Please define "Commerial Use"
barbult
Posts: 24,240
When I see something on ShareCG that is restricted to non-commercial use, I'm not clear what that means. Is "commercial use" defined somewhere? For example, if I use an item in a render that I enter in a contest here at DAZ 3D, is that commercial use, because i could win something, so I am potentially gaining from using it? I'm just trying to be sure I don't violate rules.
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Yes normally we assume that any contest which is carrying a prize is considered "Commercial use"
Thanks, glad I asked. I'll try to be careful.
I make life easy on myself and don't download any "private use only" props etc it just saves me having to check everytime I use a freebie.
I thought you could render what you want and present the renders for sale with no issue. I thought it was only when you tried to sell or distribute the actual model was when you went into the danger zone. Oh crap! AM I wrong?
Any kind of selling or profit making is considered commercial use.
I, too, never download any item that is marked non-commercial or for private use only.
The safest approach is to assume that 'no commercial use' means not usable for anything other than pretty decorations on your own system...
But, often times that isn't the case, especially on ShareCG. The basic categories for usage rights aren't detailed enough. Your best bet is to actually look at the read-me. I've seen things labeled 'no commercial use' that go from absolutely not to yeah, but you have to give me credit. And redistribution is always a 'not in this life time' if it isn't specifically spelled out, in the read me, that it is allowed.
Some of the other things I've seen under the noncomm...you can pretty much do what you want with the prop/item, but you can't make and sell any derivatives or add-ons; renders are fine, but if sold/posted links need to be provided and so on.
Also when you are talking about 'fan items' (Trek, Dr. Who and what not) and celeb 'clones' there's another whole set of rules to go by...like contests are fine for most fan stuff, but don't try to sell anything.
S0, I'll say it again...the best, most accurate source for usage information should be in the read me. If not and there's no easy way to contact the creator then fall back to the category listed in the description.
ShareCG defines "Non-Commercial Use" as:
Non-commercial use only: The displayed work or file cannot be used or modified and then used as a part of any venture or production that has the purpose of making a profit. It is likely the uploader intended the work or file to be used for educational or hobby-related uses only.
Im not sure this helps in this case, but the phrase "has the purpose of making a profit" stands out to me to say contest submissions are ok. But I am relatively new around here, so this is only my opinion, but i am shocked to hear that contest submissions "traditionally" invalidates the "Non-Commercial Use" rule.
-MJ
As the winnings--cash or prizes-- of contests (including art contests) are taxable, they are considered profit-making, hence, commercial.
That's true for items you buy in the store here (and at most of the major brokerages), but freebies are sometimes restricted to non-commercial use.
What you are describing there is copyright infringement, which is more than just danger zone, it is a criminal act, subject to fines and in rare cases, imprisonment.
But the commercial use clause deals with how the end product render is used. Some freebie creators want to retain certain rights to their models and place limitation of usage to non commercial use (or they request credit). As someone mentioned above, sometimes they can't grant the right, because they don't own it, like a TV show Prop or celeb lookalike. But in most cases, if you bought a product for use at any of the major brokerages, you acquired a license to use the product mesh in your final renders and animations for commercial and non commercial use. The meshes themselves are always protected and remain owned by their respective creators. You have the right to use them appropriately, but technically and legally you don't own them. The EULA explains this quite clearly.
I have a FREE Content folder on my System. ALL not for's go in that folder. I Then ADD the Free item to my FREE Content folder In Daz 3D. I just Added that Folder with a Right click to my Tree View (Create Sub Folder). I then DRAG and drop all the FREE items to it. It works for me and I know those items are JUST for me to use in Art or Fan Art. If you have no GAIN from the item you can use it and enjoy the use of it.
I'm a Hero freak, I'm sure you have seen hero renders (not mine) on sites. This is allowed, just never use them in a CONTEST.
Under no circumstances are we permitted to distribute or sell the actual model.
If the licence is commercial use, we can sell the renders.
If the licence is non-commercial use, we cannot sell the renders.
Hope that's clear! :)
Actually those items you purchase that are Merchant Resources can be distributed in limited ways as they are meant to assist people in making other products, so technically that would be wrong but that is an individual "special case" item and usually revolves around making significant changes in the product prior to distribution, making sure to include credit and other items usually laid out in the EULA.
