What's the best licence for sharing content with an organisation while keeping my rights? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 month ago by Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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As some of you may already know, I manage a website and app for a small music festival. It runs on a shoestring budget and helps to support the village I grew up in, so I volunteer my time and resources. Part of this is creating the site and things like posters using resources that I've made.

Recently we had an issue where someone created a logo for us, and after we'd used it for a few years, they claimed it back. It turned out that when they created the logo, neither side thought to draw up any sort of agreement on how it could be used. I want to put something in place that makes it clear that anything that I create for the festival can be used by them forever, but without restricting myself from using it.

My main concern is for the website and app, so that I can use the same structure in the future.

I'm not concerned about the fine print, like saying that I can use this specific text layout or whatever, I just want to stop either side from restricting the other in the event of a major falling out, with the exception of things that are exclusive to one side or the other, like the name of the festival.

What would be the best licence for that please? Thanks in advance :)

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[-] ResoluteCatnap@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 month ago

Imo skip the open source license. You're wanting to give this specific organization access to your work. If you follow the suggestions here and license it under creative commons or some other open source license then you're also opening the door for others to use that work. It would be better to give the organization use of your work in its current form but otherwise reserve all rights for yourself, via a custom (non open source) license. This way in the future you can continue doing whatever you want with it, and maybe that means open sourcing when you're ready to do so.

Ofc if you're ready to open source now then go for it.

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

This is a good point, thank you :)

I was thinking along the lines of not restricting myself from using my own work in the future, but I hadn't thought about third parties being able to use it too. I'm not concerned about other people using the code behind the website, for example. I'm still learning, so it's probably more spaghetti than anything decent, but @jqubed@lemmy.world pointed out in their reply, I wouldn't be able to stop anyone from using graphics etc.

[-] ResoluteCatnap@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

No problem! As far as graphics go, if you open source then you can specify in your repo's Readme what parts are under what license.

"All html, Javascript, css are licensed under XYZ"

"All graphics/images used with permission by ABC for exclusive use within this project"

It isn't particularly uncommon, and you could even list out specific graphics under what license, or structure them in the repository based on license /assets/licenseName if needed