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Dwarf Fortress Wiki talk:Copyrights

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Revision as of 12:46, 5 December 2021 by Silverwing235 (talk | contribs) (necessary edit)
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Licensing

Fileupload.png

The message at the bottom of the df wiki says that all content is available under GFDL & MIT. I wonder if that is really true.

This copyright page showed up in 2010. I don't know when the warning below the edit box appeared. So what is the status of older contributions?

The status of images uploaded here is also in question, since the file upload screen allows all kinds of licensing options. This particular screenshot is licensed as "Found the image somewhere." Basically everything in the tileset repo lacks detailed licensing information. Despite that, people claim that they are public domain and safe to use in video game development.

What are your thoughts? VengefulDonut (talk) 16:49, 9 December 2018 (UTC)


This current notice dates from 2010, but it is likely that other notices were present prior to that--copyright concerns on wiki content has been a known issue since before Wikipedia launched in 2001. Even without obvious copyright notices, contributions to a wiki can reasonably be expected to be unencumbered. But debating wiki copyrights is a rather pointless academic exercise unless and until somebody actually has a complaint. If somebody were to complain, it would be fairly straight-forward to remedy the situation by removing content as necessary to comply with law.
The variety of image-licensing options is a rather new addition--and most are quite reasonable for use on the wiki. The "Found somewhere" option is likely intended to catch (and initiate review of) questionable images, instead of forcing users to hide them under other licenses. Images which violate or appear to violate copyright are removed.
I would suggest that the bottom-of-page copyright notice be amended to state "Content is available under GFDL & MIT unless otherwise stated." to reflect images may have different licensing.--Loci (talk) 21:59, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
The thing that brought this on is that I saw the tileset repo recommended as a resource for people developing roguelikes. Is there an expectation that anything someone finds on the wiki will be legally unencumbered? Should there be? VengefulDonut (talk) 22:42, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
"The idea that typefaces (rather than fonts, which are computer software) cannot be copyrighted in the United States is black letter law. 37 C.F.R. § 202.1(e). Under U.S. law, typefaces and their letter forms or glyphs are considered utilitarian objects whose public utility outweighs any private interest in protecting their creative elements."[1] So it would appear tilesets are fair game (under U.S. law) regardless of the wiki's stance on copyright.
Toward your more general questions, I would say there is a definite presumption that all the text on the wiki is available under the GFDL. Images are another matter (which is why we have a license-selector box on the upload page). If anyone is particularly concerned about their images being used, they would be well-served by ensuring that their files' licensing information is set correctly.--Loci (talk) 00:41, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
That sounds promising. So apparently a "font" can be copyrighted, but a "typeface" can't. What? Is a tileset a typeface, or is it a font? Wikipedia suggests that "typeface" is a synonym for "font family," which is another term to chase.
This provides the following definitions for the terms:
First, let's distinguish between a font and a typeface. A typeface is
the scheme of letterforms (which is really what you're probably talking
about), and the font is the computer file or program (or for that matter,
a chunk of metal) which physically embodies the typeface.
A tileset is definitely a computer file. Which I guess makes it a copyrightable font? It later goes on to say that bitmapped fonts are not copyrightable, which would make our tilesets probably fine. This is getting kind of subtle. VengefulDonut (talk) 04:04, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Your same wikipedia article has a reference to a copyright office notice which talks about "digital typefonts" also being immune to copyright, but defines them as "a bitmapped digital representation of an actual analog typeface design." This doesn't seem to be saying all bitmaps are fine.
I want to conclude that someone trying to reuse these for their own software should talk to a lawyer about it rather than hoping it works out.VengefulDonut (talk) 04:30, 10 December 2018 (UTC)


As I understand it, a "typeface" is a collection of letter symbols, while a "font" is *computer code* for generating letter symbols. The *computer code* is copyrighted (like other computer code), not the letter symbols. Tilesets are not distributed as computer code, but as an image of letter symbols, making them a "typeface". But certainly one should not rely on an off-hand comment in a talk-page discussion on DFwiki for legal analysis.--Loci (talk) 22:11, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
I also saw something like that in the wikipedia article. I'd go down another rabbit hole chasing down whether "is it computer code?" is the real legal standard and whether bitmap images can qualify as "computer code," but I think it has become pretty clear that this area is complicated enough to need an expert opinion, and neither of us is an expert :) VengefulDonut (talk) 01:14, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
I suggest that the copyright notice at the bottom of the page is changed to "Text is available under GFDL & MIT", to make it more explicit that the text is free to use but images may use different licenses. For reference, English Wikipedia uses similar copyright notice. Tanamoril (talk) 08:24, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Images and copyright infringement

There seem to be many images used on this wiki without permission from the author. For example, this image of a giant is taken from VegasMike on Deviantart, even though the he hasn't released it under a Creative Commons licence or similar. Another example, this image of an ogre with a goblin is stolen from Wildweasel339 on Deviantart.

