Hello! We're talking about boring things today! :confetti_ball:
A the very-bottom of this website you'll now find an informative page footer. In the far bottom right corner you'll find links to our privacy policy, terms of service, and our cookie policy (which seems slightly redundant but does call out the fact that we only use essential cookies). :cookie:
Like with every website these are living documents. They will change as needed and receive updates as we learn new things, fix mistakes, or try to make things clearer. My partner Jenna and I have spent the past few weeks reading and researching terms and policies, and we've done our best to make something fitting of Ludum Dare.
We will be rolling out a website update soon that will ask you to confirm that you agree to the terms and the privacy policy. I invite you to read and share your feedback in the comments below.
Here are a few things worth mentioning:
Interactive Snacks Limited?
That's my company. I own it, I run it, and I'm the sole shareholder. At the time of this writing I'm the sole employee, but I'm looking to change that. For the sake of prudence, all legal agreements are made with the company.
Default game license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
This is not a source code license. This is the license for creative works (games).
I'd like us to start highlighting a license associated with each game. You're free to pick your own license, but licensing is complicated, and many people aren't interested learning this stuff. For them we'd like to have a default license to protect them and their works.
Currently that default is the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.
When you license your work under Creative Commons, you still own the copyright. What you're doing is licensing (giving) the work to others under a set of terms. CC BY-NC 4.0 is essentially saying share it, do whatever you want with it, just make sure you credit me, and don't sell it.
Default non-game license: Creative Commons Attribution
Screenshots, progress blogs, etc. Rather than slapping "public domain" or "CC0" license on them, we went with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This way, the default is to credit you for your work.
COPPA, GDPR, and those under the age of 13 and 16
Oh boy! Because we have user accounts, legally speaking we "collect user information".
Privacy laws like the GDPR (EU and UK) and COPPA (USA) require us to get permission from a parent or guardian before letting those under the age of 13 (or up to 16 in the EU/UK) register accounts. In the short term, we will need to limit new registrations to only those above the mentioned ages, until we are able to implement a "permission form" system.
It's extremely important to me that we resolve this, we just don't have the time to do this before Ludum Dare 49.
Feedback welcome!
I realize legal matters aren't the most exciting subject for game creators, but it needs to be done. Again I encourage you to share your thoughts below.
