Template talk:Great Stella

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This template was considered for deletion on 2007 August 23. The result of the discussion was redirect.

Why is this nominated for deletion? Tom Ruen 22:49, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I reverted the redirect, seeing no discussion why it was done. Tom Ruen 19:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I was supposed to click on something in the template above, I didn't know. Doesn't look like much discussion. What's an author supposed to do? Assuming Rob Webb wants anyone who uses his sortware images to give credit to it, what sort of liscensing label is he supposed to use? If copyright is WRONG, does that mean there's nothing else? Tom Ruen 20:10, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the author of the software in question. TCC wrote "...geometric shapes are ineligible for copyright...", but I'm not claiming copyright of the shapes themselves, only a particular image of them, created using my software, rendered using my own aesthetic decisions. A photo of a butterfly can be copyright, even though the butterfly itself is not. This is exactly the same. I have spent years developing the Stella software. It is the only software able to generate all the uniform polychora, and the only software able to do many other things. All I ask is that if you use images from software I wrote, they should be credited as such. Firstly, it's simply good practice for an encyclopedia to list is sources, and users might want to know how such images were created. Secondly, it's a requirement of the license agreement for my software (any images created using Stella should credit Stella as such along with a link). By deleting the copyright notice the article not only becomes of lesser encyclopedic value, but breaks the terms of use for my software. Many of the Stella images on wiki could not be readily made any other way, yet you seek to discredit this achievement.

A final thought on copyright. I imagine that whoever uses my software to create the image should probably be the copyright owner (many were created by me anyway, but not all). So I don't know whether "copyright" is the right phrase, as Tom questions above. However, I still think Stella should be credited as the tool used in their creation. Is there more appropriate term for such an arrangement? Or could copyright be split between the user and the author of the software? Probably requires someone with more legal knowledge than me to answer that. RobertCWebb 09:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

You cannot claim copyright on either "the shapes themselves" (which, as they're abstractions, is impossible under any theory of copyright) or any instance of them under US law where there is "no original authorship" added. See [1]. This is entirely different from your butterfly example. The fact that you can list the polyhedra it can produce by class, each of which are produced under known mathematical rules, indicate that they're "common property". One might argue that the kind of shading, translations, rotations, deformations, etc. which (I assume) can be applied with the software constitute authorship, but that based on choices of the user, not the software which (again) applies known mathematical rules to implement the desired effect. That's even if such details amounted to "authorship" under US law, and in most cases they do not. (Perhaps things are different under Australian law.) This isn't Escher's Tetrahedral Planetoid, Gravitation, or Stars we're talking about here; we're talking about coloring in the faces and making the edges look like tubes, or similar effects.

An analogous situation would be if Adobe tried to claim copyright on every image made or processed with Photoshop, or if Microsoft tried to claim copyright on the text of every document created with Word.

Copyright on the software itself, and conformance with your software license, is another matter. If, as a proviso for your software's use on top of the licensing fees, you ask it be credited, then that should be done. I don't see how it can be enforced past the image's initial public release, since it's public domain and conditions cannot be attached to the use of public domain material; nor can your license bind anyone else who might want to use the image. (Although I do have to wonder why you wouldn't write the information you want carried along into the output file's metadata as at least a minimal, unobtrusive means of enforcement, where such metadata is available.)

This is purely a question of copyright law, and what claims you may or may not validly make under the circumstances. It has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone "seek[ing] to discredit this achievement" and it's really hypersensitive of you to say so.

I must say I was uncomfortable with the template being redirected after so little discussion, but it was properly noticed and the time to mention these issues was at the time it happened. That said, I'm not going to revert to the redirect now. This plainly needs broader discussion.

In the meantime, I strongly suggest you consult with an attorney specializing in copyright law. If your license is imposing a condition that is invalid, or is based on an invalid copyright claim, you will want to ensure that the whole thing isn't unenforceable.

By the way, I looked through your website and the manual, and downloaded the demo version and tried exporting an image, and I couldn't find this license condition stated anywhere. Where can it be found? If it's available only when the license is actually purchased, I suggest you state such unexpected terms upfront. This is more the kind of thing I expect from free (as in beer) software, not software I have to buy. Oddly, no such thing comes with the demo version, which can also export images. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

When you first install the demo version, it states it in the paragraph which starts "There is no royalty...". 83.104.37.31 (talk) 20:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)