Hello,
I'm hoping I can get a better understanding of the licenses associated
with MakeHuman.
MakeHuman is a program that allows you to generate 3D human characters,
adjusting numerous parameters such as height, weight, gender, race,
facial and body details, clothing, etc. etc. The program is licensed
with the AGPL. It creates exports consisting of 3D meshes, material
descriptions, and texture images. The exports are licensed AGPL as
well, but if they are produced using an unmodified official version of
the program the user is granted the option to apply CC0 instead.
As a special and limited exception, the copyright holders of the
MakeHuman assets grants the option to use CC0 1.0 Universal as
published by the Creative Commons, either version 1.0 of the
License, or (at your option) any later version, as a license for the
MakeHuman characters exported under the conditions that a) The
assets were bundled in an export that was made using the file export
functionality inside an OFFICIAL and UNMODIFIED version of MakeHuman
and/or b) the asset solely consists of a 2D binary image in PNG, BMP
or JPG format.
My understanding of CC0 is that it is a declaration that you have placed
the work in the public domain, with a fallback license in case the law
in a particular jurisdiction doesn't permit that. If the user takes the
CC0 option, what is the status of the individual assets that are bundled
into the export? Are they in the public domain or still copyrighted by
the MakeHuman authors?
What I find confusing is whether CC0 is a license that can be applied to
a particular copy of a work, or if using CC0 means the work itself, not
just a particular copy of it, is placed in the public domain. I'm also
unsure about licensing a bundle of assets.
The complete license is at http://www.makehuman.org/license.php and
there is an explanation of it at
http://www.makehuman.org/license_explanation.php
I am interested in understanding the implications of the current
license, and also in knowing if there is a better way to license
MakeHuman that prevents MakeHuman non-code assets from being used in
closed source software, while still allowing unencumbered use of the
exported character.
I should say that the vast majority of MakeHuman users do not
redistribute the exported character data, they use it to create images
or video, which MakeHuman makes no claim on. The only time there are
issues is if the generated character is used in a larger work, such as a
game, 3D artwork, or VR experience.
Thanks,
Lindsay
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