A lesser problem with some images is missing copyright information. For example, this zombie dwarf is made by DioMahesa on Deviantart, and he does release it with Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. However, on this wiki, he is not attributed at all, even though the license demands attribution.

I suggest that blatantly copyright infinging images are deleted. The images with missing copyright information should be fixed. Also, whenever someone wants to upload an image to this wiki, they should make sure that the image in question is released under Creative Commons license or similar and that the relevant attribution is made on this wiki. Tanamoril (talk) 09:02, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree, this is not passable. I have a DeviantArt account, so I am thinking of reaching out to these creators. What do you think of the following message: "Hello, I am an editor of the Dwarf Fortress Wiki. It has come to my knowledge that another user uploaded this artwork to the DF Wiki for use in one of its articles, likely with incorrect license information. Is this something you gave permission for? Otherwise it will be removed."? I feel an apology should be fitted in there somehow, but I am not sure how. This message would be either sent as a PM with a link to the relevant artwork included, or written as a comment on that artwork's page.
I also noticed during my initial search (looking for articles containing "Art by") that many of these pictures were uploaded by user Zippy. It might be a good idea to investigate that lead further, contacting them for explanation, and looking for more pictures by what they have uploaded. If they are indeed a repeat offender, it should also be taken up with forum administration. --Voliol (talk) 21:02, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
I left a message at User_talk:Zippy, hopefully they will read this discussion and tell us what they think.
Reaching out to the artists is a great idea. However, taking a look at the files uploaded by Zippy, there are lots of images, which means there are also lots of artists to contact. In some cases, I can't find the original artist, for example File:Dragonprev.png (edit: the art is from Olivtree on DeviantArt, I didn't notice the attribution on the article). I think those images should also be deleted as a potential copyright violation.
I noticed that in many cases, the artist is attributed on the article where the image is used, but not on the file page itself. For example File:Giant_walrus.jpg. This is a minor concern compared to other issues, but I think that the attribution should be on the file page too. I think it would also be a good idea to link to the origin of the art work at the file page, even if it not required by the license, since it would make it easier for future wiki-editors to figure out where the image is from and if it has been uploaded with a permission from the artist or not.
If others agree with these proposals, I volunteer to go through images and either fix the attribution and other small mistakes or mark the file for deletion. Only administrators can actually delete files on this wiki, right? Tanamoril (talk) 08:32, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Correct. Feel free to tag anything necessary with {{delete}} and I can take care of it. —Lethosor (talk) 15:50, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
As far as I know, attributing in the file is what is important, doing it in the article is more of a nicety. Though I am very much a layman when it comes to copyrights, I believe it is a worse error to attribute an incorrect license than none at all, and that is (presumably) done in the file info with e.g. the Creative Commons license mentioned above, but not in the articles.
If there are many artists to contact, then I am willing to take that on, though I imagine it will take several days, if not longer. The messages should be mostly identical from artwork to artwork, which should cut down the time. At least that goes for artists that are easily found via attribution in the article, images where they can't should be taken note of somehow, but they will be trickier (if they exist). I will also not be able begin until tomorrow, for personal scheduling reasons, but if this gap allows for Zippy or a third (fourth?) person to speak their mind before that is only a positive. --Voliol (talk) 19:54, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
I'm not going to start going through images until this weekend. You mentioned earlier that you would contact the artists on DeviantArt either via PM or a comment on the artwork. I think a public comment would be better, since that way the answer would be public as well. Tanamoril (talk) 06:10, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
Here is a first report, covering all images from 2020-2021 shallowly, and a few in depth. I have prioritized the ones that had a credited artist, though it did not turn out as simple as every credited artist being on DeviantArt, or even being the original creator. These were also in minority, out of the ~100 images (counting file edits, but some files had been edited multiple times, meaning somewhat fewer images) there were only 10 that were attributed to a specific artist, discounting those clearly made by Zippy such as File:Creepy_crawler.png and File:Feather_tree.png. In the cases where I could find the original artist, and the work was published on DeviantArt, I posted a comment saying approximately
"Hello, I am an editor of the Dwarf Fortress Wiki. It has come to my knowledge that another user uploaded this artwork to the DF Wiki for use in one of its articles, likely with incorrect license information (flagging it as being under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0). Is this something you gave permission for? Otherwise it will be removed. Said user has seemingly done this for many artworks, though we (another user and I, neither being wiki admins) are still investigating to see the full extent." (the exact comments vary, as e.g. the claimed license did. they can be seen in the DA links below, being public). In any case, these are the ones with credited artists uploaded during 2020-2021:
The other pictures are photographs (some of Wikipedia-quality, so they may be from there), art with no credited artist, a few that are self-licenced, and a few that claimed a license had been given to use on the DF Wiki only. There are also a fair amount of screenshots, both of DF and utilities. --Voliol (talk) 20:47, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for your work, it seems you're faster than I am. I also noticed that the artworks had been uploaded here with licenses not present on the original DeviantArt page, which makes me suspicious of any license claimed by Zippy. Can we trust them when they say that the art has been uploaded with right to use on DF Wiki alone?
John Seiles' "nightmare" is also available on his Artstation page, but there too is no mention of any license.
In some cases, the uploaded art is used in a commercial game. Carpenter is used in Paizo's Kingmaker, dwarf ranger in Trudvang Legends boardgame, and File:Deity_preview.jpg (on this wiki on page deity), is JasonEngle's art made for Monte Cook Games Invisible Sun. I'm pretty certain neither Paizo nor Monte Cook Games have given rights to use art from their games on this wiki.
I'm sure you know this, but photographs are protected by copyright just as traditional art is. I'll go over those as well when I have time.
Given the responses you have already received, I marked File:Injured_dwarf.jpg and File:Desert_turtle_man.png for deletion. Tanamoril (talk) 07:18, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