Hope that's clear! :)
My main concern are those items purchased here and at Rendo. I always thought the image thing did not matter as long as the model wasn't redistributed in any way.
I guess I am going to go back through my library and check out a lot of readme's again.
Can anyone give some examples of items that fall under this exclusive, hobby/personal use only and absolutely no renders for sale or else rule? Please let us now ESPECIALLY if it is one very common or one that few people would suspect.
AS someone has already said, the best thing to do is check the rreadme. ShareCG categories used to be very basic, so it was somewhat difficult to categosirse. THey have now added some extra categories, which make is easier.
I have put a clause on my readme's which qualifies the usage, which is basically do what you want as long as you don't redistribute my actual work
It would really help if everyone did that.
I would define non-commercial use as - No selling or distributing under any circumstances. If you look closely at MOST 3d products almost everything falls under that category. For instance an M5 diffuse texture that has such a non-commercial use (Most do) and copyright restrictions (Often noted in text on the corner of the texture image) generally requires that the texture is not to be distributed, sold, or used as part of another's product. OR edited in full or parts for use of distribution. If a non-commercial license states you can not post your own renders of the product whether it is the main focus of the scene or not, then most renders in the forum including my own are illegally posted on the Internet for view of others.
I think commercial use has more to do with the distribution and copyright restrictions... Not the artistic renders we make of them (Which we are NOT distributing the product or it's contents, thus there are NO copyright infringements either) Commercial use license would allow us to modify and distribute the product. (To me, this has nothing to do with the artistic renders we make of them)
To add an example of what I'm trying to say is this-
Example... It would be like a paint company selling an artist paint, but having a restriction on the colour purple, that meant the purple paint could not be used on a painting if the artist intend to sell the painting, or give it away. If that's what non-commercial license means with objects/props/textures etc. then almost everything we've bought for 3d can not be rendered as an artwork and sold, published in on line forums (Here) galleries (Eg. Deviant art).
I'm not a lawyer, but wouldn't that make all the products absolutely useless, since we cant use them?
As the winnings--cash or prizes-- of contests (including art contests) are taxable, they are considered profit-making, hence, commercial.
I don't think it's so simple. Tax is different depending on where you live in the world. I believe that in the UK such things are not taxable unless you are self employed and then only in certain circumstances on a case by case basis.
I agree here as well. In Australia, I have won several art prizes and NO tax is put on the winnings whatsoever. It is because I was not selling the artwork... It was a competition which is not classed as income.
The same is true for the lottery... However, if you give away part or all of the winnings, It's a totally different story.
Spyro, There is a difference between a EULA on content that is sold by vendors or disributed as freebies and a can of paint.
A can of paint is the tool that you use to create the content. It cannot be equated to the content.
Yeah, that's true cho :) I was just trying to word my thoughts lol It's all such mumbo-jumbo there should be a plain English translation with all these law literate disclaimers. It's obvious that MOST of us are left confused.
I do have to admit that there are some things I cannot understand the "No commercial usage" bit. I make freebies for other people to use, and I do know that some people will be wanting to sell their renders. I personally am flattered if someone thinks my stuff is good enough to use in a commercial venture. I have tired to make my readme very understandable
The files in this package should not be redistributed or resold without consent.
It also should not be modified and repackaged in any way without the consent of
Chohole.
You may use this package for commercial and non-commercial renders.
However, whenever I have ventured into the Commercial world I have been very careful to make sure everything I have used has allowed commercial usage. I am also careful when using Merch resources for creating my freebies, because some merch resources will actually say that they are not to be used for creating freebies.
As far as contests are concerend, even though prizes may not be taxed per se, they still count as haveing a monetary gain, whether it be a prize pack of products or an actual monetary value. This protects everybody.
As a general rule of thumb, with products released at DAZ and Rendo, you can use them for any IMAGE you want. There is an exception, the Ann Marie Goddard clone, which has restrictions on what sort of renders it can be used in, but that has to do with personality endorsement and reputation, mostly, so it's pretty obvious what sort of thing would be a no-no; this product has its own specific EULA that spells out the exceptions. For DAZ, what you render with the products can be used for anything you want, as long as the images don't make the purchase of the product redundant. for instance, you cannot buy the Cyclorama and offer backgrounds which are renders of the Cyclorama on its own, and products and freebies have been removed for this particular situation. But I think the general idea behind that is quite clear... if it means it can replace buying the original product, then it's not allowed. Otherwise, as long as it's a render, it's fine for any use.
