I'm all for CC licenses.

However I don't understand something... if you make a brush set, why on earth would you release it with a "no-derivatives" license? Doesn't this effectively make it impossible to use the brushes in any meaningful way?

I mean... a brush is basically just an image, and to use the brush in an image, you need to effectively "remix" the brush image, effectively creating a derivative work of the brush image.

So... does anyone have any legal knowledge about this? Is it safe to use brushes with "No-derivative" licenses?

The way I understand the license is that you can use the brushes in any way you choose (with attribution). You just can't change the brushes themselves. For example, you couldn't change the color or some other attribute of the image, then distribute it as a .gbr or .gih.


http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/

There is also a link to the full text of the legal code on there.

But the "no-derivatives" clause basically says that you can't make derivative works of the licensed work. (duh...)



Yes, but this continues with:


(emphasis mine)

So if it's a brush, which is basically an image... in order to use the brush in any meaningful way, you'd pretty much have to "alter, transform or build upon" it. I mean, if you take the brush image, and use it in the creation of a new image, that counts as a derivative work. Right? That's how it works for any other image, so I don't see how it'd be different for a brush...

I do see what you are saying, in that it is an image and the output of the brush might end up being changed as part of a larger creative work. I think in the case of a brush, the license would apply to altering the original brush, then redistributing it as a brush, not as part of an image or other creative works. It makes sense that would be the intent of a brush creator who released a brush under a CC license.

Personally, I would never bother to keep track of the names of brush creators and include an attribution with every image I used that brush to create. Heck, your attribution list could be larger than the image you created. If it came to that, I believe I'd just pass on the brush.

Right, that might be the intent, but with license issues, it's not really enough to make assumptions on "intent"... for one thing, if you're doing commercial works, you need to be able to guarantee to your employer/client that the work you produce for them is 100% legally safe to use for them. And even for noncommercial use, you could risk legal trouble for yourself if you gamble on the assumed intent of the brush creator.



Quite so. I'm all for copyleft licenses, but in the case of brushes I don't think they make much sense. The same is true for other resources whose only use is basically to be used for derivative works, like fonts. And I like making my own brushes anyway...

I would say that it's not only the intent of the creator but it is the "intent" of the license, as well. No one could make a reasonable legal argument that they released a brush that couldn't be used. That doesn't even make sense. However, one could argue that someone who modified the brush and redistributed it as a brush, violated the license.

Well actually, they could very well make the argument, that they released the brush under such a license so that people could preview it and use it for personal use, and then contact the creator to negotiate for a paid license deal if they wanted to use it commercially/publicly.

The law, to my knowledge, does not make a difference between a "brush" and an "image", anywhere. They're both images in the eyes of the law.

That wouldn't be the CC license, which clearly states that you are free to make use of the licensed product. It says nothing about previewing only.

Anyway, good luck with that. As I said, I would have a bigger issue with following the unambiguous requirement of an attribution, each time I used a brush.

But CC doesn't necessarily give you the right to "make use of" - only that you're free to copy and redistribute the work. Yes, you're free to make use of the licensed product - under the terms of the license. And if the terms of the license say "no derivatives" then, the way I see it, basically the only way you can "make use of" the work is copying and redistributing, as-is. That's why I wondered if a "no derivatives" license makes sense for brush images.

And since other copyleft licenses have been used in that way before, I don't see how it wouldn't be possible to use the CC license that way.

Anyway, yeah, I for one am going to stay away from any brush or other resource that is licensed with a ND license, just to be safe. Not a huge loss anyway.

Is a GBR, or GIH really considered an image by lawful standards? It doesn't have an image extension so that could get cloudy.

Well, an "extension" is basically just a made up thing, a remnant from ms-dos, which doesn't hold any actual meaning in modern computing - it's just a handy way to categorize files and let people quickly know what type of file they're dealing with. Basically, the extension is just whatever is appended to the name of the file, you can easily take for example a .png and name it .jpg and it'd still be a .png inside.

So an "extension" really has nothing to do with whether a file is an image or not. If a file holds graphical information, then it's an image.

But even so, I don't think the law, or any CC license, is really concerned with whether the work it's applied to is an image or not. I could be wrong, but I think a CC license can be applied to whatever work, whether it's graphical, or text, or sound or whatever, and therefore, it applies just the same, no matter what kind of media it's used on. So if I write a story about a pumpkin, and license it under a CC-BY-ND license, you would not be allowed to take the story and change the pumpkin into a squash or a watermelon.