WRT Mr. Butler; someone needs to bell the cat anyway, as seems to be apparent - how about I do that? Boilerplate'll need a little modding, though. Silverwing235 (talk) 09:41, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

To prevent this talk page from getting too cluttered, I created User:Tanamoril/Copyright_violations to keep track of the images which potentially violate copyright. I copied the list by User:Voliol there too, and I encourage others to update the list if needed. Tanamoril (talk) 17:15, 19 November 2021 (UTC)


....and, re infected ghoul, we have a removal order, gentlemen, but also another mark-down for the "game use" section: Call of Duty character concept art. Silverwing235 (talk) 18:49, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Indeed I know photographs are under copyright. It is just that none of them yet have credited the photograph, so they have not been prioritized.
I too am suspicious of Zippy's copyright claims, with more oversights being dug up and only one artist yet claiming they maybe allowed the use. Asking those artists who were allegedly asked will also be part of the process.
In any case I wrote another batch of artworks where some artist had been credited, covering now the 200 latest uploads of Zippy (some way into Nov 2019, the most productive month of theirs, I believe), on the new list article. Or so I thought. Does the wiki require the user whose name is on the page to approve an edit before it is shown, or did my brain glitch and cause me to close the page before submitting? That would be a shame, though I do still have all links, and half of it written down saved in a .txt file.
One of these artists said they were willing to have the art on the wiki given proper credit, and another that they were unsure about the licenses they might have given. I suggest we suggest the "permission to use only on the DF Wiki" license, as I believe it is the least complicated one both for the artist and the wiki editor. --Voliol (talk) 19:54, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
You should be able to edit the page, maybe try it again? I'll wait until you have published your list until I go through more art.
Good to hear that some artists allow their artwork to be used on this wiki. I agree with your license proposal. Tanamoril (talk) 05:50, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion for 'sole use of DF wiki' licence...to whom, exactly? Lethosor? Briess? Also, just checking before I post an art call on the forums, but Meph's recent takedown of their tileset prompted this, at least in part, right? Silverwing235 (talk) 19:11, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

