What's the best licence for sharing content with an organisation while keeping my rights? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 2 months ago by Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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As some of you may already know, I manage a website and app for a small music festival. It runs on a shoestring budget and helps to support the village I grew up in, so I volunteer my time and resources. Part of this is creating the site and things like posters using resources that I've made.

Recently we had an issue where someone created a logo for us, and after we'd used it for a few years, they claimed it back. It turned out that when they created the logo, neither side thought to draw up any sort of agreement on how it could be used. I want to put something in place that makes it clear that anything that I create for the festival can be used by them forever, but without restricting myself from using it.

My main concern is for the website and app, so that I can use the same structure in the future.

I'm not concerned about the fine print, like saying that I can use this specific text layout or whatever, I just want to stop either side from restricting the other in the event of a major falling out, with the exception of things that are exclusive to one side or the other, like the name of the festival.

What would be the best licence for that please? Thanks in advance :)

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[-] ResoluteCatnap@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago

Imo skip the open source license. You're wanting to give this specific organization access to your work. If you follow the suggestions here and license it under creative commons or some other open source license then you're also opening the door for others to use that work. It would be better to give the organization use of your work in its current form but otherwise reserve all rights for yourself, via a custom (non open source) license. This way in the future you can continue doing whatever you want with it, and maybe that means open sourcing when you're ready to do so.

Ofc if you're ready to open source now then go for it.

[-] jqubed@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

I second this @OP / @Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com, you’ll want to think carefully about if this is a situation where an open source/copyleft license is what you want to use. A couple concerns:

Any Creative Commons license will require the festival to list a credit for your work. That might not be an issue for the app or website, but the festival might not be interested in listing “poster by Tippon, used under a Creative Commons 4.0 license” every time they use something you created on social media, in print, or advertising.
An open source/copyleft license will permit other people to use the work you’ve created.
- The festival might not appreciate this if you’ve created a graphic for them and some third party shows up selling t-shirts without giving the festival any money. You might not be able to use CC BY-NC if you want the festival to be able to sell things as a fundraiser, but then that opens it up to anybody to sell what you’ve created for the festival without giving money to the festival.
- It sounds like you’re wanting to be able to reuse/sell your work to other clients in the future. If any of them figure out that your work for the festival is available under an open source/copyleft license, they can just take that without hiring you and then have their nephew/friend/AI make adjustments to the work you did for the festival.

There are great reasons to use open source/copyleft licenses, but I don’t think they can or should be used in every situation. In this case they could be bad for both your and the festival’s interests. Ideally you’d be able to talk to a lawyer who specializes in contract and copyright law; the festival clearly has similar issues with other volunteer suppliers so perhaps they can find a lawyer willing to donate some time to provide them with a template that can be used for all their suppliers. Or if you’re doing a lot of freelance work yourself it’s probably worth finding your own attorney.

Otherwise I’d try searching online for “example content license,” “example image license,” “example development license,” or similar along with your state/province/country and try to come up with at least something basic to cover you and the festival.

Of course, if none of the concerns I raised are actually issues, Creative Commons has some great licenses.

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

This is all very helpful, thank you :)

Any Creative Commons license will require the festival to list a credit for your work. That might not be an issue for the app or website, but the festival might not be interested in listing “poster by Tippon, used under a Creative Commons 4.0 license” every time they use something you created on social media, in print, or advertising.

I didn't know about that. I thought they might have to credit me, but didn't know that it would need to be on the work itself. I definitely don't want that. I hadn't thought about third parties either. I doubt that anyone would try to rip us off, but I don't want to leave that door open either, just in case.

I'm not overly concerned with future clients, as I'm medically retired and just doing this as a learning exercise. There's a tiny chance that I might get future work from this, but I'm more concerned with not cutting myself off from using the website / app template if I was to fall out with the festival at some point. As you say though, I don't want to leave either me or the festival open to having the content stolen either.

I've just realised that I need to double check how to handle third party images too. We have some local businesses who support the festival, so we use their logos as links on the site. If I include them in the repository, I don't want to accidentally give them away.

I've got some reading to do! :D

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

This is a good point, thank you :)

I was thinking along the lines of not restricting myself from using my own work in the future, but I hadn't thought about third parties being able to use it too. I'm not concerned about other people using the code behind the website, for example. I'm still learning, so it's probably more spaghetti than anything decent, but @jqubed@lemmy.world pointed out in their reply, I wouldn't be able to stop anyone from using graphics etc.

[-] ResoluteCatnap@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

No problem! As far as graphics go, if you open source then you can specify in your repo's Readme what parts are under what license.

"All html, Javascript, css are licensed under XYZ"

"All graphics/images used with permission by ABC for exclusive use within this project"

It isn't particularly uncommon, and you could even list out specific graphics under what license, or structure them in the repository based on license /assets/licenseName if needed