For Rendo, it's a bit different. For a while (not sure about now) they did have a policy of not accepting products that used renders of props or products from their own vendors, even if they were substantially altered i.e. you couldn't buy a D&M set and use the props in renders for scrapbooking, no matter how much you altered them, added items, etc. But this was specifically for products "derived" so to speak from their own marketplace, and only for accepting products for their own marketplace, and the ruling on that was never formalised or consistent, so you really should ask at Rendo. Also, after some unfortunate incident with AerySoul where some doll company did a doll version of one of their outfits, they added a clause about not using the products for physical reproduction, but again, I'm not sure whether this was something they allowed AS to use in their license or whether they extended it to their standard EULA. Again, this is a specific question for Renderosity.
For both marketplaces, when you buy merchant resources, you have to read the readme extra carefully and check what is allowed and what not, and how. The ReadMe and the accompanying documentation should spell things out clearly. For example, the V4 Developer Kit includes a V4 Dev Example.cr2, and an associated V4DevSuit,obj, and a separate V4 Dev Foundation.cr2, but the documentation states clearly that only the Dev Foundation.cr2 can be used as a starting point for rigging, and the other items are included as examples only. You also cannot use existing clothing to pick up mesh or textures (everybody should know that, but you'll be amazed at how often these are ignored), and the same is true for cr2s; you cannot use the cr2 of a skirt you like created by someone else to rig your own skirt for redistribution (free or commercial). Even if it is for a freebie, even if you picked it from the store as a freebie, the products here and elsewhere are not to be used as merchant resources or devkits unless it's clearly stated this is the case.
And because the rules/regulations about the commercial nature of contests vary so much along borders, I would opt for just flat out not using them unless their readme clearly states they are ok for this specific use. Let's be realistic here, I highly doubt anybody would take you to court for using one of their freebies in a winning entry in a contest, even less if they live in a different state or a different country (yes, it would be possible, and legal, just unlikely) but if they were to contact the contest organisers, they might get your entry disqualified, for instance, or raise enough ruckus as to sour your winning; your reputation could be at risk, you might find it's more stressful than it's worth. So even if technically you could argue you are in the right, why risk it?
Clear as mud?
What I don't understand, consider me dense at times, is the fact that some freebie creators put restrictions on their work.
On one side they put them out on the web, available to everyone with an internet access, on the other hand you are only allowed to create your desktop background with it. Kind of illogical, me thinks.
"Hey buddy, I give you that extremely well made 00 marlett brush, but don't you dare to use it to paint!"
:-/
Well you explained that really well cho :) the whole thing with freebies is just a confuseing contradictory rule. I have always liked the idea of making my own objects and textextures and releasing them as freebies so others can use them too. If I didn't for some reason want to see my freebies used in rendered artworks commercial or not, I wouldn't have made them available to the public. Simple as that. Yes the copyright and distribution is reserved to my name, everyone can understand the creator keeps those rights.
Because people are people and have abused things in the past. BatLABs is a perfect example of this, who was generously giving items for free and people started making money out of them, redistributing them to drive more traffic to their own site, etc. I believe Thorne, in the very distant past, stopped doing freebies of his faeries because she found people were using them for extremely unsavory styles of renders, and she believed (rightly or wrongly, not up for debate) that this reflected extremely badly on her and her work. I've seen my own freebies recoloured and redistributed, and in at least a couple of cases, put up for sale on IMVU and SecondLife, and had a heck of a time getting them down.
My Terms of Use for my freebies are quite simple, but change according to what I am releasing.
For the Mortella dress, it reads
"No redistribution of the mesh, in whole or in part, is allowed. You can use the mesh for commercial renders."
For the Legendary Wyrm Reloaded:
"The original objects were created by Fredrik. Objects and cr2s have been modified by Arien.
All textures are copyrighted by Arien and are distributed as a freebie item from her website.
