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JohnstoneThe entire text of Class Warfare is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike International 4.0 license. That means you are free to take that text, reprint it, redesign it, and use it in your own products, with a few caveats:
1. First, because it is an Attribution license, you must give credit to the original author. In some cases, that’s me, but in other cases, it’s not. I’ve tried to be meticulous about where I’ve used the text of other peoples’ works, so you can look up the originals yourself. Some of these moves I’ve used verbatim, some I have partially rewritten (although it should be noted that in places where I have borrowed an idea and written a new move completely, or used no original language, I have not indicated the source of the idea, since it is the unique expression of an idea that is subject to copyright). So, it is possible that this could become complicated! I am not a lawyer and I don’t know the exact, proper, legal way to do this, but this is my reading of the license:
1a) If the material is from Class Warfare and no additional author is given, credit the material to me (Johnstone Metzger) and say it’s from Class Warfare.
1b) If the material is from Class Warfare but has been reprinted verbatim, you do not need to credit me, you can credit the original author only.
1c) If the material was rewritten for Class Warfare but has another author, you must credit the material to both them and me, if you borrow it verbatim.
The 4.0 license asks for a link to the original source, but I don’t think that’s really necessary, since the text isn’t available for free online or anything (so what would you be linking to?). To be honest, I’m just using the cc-by-sa license because I want people to share what they make if it’s based on my work, and I’m not usually this super-meticulous about which moves come from where, either. Most of the time I just say portions of the text come from Dungeon World and leave it at that.
So, if you are worried about getting it wrong, don’t be. People releasing their work under a Creative Commons license do so because they want other people to use it, build on it, change it up, or take it in a totally different direction, the main deal here is credit where credit is due—so please, at the very least, just try and credit all the people you borrow from, and if you get it a bit wrong, it’s not the end of the world.
2. As mentioned above, because it’s a ShareAlike license, if you use this material in your own work, you must release that work under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license, so that others can use what you have created. Basically, it’s a way to enforce that spirit of mutualism that we have going with Dungeon World products so far. You can also use a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike license instead, if you like. And listen, if you have any problems with the 4.0 license specifically, get in touch and maybe we can work something out.
3. I haven’t used a NonCommercial license, though, and nobody I’ve borrowed from has either. That means you can sell the work you create which uses this material and you don’t have to give a single dime to the people you borrowed from. That’s right! Just give credit where it’s due and you get to keep all the cash.
One thing to note, however, and this is a matter of etiquette and manners, not the legalities of the license: I don’t think it’s cool to reprint entire sections of somebody else’s work unless they’ve already released it for free, or they give you permission. For example, I made Truncheon World primarily for myself, and didn’t offer print copies for sale until I got permission from Sage and Adam. Everything in that book (except a few things I added myself) was and is freely available, for no charge (and the stuff I added is free now, too). But I wouldn’t do the same thing with a book that didn’t have a free version, and I would probably look down on somebody who did. Re-using stuff is cool, but put your own spin on it! You should be making a new thing out of old things, not just repackaging old things so they look new. That’s just my opinion, though, I can’t speak for anybody else. Even so, I made Class Warfare because I want you to use it, and to create your own things. I’m just over here trying to make things that will help you have fun (and hopefully make enough money in the process so that I can keep doing that), so you can help other people have fun too.
EDIT: Also, one other clarification I should make, I guess. The TEXT of Class Warfare is released under a creative commons license, not the pdf itself. If you want to copy the entire text and do whatever with it, be my guest. Redoing the layout’s a pain and a half (I know because I did that for Truncheon World), but if you want to, knock yourself out! If you want to share the pdf with your group so you can all make characters, great, that’s your call and not really my business. But if I find the pdf uploaded to a file sharing site, that’s not covered by the creative commons license, and I’m going to send them a take down order, simple as that.
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