Copyright / License Update
Hello everyone!
As you might now, we have been working with a lawyer since last spring on putting together a new license for both fan and commercial use of our art.
We wrote our original license ourselves, and while it wasn’t bad for something a group of non-lawyers came up with on our own, we had outgrown it and decided it was time for something a little more polished.
As of Today, the new License is officially implemented and active!
The full License Agreement can be found here.
By accessing, downloading, modifying, distributing, or otherwise using any of our image files, maps, tokens, or other artwork, you are signifying that you understand, accept, and agree to all of the provisions of this Agreement. Yes, even if you didn’t read it!!!
All ownership, right, title, and interest in and to the Assets and Tokens belong to Forgotten Adventures. Our Assets and Tokens are protected under copyright law and international copyright treaties.
This license is attached to all of our files and also to all derivative works containing image files, maps, tokens or other artwork created by Forgotten Adventures.
Simplified / Readable version of the license is available on our website.
However, this simplified version is in no way legally binding and you are advised to read the full legally binding document linked above for all the License details!
Commercial Use - Applications Open
If you are interested in commercial use, firstly, read the full document.
Then you can fill out the Commercial Use Application.
Applications are open now, the Commercial Use is available starting December 1st!
So even if you get approved sooner, you may not release any products before December 1st.
For Current Holders of our previous "Merchant" Commercial License
Merchant Commercial License is staying valid during the December 2021 (If you stay an Active Patron).
The Merchant Tier and the old Commercial License itself attached to it will be discontinued in January 2022.
As promised, this will give you over a month of "transition" period. We hope that it's enough time to decide if you wish to switch to the new license or not, or for any necessary changes you might need to implement.
Of course you don't have to wait till January and can switch to the new license from December 1st as well.
New License would affect only newly released products (or Substantial Updates to old products as those count as new products, as detailed in the license), Products released under the previous license don't need to be changed.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask here in the comments, or join our Discord where we have a live Thread active in the #Annoucements channel to Discuss and answer your questions.
Thank you!
Comments (13)
Sadly, I think I'm out. Keeping track of the source of every tiny graphic in everything I draw or create and what different terms apply to each of them in case I someday reuse an asset in a different way is a level of hassle that I'm really not looking for.
I'd have to say which exact tokens of yours were used in order to use them? Well, i won't bother then. Not that i was intending to bother, but i can't see many people thinking otherwise. Removing that restriction would make your work far more likely to be seen, with credit. Also, it's unreasonable to expect a streamer to know which exact maps and tokens they may need to use to be able to put attribution in the video description or the first two minutes of the video. Streaming is, of course, always a tough case for a lot of things, but i'd say that makes your stuff virtually unusable for streamers whilst abiding by your license.
At no point in the license is it required that a streamer point out and credit every single individual FA asset or token in their stream or videos. The only thing that is asked for in the license is that credit be given in general for a Product that uses FA content. This means that if you a streaming a game and use a map made with FA assets or tokens, you have to mention somewhere that you did so. You do not need to point each and every token that is from FA. If you read the response we gave to the comment from Gambet, we addressed all of your points. We have taken out the "in the first 2 minutes" line, because we see how that is not very viable for livestreamers.
I think the level of attribution you require makes your art unusable for most live streamers. Every artist I support except for you require attribution, which is no problem, but you go an unreasonable step too far by demanding we point out every art asset utilized, AND it needs to either be announced verbally within the first 2 minutes of the stream/video, or needs to be in the description below. This pretty much precludes livestreamers from using your art unless they script out their D&D sessions to such a degree that they already know ahead of time exactly what art of yours they're going to use. No one could on-the-fly add assets of yours to their game during a livestream without potentially running the risk of being in violation of the license agreement. Worse, in theory I could add 1 art asset of yours to a map, say a single gold coin from your most recent art pack, 1 piece of art out of dozens or hundreds from various artists, and in theory I am now leaving myself open to a yearly audit by you, and if a stream or YouTube video really does well for me financially, I may owe you 20% of my revenue for using that one tiny piece of art. This feels unreasonable to me, and while I doubt you'd go after small time streamers like me, there's just an unnecessary level of stress in using your art that feels impossible to justify at this point. I totally understand you needing to cover yourself against people who might try to repackage your stuff and sell it to directly make money off of your hard work, but I really think you should reconsider your policies for streamers/YouTubers who are just using your art in their casual D&D games. As it is, whether I am making $0 or millions, there is no scenario where I could justify utilizing your art. In the $0 scenario, the level of attribution you require makes the the game impossible to run without an extraordinary amount of pre-planning, which just isn't fun or reasonable to expect of a game not making any money. And if I were to make a lot of money, I can guarantee it wouldn't be directly related to using your art assets to the point that I could justify paying you 20% of my total revenue, not to mention the headache of attribution and potentially yearly audits. Anyway, I hope you reconsider. You are one of my favorite artists for this kind of content, and I cannot rate the quality of your art highly enough. But no art would be worth this level of stress or headache to use. I don't expect you to change it, I'm just offering you feedback.
