing this message to acknowledge receipt of yours. It's already night time on my edge of this world so I will not write a full length answer right now but you can expect more words very soon.
Can you tell us more about your exciting project?
Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2017 11:50 pm UTC
It is for a product called hip shot dot.
Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2017 10:08 pm UTC
Can I get an answer on this
Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 6:56 pm UTC
@Ghudson yes. I had to wait for the week-end being done, no worry.
A quick answer is not easy, because we don't ask artists for copyright transfer so each model, texture etc. is under each author's copyright and we can't give extra permission on their behalf. So in some case getting copyright approval requires to contact almost of them which is not an easy task.
By the way, that is for extra permissions that are not yet given by current license of these assets. Most of our assets are distributed under CC By SA 3.0 licence and CC By NC SA 3.0 licence. It means derivative works using first ones must be distributed under CC By SA 3.0 too, and derivative works using second ones must also be done for non-commercial purpose, which can be highly problematic for you.
So, I guess the best approach would be the "fair use" one and/or the "quote" one. A video like this one (someone presenting your product in situ with another game on screen) falls under the "fair use" case. A video like this one (a TV show that presented our game) falls under the "quote" one. If the game is seen only during a part of the video (not the whole) with an explicit reference to the game depicted, it looks as fair as a "quote" in a text that does not require authorisation from quoted author but requires credit. While "fair use" doctrine is a bit USA-centric, "quote" case law has worldwide coverage.
As a last point, since your product can be seen as a cheat for some game for which hiding crosshair is part of gameplay (see the GoldenEye: Source game as an example of game like that), it's important for you to know that's not our case: each Unvanquished's player class has its own crosshair so using our game as a showcase for your product will not be seen by Unvanquished players as an attempt to promote cheating. That topic is not about copyright, but that's good for you to know that doing a TV spot showing the hip shot dot using our game (Unvanquished) as a use case is safer for your own public reputation than doing a TV spot showing with some other games as use case.
By the way I highly recommend you to only show the game, but NEVER reproduce the sound. We are ourselves replacing all the sounds because the current ones are in a grey area. So do not take any risk, do not reproduces the sounds. Models, textures, maps etc. are clear original works, but we can't guarantee it for sounds.
So if your TV spot shows the game on screen with your product on the screen without reproducing the game's sounds and if the part of the video showing the game is a part of a whole and if you do proper credit (quoting the Unvanquished game name, at least as a text label on screen), I guess you're safe.
I ping @Ishq so he can confirm/invalidate my words if needed.
Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 10:29 pm UTC
by Ishq
I think the -NC assets might be problematic for you. If your legal team clears it, I think we are ok with the game being used.
Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 9:25 pm UTC
For reference, a similar talk today on IRC:
<hocoboy> Hello. I'm working on a crowdfunding project and want to include a short clip of Unvanquished in our video as the project relates to a video game accessory. I want to know how I can get permission to do this?
<illwieckz> hocoboy, see this similar thread: [there]
<illwieckz> i.e. each contributor keeps his copyright and we can't give ourselves right they haven't given first, so according to the things displayed on screen you must check if your video is cc by sa compatible or cc by nc sa (which is problematic for a crowdfunding)
<hocoboy> illwieckz, that is perfect, thank you soo much for the quick reply!