You can use the Wyrm for commercial renders, but you can't use any part of the textures as a merchant resource.
This modified version is NOT under the same licensing as the original, and cannot be redistributed in its present form, or further modified, for free or sale. If you need/want to redistribute the Wyrm, please use Fredrik's original."
(before anybody asks, Fredrik had allowed redistribution and even reselling the originals, but the critter was never finished; I remapped it, re-grouped it, modified the base OBJs to get rid of some problems it had, textured and re-rigged it)
For the Harper Beanie Textures
"These textures were created by Arien as part of the Christmas Published Artists Giveaway at DAZ3D.
You can use these textures for commercial renders, but you can't use any part of them as a texture resource.
Standard licensing from DAZ3D products applies."
All of them allow you to use the products for renders that are posted in Galleries, and I doubt anybody would object if you get an award, like the IotW at RDNA, that come with a small reward. Those are perks that you haven't actively competed for, just a windfall, and I wouldn't classify that as "commercial". I haven't seen any freebie creator objecting to gallery posts, but a lot of them do object to actively making money out of their creations, one way or another, and they want to have a bit of a leeway in deciding what they can be used for. Also, when the creators are very obviously using someone else's IP (i.e. StarWars chars or ships), the "not for commercial use" also is a CYA clause that prevents someone from, say, releasing a poster for sale that competes with Star Wars official merchandise and then claiming they were under the impression that it was OK because someone was handing out the meshes, and having the repercussions falling onto the original modeller.
Arien, sorry, maybe my point was not very clear.
I agree with all the non-selling, non-repackaging clauses, evidently. But if you want to controle how your work is used by others, you have to keep it for your own use only! At least that is my point of view on that.
Ultimately, yes. You want absolute control on something, never release it. But I can tell you that -aside from the "potentially problematic" meshes like StarWars, etc- in general the attitude seems to be "I am not benefiting monetarily from this, and nobody else should".
Personally, I don't believe people releasing the freebies originally had contests in mind when putting up the "not for commercial use" clause, and were more worried about reselling of it, selling add-ons etc. This is pure speculation, but I believe the "not for commercial use" clause as we know it came up from two fronts: firstly as a safe and quick way to encompass everything I mentioned above, and secondly because it was believed -rightly or wrongly, again not up for debate right now- that when copying, say, Daleks, or even your favourite designer outfit, the fact that it's not intended for commercial use makes it "safe". This is also an "easy" way for non-English speakers to express roughly what they want without getting into legalese, and for those non-native speakers that are reading the readmes, easy to understand. For what I remember, back then there were a lot of discussions on whether it was ok to copy real world clothing or items, using fabric patterns, etc. The community is far more educated about these things now, it seems -at least sometimes-, but the idea that freebies shouldn't be used commercially in any manner whatsoever has remained with a core of people, maybe in the spirit of the original community back when we used to paint stockings, bra and panties on the Posette texture and put it up as a freebie and it was OK and nobody was making money out of anybody else (except Metacreations and DAZ). And with new creators, who hear this is the "standard" practice, so they use the same terms, sometimes not even sure what they themselves mean by that.
I've seen similar things with stock, brushes or fonts at DeviantArt, for instance... "do not use commercially without credit"... ok, how the heck am I going to credit you on a book cover? "Artwork by Arien except the swirly bit on the left which is a brush by SwirlyBrushes at DeviantArt"? It doesn't make sense, and yet this "clause" is incredibly common, and results, in my case, in avoiding those items like the plague because the conditions for real commercial use are impossible to fulfill. Again, I believe these "not for commercial use" clauses are there because the consequences/requirements have not been thought through. Sounds familiar?
Personally I am up for any creator wanting to keep some control over who uses their products and how, and I do think most people really want something very basic and reasonable, it's just that it's so fricking difficult to verbalise those things in a way that holds any weight legally that some just give up and go the easy route.
deleted because I made a booboo
As I see it, in this case you may have more controle over your freebies than your store stuff.
Using Thorn as an example, if I want to do a "rip-off" of the Bondage Fairies, I can't do it with the freebies but with everything I have bought.
Uhh-uhh, I see the opening of a can of worms as huge (or small) as the human mind, so I rather stop here before the discussion gets too heated. ^_-