Dear Gambet, I think we need to go over some clarifications of some clauses, because a lot of your comments come from some misunderstandings. At no point in the license is it required that a streamer point out and credit every single individual FA asset or token in their stream or videos. The only thing that is asked for in the license is that credit be given in general for a Product that uses FA content. This means that if you a streaming a game and use a map made with FA assets, you have to mention somewhere that you did so. We ask that the attribution be in either writing OR verbally in the video. We don't even ask for both, one will do just fine. Your point about the "in the first 2 minutes" line is valid. We ran that by the team and have decided to take that part out. If someone is livestreaming and doesn't necessarily plan on using a map that includes our assets, designating when credit is giving doesn't work very well. Wherever someone normally gives attribution will be just fine. We don't think that asking to people to mention that they used our stuff is that big of a hassle. You mention that you are used to artists requiring attribution, so this should seem pretty standard. As for this fear of random audits and 20% cuts, I'd like to point out a few things. One, we're really just here to draw art and play D&D. This license is fancy and includes a lot of scary sounding legal stuff, but honestly most of it is pretty standard. If you use Google, or Amazon, or Adobe services and programs you've agreed to scarier sounding stuff in that terms and agreement section you're required to click through. We're not particularly interested in auditing or suing anyone - these clauses in the license leave us the option if we need it, but it's just a precaution. We're interested in drawing stuff and seeing other people make cool shit with our art. It's why we want to have a license that allows people to use it. But we do want some control over how it's used, cause it is both our livelihood and our passion. If the 20% is throwing you off, I'd like to point out that the license specifically states 20% or a lower negotiated rate. It was important for us to have a baseline written in to the license to start with, but we very much want people to negotiate that percentage based on how much they actually use our assets. If you are only using a few of our assets in your maps or projects, please negotiate a lower rate. Additionally, that % only counts for your Products that include FA art. If you release only one stream that has our stuff in it, we're only interested in a cut from that one stream, not everything you make.
Hello, I think this is a bit ridiculous, I think the reasons will become obvious when I make some examples. A: Hobby Map maker A Hobby Map maker is approached by a friend and asked to make a map. The Map maker works on the Map for 5 hours, sends it to their friend and asks for 5 Dollars in exchange, as a token of gratitude. If I understand the License correctly, this would disqualify the Map maker from the "Fan-Content" License for two reasons: 1: The map is not publicly available 2: The Map maker received payment for the map, not a donation This would mean that the Map maker would need to apply for a commercial license and pay 20$ in Flat-Fee, meaning they would loose 15$ for making the map. This is irrelevant anyway, since you would not be able to enforce your license in this case because you have no way of knowing that the transaction happened in the first place. B: Large Streamer A large streamer uses your assets and has a Royalty Commercial License. As an example, this streamer makes 100k$ a year and pays 50k$ in taxes. Since this streamer plays DnD, as well as traditional video-games, your Accountant will need to check where and when the streamer received money during their streams and determine what amount of income can be attributed to your products. Let's say that 25k$ of the streamers net-income uses your assets, that would mean that they would need to pay you 5k$ every year. The streamer then forgets to mention that they are using your assets during a stream and you sue them because of it. If I understand correctly, this case is intentionally covered by the license and you are leaving yourself the option to sue in this case. This would cause a large community backlash against you and would be an all-around dick move. I have other gripes with this license, but it's going to take some time for me to elaborate on them.
