(Note that I'm using the term "keypress file" instead of "movie file" even though it's not the customary term for those files, but I'm using it here to avoid confusion with video files. After all, "movie" and "video" are very similar in meaning. "Movie file" is once again an example of a very poorly chosen term, but which persists due to a de-facto grandfather clause.)
As far as I know, emulator keypress files submitted to the website do not use nor are distributed under any particular license. It seems that this has never been thought of much and it's in practice completely unspecified.
This, of course, causes some controversies sometimes. From time to time it raises the question of how much an author can copy another author's keypress file contents verbatim.
In fact, it's actually unclear whether emulator keypress files fall under copyright in the first place. (Arguments could be presented for both views. For example, the moves of a chess game do not fall under copyright in most jurisdictions, no matter how long the game might be. On the other hand, musical notes written on paper do fall under copyright, even if there are just a few of them. Comparisons to keypress files could be presented for both cases.)
To settle the issue and avoid all controversies, I think it would be better if submitters would have to agree that their keypress files will be published and distributed by tasvideos.org under a permissive but fair license (that preserves authorship information but allows others to reuse the contents in derivative works.) One of the Creative Commons licenses ought to be perfect for this (and this is a very common thing in many websites, eg. many wikis and other content distributors.)
You might think this is useless nitpicking, but I really don't think it is. I think this should be seriously considered. It's better to avoid future problems with this simple change than just leave it be and hope that it will never bite us.
(One remaining question is that if this is implemented, what will be done with existing keypress files that are currently being distributed by the site.)
I agree this is important, I was thinking about it just recently.
In the most "extreme" case, imagine someone (no not me) decides they want to compete with TasVideos as the repository for tool-assisting. Would it be okay for them to download and re-host every keypress file on this site? Should any license we come up with allow that?
I also agree there seems to be an implicit air of "this belongs to this site, but we all know it's okay to use the input however we want". Is there a point where "however we want" is not okay?
Last I checked the discussion about licensing once raised with FractalFusion's submission of another player (properly attributed, though) and then went to die on page 6 of this thread.
DarkKobold's argument still sounds convincing.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
EDIT: Since it is a community issue, not a legal one, applying some random lisence is cool, but it's not how we GET this working.
We just must set a community rule added here that if you actually redo someone's input, adjusting it, you own it completely, if you directly copypaste segments, both authors own it and must be credited. The weird part here is that we aim for optimality, which means different people may come up with identical input segments. We still have no way to force anyone here, just give an advice to specify whether it was copied, and ask to add a co-author if it was. As an act of fair respect to work we do here.
However there might be a way to claim your authorship for some input. For example, if speed-unrelated moves are identical to yours, you do that. But I'm still not sure how to be with speedy solutions unrelated to entertainment - it's the matter of optimality, and one can fairly TRY his best improving//changing that input, but not succeed. I'd suggest ignoring isolated tricks copypaste and not co-author them. Only if your movement fashion was directly copied.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
This notion is relaxed in sub-second improvements (commonly referred to as "frame wars"), as copying large parts of gameplay from previous generations of such TAS becomes less and less avoidable with each subsequent generation.
The submission this issue grew about would seem to fall in this category.
EDIT: Since it is a community issue, not a legal one, applying some random lisence is cool, but it's not how we GET this working.
We just must set a community rule added here that if you actually redo someone's input, adjusting it, you own it completely, if you directly copypaste segments, both authors own it and must be credited.
That's actually exactly what the CC BY license that everyone agrees to says: Derivative works are allowed, all derivatives must be properly attributed. It's also irrevocable, meaning that the freedom to create derivatives exists forever even if the author changes their mind.
If you want to get legally picky about this, copying ANY input from the original requires attribution under CC BY, and fair use would probably not apply when the result is a competing work.
As for recreating input for speed optimization: Game strategies are not copyrightable, authors have no claim to any strategy or route used to complete game objectives. They might have a claim to things that are done for entertainment.
I didn't know there was already such a license in place. Which in itself is a bit telling. (As you might guess, I browsed the site and read many articles to see if a usage license was mentioned, but couldn't find any.) I think it should be clearer and more visible under which license the keypress files are being distributed.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
I didn't know there was already such a license in place. Which in itself is a bit telling. (As you might guess, I browsed the site and read many articles to see if a usage license was mentioned, but couldn't find any.) I think it should be clearer and more visible under which license the keypress files are being distributed.
I wonder how long it's been there then, because i've noticed that every time i submitted a movie.
The SiteLicense page could use a few English corrections. The second heading should be "Rationale", not "Rational". And the Ramifications section has odd wording. I'd fix it like so: "It is important to note that the site license is the same as, or similar to, ones used by many other sites. If TASVideos used a more restrictive license, we'd be unable to, for example, upload videos to YouTube, which offers to host videos under the same Creative Commons license or under one very similar to it. With such unencumbered licensing, we are able to publish videos submitted here to YouTube and many others for hosting."
The SiteLicense page could use a few English corrections. The second heading should be "Rationale", not "Rational". And the Ramifications section has odd wording. I'd fix it like so: "It is important to note that the site license is the same as, or similar to, ones used by many other sites. If TASVideos used a more restrictive license, we'd be unable to, for example, upload videos to YouTube, which offers to host videos under the same Creative Commons license or under one very similar to it. With such unencumbered licensing, we are able to publish videos submitted here to YouTube and many others for hosting."
