Akinetic Media License
The Akinetic Media License, or AML, is a license that will allow free use of any material in the mainspace of the Wongery wikis to for any work, commercial or otherwise, which does not involve moving images or self-powered moving objects. This means that works in the following media, among others, would fall under the terms of the AML:
- Books
- Board games (as long as they have no video/AR components)
- Card games
- Text adventure games
- Audio dramas
Works under the following media could not be created under the terms of the Akinetic License:
- Movies and short films
- Any computer game with animated graphics
- Virtual reality environments
This does not mean that you can't create works in these categories based on Wongery material; you just can't do it under the AML. You'd have to either create them under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, or, if you're not okay with allowing anyone to copy or redistribute your material as required by the CC-BY-SA license, you'd have to work out a custom license with the copyright holders of the material you want to adapt (the Grandmaster Wongers for material in the Central Wongery; the individual authors for articles in the Public Wongery or (when they exist) Master Wongeries).
If you create a work under the Akinetic Media License, you do not have to pay any royalties or fees to the copyright holder. You must, however, give them credit, as with the CC-BY-SA. Furthermore, any derivative works in media not covered by the AML must work out their own deals with the copyright holders of the adapted works. For example, if you write a novel under the AML based on some world described in the Public Wongery, and then later someone wants to make a movie based on your novel, then since the movie would ultimately be using material from the Public Wongery, and since their movie cannot be made under the terms of the AML, they would have to get permission from the author(s) of the article(s) on which you based on your novel, and work out licensing terms with them.
Currently, the Akinetic Media License as such does not exist; this article is describing a license under which we intend to release the Wongery material in the future (in addition to the CC-BY-SA license, not instead of it). This is because the Grandmaster Wongers want to make sure the AML is legally sound and functional and does what they want it to do, and that would require it to be written by lawyers. None of the Grandmaster Wongers are lawyers, and we don't currently have the money to spare to hire lawyers to draft the license. That is something we definitely intend to do once we have the money to do so, and this page will be updated once the license is actually written, at which time of course the exact text of the license will be available here.
Reasons for the AML
The main purpose of the Akinetic Media License, in conjunction with our use of the CC-BY-SA, is essentially to allow broad use of the Wongery material by individuals and small companies and anyone willing to freely share their work, while still reserving the possibility of our getting a share if the Wongery material is used in a work that makes a lot of money. (This may be a very unlikely scenario, but still one we're reluctant to entirely dismiss.) Under the terms of the CC-BY-SA, anyone can already make whatever they want with Wongery material, as long as they're willing to share what they want. But there are some kinds of works we'd like to make as easy as possible to make using Wongery material for which the CC-BY-SA license may not suffice. For example, if someone wants to create a commercial tabletop RPG based on a Wongery world, they may not want to use the CC-BY-SA license since that would mean that anyone could freely distribute copies of their game—which may make it hard to sell. But under the Akinetic Media License, which does not have the CC-BY-SA license's ShareAlike terms, they can freely and legally make and sell their game and still retain exclusive distribution rights to it.
The only major types of projects that could not be made with Wongery material under either the CC-BY-SA license or the AML are commercial movies and video games (that their creators don't want to be freely distributable). These are also precisely the types of projects that are most likely to be made by large companies than by single individuals (indie games notwithstanding), and also are the types of projects that are likely to be the most lucrative. Therefore, we thought it made some sense to require those creating these types of projects to seek out our permission (or the permission of the authors of articles in the Public or Master Wongeries) and have to arrange a custom license, so that we (or they) could have some share in whatever profit they make. For any other type of project, the CC-BY-SA and/or the AML will allow you to do what you want without needing to get any special permission or custom licenses.