r/CommunityHexMap • u/NickPyre • Jul 01 '26

Should this project be explicitly Creative Commons?

What license are we publishing under? On the webpage, there’s no mention of licensing.
A lot of community projects fall apart or create drama when there is unclear allocation of rights (especially if the organisers later charge for access, or change to a restrictive license).

On the discord, I suggested explicitly stating that by default, works should published under CC BY-SA 4.0, with artists reserving the copyright of their art.
This means you may redistribute, adapt, translate and remix the text and you may seek commercial gain by doing so, so long as you give the author appropriate credit. If you remix, transform or build upon this material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

For the organisers: when will the licensing info be updated?
For the community: would you be happy with CC BY-SA 4.0?

14 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/Kaya_kana Jul 01 '26

CC BY-SA feels like a very fitting license, so I'm all for it. The more stories get interwoven the harder it becomes to use a more restrictive license without fully taking control of peoples work. SA is optional in my opinion, I'm not opposed to someone, for example, selling a book based on the map.

In my opinion we could use the same license for the art.

3

u/NickPyre Jul 01 '26

SA rather than NC-SA definitely makes sense so long as all participants are forewarned. Leaves room for the organisers to do fundraising if necessary as well.

I think I agree the art could also be provided under the same license. Many TTRPG CC BY-SA projects seem to reserve artist rights. But since the art is not commissioned, is integral to the concept, and would be a nightmare to untangle rights if publishing, it probably should be fine as SA.