Using !Beautycase as a part of a UI (License)

[Lightbound]

Hey there!

Im currently contacting the license holder of some addons depending on the addons license. I tryed to get a clue under which license !Beautycase got uploaded but since i cant find it on curse and even cant write a PM to the Author i would like to get some advice how to handle this situation.

I dont know how hard the authors handle stuff like that since i see for example Bartender in nearly every UI pack.

So .. i just want to ask. Didnt went through my whole list but could imagine that i wont get a pn by every addon dev i wrote a message.

[Fizzlemizz]

Authors unless specifically noted are usually happy for their addons to be used in compilations so long as they are listed on your page (a requirement here at WoWI). It's when people re-host or take code without reguard of licence or even acknowledgement that will get people upset.

Originally Posted by Lightbound Hey there! Im currently contacting the license holder of some addons depending on the addons license. I tryed to get a clue under which license !Beautycase got uploaded but since i cant find it on curse and even cant write a PM to the Author i would like to get some advice how to handle this situation. I dont know how hard the authors handle stuff like that since i see for example Bartender in nearly every UI pack. So .. i just want to ask. Didnt went through my whole list but could imagine that i wont get a pn by every addon dev i wrote a message.

[Phanx]

Originally Posted by Fizzlemizz Authors unless specifically noted are usually happy for their addons to be used in compilations so long as they are listed on your page (a requirement here at WoWI).

While that may be an accurate statement regarding authors' opinions, it has no basis in copyright law. Uploading the addon as part of a UI compilation package is distribution, as a "collective work". It's the same as publishing an anthology of poems or short stories. You still need permission.

That said, the reason that big corporations are such obnoxious trolls about asserting their copyrights everywhere is because courts have generally held to a "use it or lose it" philosophy, in that allowing people to keep distributing your work (and collective works containing it, and derivitave works made by modifying it or copying parts of it) you are implicitly giving them and everyone else permission to distribute and/or modify your work.

So, if you're seeing addons in lots of compilations already, and you're not modifying the addon, I'd say go ahead and include it.

If you are modifying it, though, I'd suggest changing the name (even if it's just to add a suffix, eg "!Beautycase-MOD") and including a prominent note on your compilation's download page, so that if users ever see an error message from it, or have some other problem with it, they know to come to you about it, and not waste the original author's time.

Personally, I chose to explicitly spell out all of this stuff in my addon license, so nobody has to be confused. You're allowed to use any or all of the code from any of my addons, and you don't have to give me credit (though you can if you want). You're also allowed to include them as-is in compilations. However, if you make any changes, you have to completely rename the addon so nobody can confuse it with my original addon, because I don't like wasting hours trying to figure out why a bug is happening only to learn that the bug doesn't exist in my code at all. You also can't upload the addon by itself to another website, because I don't like the idea of leech sites making money (generally via ad impressions) off my time and effort, and because if users download it somewhere I don't know about, there's no way for me to answer any questions or fix any bugs they post there.

[Lightbound]

I do guess that as well since they upload them to get used by people but i can clearly understand that they wont have the trouble by supporting modifyed versions of there AddOns so i just ask. Wrote a bunch of mails to different addon authors and even explained that i have to / wont modify the addon to give them a clue about how ill use the addon.

Anyways as i learned in my early childhood (not like im that old ) "Dont take anything that belongs to other people without asking". No matters what you want to do with it =p.