Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags
(5 edits) (+1)

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the way you’re using the CC BY license is invalid, both by the license text and the Creative Commons trademark policy.

Because of the complexity of law, allowing people to arbitrarily slap new terms like “redistribute or resell [✘]” on CC licenses would destroy the utility of having a recognizable name, so licenses have to be kept as-is.

For the trademark policy, the terms “Creative Commons”, “CC”, “CC BY”, and that badge you’re using are trademarks that you’re only granted permission to use with the unmodified licenses without any additional restrictions imposed.

Here’s what it says in their trademark policy:

Modification of CC Licenses: To prevent confusion and maintain consistency, you are not allowed to use CREATIVE COMMONS, CC, the CC Logo, or any other Creative Commons trademarks with modified versions of any of our legal tools or Commons deeds, including modifications that do not modify the legal code directly but that further restrict or condition the rights granted by the particular legal tool. These modifications are often contained in a website’s terms of use, and where they are present you may not suggest that you are offering works under a Creative Commons legal tool. For the avoidance of doubt, you may not use any CC trademarks with unofficial language translations of CC licenses. See this page for more information.

As-is, they could sue you for trademark infringement and they’d win.

(You can’t even say “this license is derived from the CC BY” if you make a modified version. Same part of trademark law that prevents one toilet paper brand from mentioning their competitor’s name in their comparison commercials. You can’t use someone else’s trademark to promote a competing product.)

For the CC BY’s text, exclusion of bolted-on restrictions is accomplished by the following sections:

Section 2, Subsection 5

Downstream recipients.

a. Offer from the Licensor – Licensed Material. Every recipient of the Licensed Material automatically receives an offer from the Licensor to exercise the Licensed Rights under the terms and conditions of this Public License.

b. No downstream restrictions. You may not offer or impose any additional or different terms or conditions on, or apply any Effective Technological Measures to, the Licensed Material if doing so restricts exercise of the Licensed Rights by any recipient of the Licensed Material.

Section 3, Subsection 4

If You Share Adapted Material You produce, the Adapter’s License You apply must not prevent recipients of the Adapted Material from complying with this Public License.

Section 6, Part a

This Public License applies for the term of the Copyright and Similar Rights licensed here. However, if You fail to comply with this Public License, then Your rights under this Public License terminate automatically.

Section 7, Part b

Any arrangements, understandings, or agreements regarding the Licensed Material not stated herein are separate from and independent of the terms and conditions of this Public License.

Basically, either the recipient can ignore your additional restrictions (Section 7, Part b) or the CC BY terminates their license when they try to prevent one of their users from extracting your assets from the game and reusing them under the ordinary CC BY (the other quoted sections).

(I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve read about a lot of these sorts of situations over the years.)

Hi Stephan, thank you for the info you gave me. I’m gonna immediately remove my text 

(+3)

No problem. The knowledge is going to be rattling around in my head either way, so I might as well share it with anyone who can benefit from it.