This issue has been gnawing my mind for at least a year, but I just never dared to do anything about it. Yes, the controversy regarding Meph's tileset was what finally made me start this discussion. If I'd decided to talk sooner, we'd have less work to do, I guess. Tanamoril (talk) 19:33, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Last time I must have clicked the "cancel" button instead of publish. Said batch is now on the list page.
Good point about the 'sole use of DF wiki' licence. The Wikipedia editors do not approve of their corresponding license, though part of that has to do with Wikipedia-specific policies, which may not apply to the DF Wiki. I'm also unsure how the MIT and GFDL licenses mesh with this, what is "all your contributions" exactly on the project page; are files included, or just text? Where is the formal definition for the 'sole use of DF wiki' license?
In any case, should I wait with suggesting any license before we have reached a consensus? Of course I can forward this information to the artists as well, so contact is kept during that time. --Voliol (talk) 23:35, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Sorry it took me so long to respond here, my internet was not working. A lot of these images did have the licenses on the sites where I found them. And I *did* ask a lot of these people for permission to use a lot of them - sometimes on DA, but usually on Reddit by the original creators. Some of those images were already being used on MANY other wikis before I found them, so I stupidly assumed they were free to use, since these were images that were on those wikis for over 4-5 years. How many people have said anything about using their stuff here? -- Zippy (talk) 00:51, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for your response. I believe you have acted in good faith. However, as you can see, there are many issues, all artwork has to be investigated anyway.
Here are some responses by the artists who have been contacted.
If you want to help with this project, could you please try to find the links to where you originally got the art from? It would be especially helpful if you could identify the source of the art on this page under the heading "Unknown original artist".Tanamoril (talk) 05:44, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
User:Zippy, here is an example of problems with a file you recently uploaded: File:Red-currant.jpg:
  • You say that the image is from Inhabitat website, which is this site, right?
  • You claim that the license is CCA Share-Alike 3.0, but I cannot find any mention of that on the website. Where did you get this license from? Only copyright information I can find on Inhabitat is "© 2005-2021 MH Sub I, LLC dba", which definitely does not allow usage of that photo on this wiki. If the license is on the website and I missed it, I apologize.
  • The author of the image is actually Tatiana Volgutova. Given that she is selling her photographs through Shutterstock, I doubt she would be happy about this wiki using the photos, especially without prior permission. Furthermore, since Shutterstock license is non-transferable, Inhabitat cannot give permission to use the photograph, if they indeed got the image from Shutterstock.
Tanamoril (talk) 07:07, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
About the MIT and GFDL licenses: there is some old discussion on that issue on this very talk page. I suggest that the copyright notice at the bottom of the page is changed to "Text is available under GFDL & MIT", to make it more explicit that the text is free to use but images may use different licenses. For reference, English Wikipedia uses similar copyright notice.Tanamoril (talk) 05:44, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
I will begin contacting these artists right away. I feel terrible and will do everything I can to make this right. I'll even up my art skills to hopefully replace most of the images with my drawing. -- Zippy (talk) 07:18, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Just jumped on Olivitree's back about this, since neither of you did - let alone Zippy, you're not the only DeviantArt account holder around here, Tanamoril! :D Silverwing235 (talk) 12:39, 21 November 2021 (UTC)


I'm working on a proposal for an improved set of guidelines on image uploading. The current policy regarding images on the Community Portal page touches very little on what is and isn't appropriate content. The new rules I'll be proposing are not gonna be about copyright (that matter has been settled here), but they could still help prevent similar issues from happening in the future. I'll post a link in the Centralized Discussion when I'm done. – Doorkeeper 12:21, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Sound good. I've thought about writing guidelines for images and copyrights after these present copyright issues have been solved. As far as I can tell, no such guide exists yet on this wiki. Copyright may seem to be quite a complex topic if you haven't read about it already, so I think writing a relatively easy to read guide for if a file can be used here (copyright-wise) would serve well to prevent issues like this in the future. The guide shouldn't be too long, since a guide that is too long or difficult to read is useless. This guide could be either a part of Doorkeeper's proposed guidelines on image uploading or a separate guide. Tanamoril (talk) 12:50, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Checked via Discord with Kruggsmash - turns out the author of Steelclutches and Ustvangdagash (sp?) is apparently fine with the situation as is, having already seen the relevant pieces several times in their own browsing Silverwing235 (talk) 20:09, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Silverwing235. Is he aware of the fact that his artwork on this wiki has Creative Commons licenses apparently pulled out of thin air? For example, File:Giant cave toad.jpg has license Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Since Creative Commons licenses are transferable, this means that anyone browsing this wiki can use the images in their own project as long as they follow the license: in this example, someone could make a commercial product with Kruggsmash's giant cave toad on it, as long as they credit him.
What I am trying to point out here is that even if the artists we contact are okay with this wiki using their art, we can't really use their art unless we know under which license they want their artwork to be published here. This is related to the discussion above about "permission to use in Dwarf Fortress wiki only" Tanamoril (talk) 06:59, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
If he wasn't before, he is now. Saying he 'doesn't care at all' about it, though, which reminds me, as something may have been lost in transmission with the Discord convo regardless....what's your Discord handle, if you've got one? Silverwing235 (talk) 11:46, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't have a Discord account. I trust you, no worries. Tanamoril (talk) 15:00, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Okay, moving right along, since its close to end-of-year...shouldn't we just 'burn' most of the Shutterstock-related stuff we've found anyway, since its non-transferable to begin with? If not, why not? Silverwing235 (talk) 15:21, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, I'd happily mark every file listed on User:Tanamoril/Copyright violations for deletion, since I believe them to be copyright violations. (The images which aren't copyright violations, or were only missing attribution etc., I've fixed and not added to that page). The reason I haven't done that is because I thought others might want to take a look at the files and comment on either individual files or this whole project.
Even in cases where the artist is found and asked for permission to use their art on this wiki, it shouldn't be a problem if the file is deleted before they answer, because if they are favorable on their art being here, the files can just be reuploaded.
If others agree, I can just mark for deletion all files as I put them on the list, as well as existing files there. Alternatively I could do as Silverwing235 suggests and do that for stock photos only, but I don't see much point in marking only half of the copyright violations for deletion. Tanamoril (talk) 18:45, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
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