License Types Explained

Creative Commons

All asset-based products on Sketchucation have the option to be licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0).

The basis of this license is the freedom for non-restricted use of the work:

  1. Freedom to use the work itself. This is the most basic thing a free content license allows: when you get a copy of a work under one of these licenses, you can use it however you want. This means without restrictions based on the kind of use: you may use it for commercial, political, or religious purposes, for example, or make unlimited copies in different formats to use on different devices. (This is why the NC licenses aren’t considered licenses for Free Cultural Works.)
  2. Freedom to use the information in the work for any purpose. In addition to being able to simply share a free cultural work, you should also be able to use the information it contains. For example, if it’s a research paper or educational course, you should be able to build on it for your own research and teaching. If you are using something functional, such as a hardware design, you should be able to reverse-engineer it to figure out exactly how it works.
  3. Freedom to share copies of the work for any purpose. When you get a copy of a free cultural work, you can make and share as many copies as you want, wherever you want. This means you can put it on your blog or website, include it in books, share it on file-trading networks, sell it in stores, give it away on CDs–there is no limit on how many copies you can make or where you can copy them, and you can use them for any purpose, even commercially.
  4. Freedom to make and share remixes and other derivatives for any purpose. You can edit, remix, and transform a work under a free culture license however you want, and share those remixed copies as freely as the original. For example, you can build upon the original by making translations, mashups, fanfiction, and any other kind of derivative work you want, and share those remixed works freely, or even sell them. (This is why ND-licensed work isn’t considered a Free Cultural Work.)

Royalty Free License

The Royalty Free license grants you, the purchaser, the ability to make use of the purchased product for personal, educational, or commercial purposes as long as those purposes do not violate any of the following:

  • You may not resell, redistribute, or repackage the purchased product without explicit permission from the original author
  • You may not use the purchased product in a logo, watermark, or trademark of any kind
    • Exception: shader, material, and texture products are exempt from this rule. These products are much the same as colors, and such are a secondary meaning and may be used as part of a logo, watermark, or trademark.

GPL

Many code-based products on Sketchucation are licensed either under the GNU General Public License, commonly known as GPL, or as MIT.

The basis of the GPL license is the freedom for non-restricted use of the said software:

Nobody should be restricted by the software they use. There are four freedoms that every user should have:

  • the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
  • the freedom to change the software to suit your needs,
  • the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors, and
  • the freedom to share the changes you make.

Editorial

The Editorial license grants you, the purchaser, the ability to make single use of the purchased product for editorial use.

For personal and commercial use of the purchased product, you may need to receive additional licensing, rights, permissions, releases, or otherwise clearance for non-editorial use. It is the sole responsibility of the buyer to obtain clearance for use of any product that contains copyrighted or trademarked images, logos, brand names, etc.

In addition, violation of any of the following is a breach of the license:

  • You may not resell, redistribute, or repackage the purchased product without explicit permission from the original author
  • You may not use the purchased product in a logo, watermark, or trademark of any kind

MIT

Many code-based products on Sketchucation are licensed either under the GNU GPL or as MIT.

The MIT license is is short and simple permissive license that allows for commercial use, distribution, modification, and more. The only conditions placed on the licensed work is the preservation of copyright and license notices.

MIT License
Copyright (c) [year] [fullname]
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy,modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.