Dear Someone, To respond to some points from your two examples: A: The commercial license is not "irrelevant" simply because there are many places it is hard to enforce. Any legal agreement works on trust. You always have the choice to follow such an agreement or not. The existence of the document simply states plainly that if you do break it, you are breaking the agreement. It's no different from any other legal agreement. For example, most countries have laws that disallow theft. If someone steals something and doesn't get caught, it doesn't suddenly make the law irrelevant. B: Streaming is definitely one of the messiest use cases for the license, we are aware of that. One of the reasons we have changed to having a short application process for the new commercial license is that we want to be able to talk to our merchants and hear their specific use cases so that we can make sure all parties are clear on how things work for each individual. We realized early on in working on this license that we can't anticipate everyone's scenario, so we are prepared to adjust and consider things as the license comes in contact with those uses. It is a living document that is subject to change for reasons like this. The license specifically states 20% or a lower negotiated rate. It was important for us to have a baseline written in to the license to start with, but we very much want people to negotiate that percentage based on how much they actually use our assets. As for a streamer forgetting to mention that they used our assets, if we even noticed the instance, we would just send a friendly reminder their way. We are not very interested in suing anyone, and certainly not over simple harmless mistakes. Just because we have written a formal license agreement with more traditional legal terms does not mean we are suddenly out to sue everyone at the drop of a hat. We're really just here to draw art and play D&D. Even without this license, our art is still protected by international copyright law, just like everyone elses' art. We, just like everyone else, have always been able to take legal action under those laws. By having this specific license we are actually letting people do a whole lot of things with our art.
This seems a little over the top. I love your assets, but i dont like this direction. Thanks for the ride, time to a new home
Pretty much nothing changes for 99% of our community, this only changes couple of things for people who make money using our artwork. But it's your prerogative and your choice to support whoever you want to.
Hmmm.... so basically you are asking us to advertise for you in every one of our video descriptions? I would be willing to put a slide at the end for attribution but putting a link to to every provider I support in the distribution in case I use one of their assets in a stream seems heavy-handed and would diminish my search result in favor of yours. I get wanting to control the distribution of your assets but not allowing people to use them in streams that are for Patreon or Locals supports only seems kind of counter to your own revenue model (i.e. this stuff is hosted on Patreon). You totally need to protect your assets but this seems very unfriendly to your supporters who have been supportive of you work for some time. It might be worth noting that many of us are your supporters because others use your work in their output and have provided attribution in some way back to you. I don't think they could continue to use your work now and therefore they will not be making anyone new aware of your work. These other folks are small time creators (on Patreon) too who could use your work under the old license. Again, you need to protect your assets and revenue streams but acting like a big corp is not how you got this large a following and feels counter to the community I hope you want to be building. Asking for 20% and setting a donation limit of $2000 for folks seems like the kind of thing I would expect from a corporation like EA not from a community based creator. I hope you will at least reconsider those numbers as they are going to price you out of a lot of creators/collaborators budgets.
I didn't really understand that 2000 dollars and 20% thing what did that imply exactly?
You're in Slovakia, yet you want the agreement to be governed by US law, in the court of Illinois? I don't think that works this way, they have no jurisdiction over neither you nor me. Nevermind that claiming US jurisdiction is controversial within the EU anyway. IANAL, but from by understanding, there's several clauses in the agreement that are straight up not valid in the EU (14.3, for example: you need to give adequate prior notice for modifications and technically, either party can choose continued to be bound to the previous license for already licensed content), but that comes with getting an US lawyer involved, I guess. Claiming non-related income for licensing thresholds also seems dodgy. And you certainly have no rights to audit any of my unrelated income. Especially since you don't even claim that the auditor would be independant. I mean, I don't plan to use any of your assets outside of my own private games, so I shouldn't really care, but for me with a relatively good layman's understanding of copyright law and licensing contracts, a lot of this agreement smells really amateurish.
The License was drafted by a US lawyer over a period of couple of months, with the company being based in EU in mind. That said, just to make sure, We will contact them with the concern, and do the necessary adjustments if needed to make sure everything is as it should be. Thank you for the feedback.