Hi everyone,

As those of you who’ve talked about it with us know, there’s been a clause in our Terms of Use that we really, really dislike. Specifically, the one where you grant Mycena Cave ownership of anything you submit. The whole administration here thinks it’s nonsense that a site which promotes creativity should lay claim to the creative works of its members. We’ve been trying to find a way to lessen the reach of that clause for a long time, and we’re happy to announce that we’ve finally arrived at something which both protects Mycena Cave as well as your rights.

## In English please

Under the old terms, you assinged us ownership of *anything* you submitted to Mycena Cave (“submitted” means anything that goes from your browser to MycenaCave.com). This includes forum posts, artwork, ideas and concepts, and so on. Under the new terms, we retain ownership only of any *derivative work* you submit to Mycena Cave (e.g. anything involving MC characters, concepts, etc); as for everything else, you retain ownership while granting us the permanent right to store/modify/display/etc it.

## Why should Mycena Cave keep ownership of derivative work?

That’s pretty standard, actually. You can’t just write the next Hogwarts book, even if you use your own characters, without J. K. Rowling’s permission. Owning derivative work means that legally speaking Mycena Cave would own rights to your stories and characters derived from Mycena Cave.

That said, it only really becomes an issue if the work is problematic (more on this in a moment). So you can feel free to make an off-site novel, comic, art, whatever you want… in fact, we’ve encouraged several users to do just that! If it includes Mycena Cave concepts or characters we ask that you attribute us in some visible way, and if you sell your work commercially then we would need to come to an arrangement first.

The only scenario in which Mycena Cave’s copyright ownership would become an impediment for you was if your derivative work was something that goes against our core principles. For example, if you make a comic to bully other players, or if it used Mycena Cave characters or concepts in a way that goes against our community standards (e.g. in a way that was homophobic, racist, pornographic, and so on), our ownership of derivative works would allow us to intervene if we felt it was necessary.

## Why should Mycena Cave keep any rights to non-derivative works?

- **modify, change, edit:** forum moderation
- **republish:** changes to the Mycena Cave forum, or the domain moves, etc
- **retransmit:** we retransmit it to every person who visits your thread

Basically, while we do not *own* this content, you give us irrevocable permission to *use* it in any way we see fit. In a nutshell, they mean “we are free from restrictions on what we can do with our database”.

For example: say we decide that one of the forums should be accessible to users who are not logged in (currently this only applies to the Announcements forum). Without these rights, we would need to get permission from every user who has posted in it — whether they’re still active members or not — before doing so.

Another example: say you decide to write a novelization of one of your RPs, focused around one of your non-canon characters. You then decide that the only place people should be able to read about this creation of yours is in your novel. Having grated us these rights, you can’t turn around and require us to comb through the database searching for any references to this character in order to remove them.

These rights essentially allow us to run Mycena Cave in a reasonable manner.

## What about stuff that was submitted under the old terms?

We are **retro-actively returning ownership of all non-derivative works to their original authors**. We retain only those rights granted to us under the new terms.

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## Verbatim change

**Old text:**

> All content in and of MycenaCave.com and related to Mycena Cave pets, NPCs or concepts is solely the property of Mycena Cave administration. You as a user or your legal guardians give Mycena Cave sole owership of anything you submit, such as written work, pet colorations, suggestions and ideas, artwork and so on. This includes a non-verbal, non-reversible and exclusive right to use anything that you have submitted related to Mycena Cave in any way we see fit, including the right to modify, republish, transmit, change or edit any of your submissions.

**Replacement text:**

> All content in and of MycenaCave.com and related to Mycena Cave pets, NPCs or concepts is solely the property of the Mycena Cave administration. This includes derivative artwork, written works, pet colorations, and suggestions and ideas made by and for Mycena Cave. As a user, you or your legal guardians give Mycena Cave rights to use any written works, art, text, ideas and suggestions that you have submitted or uploaded to this site that are related to Mycena Cave. This is a non-verbal, non-reversible and exclusive right to use anything you have submitted related to Mycena Cave in any way we see fit. We have the right to modify, republish, transmit, change or edit any of your submissions to Mycena Cave.
>
> Any and all Mycena Cave related information received becomes the automatic property of Mycena Cave, including any art, written works, suggestions, coding and other information related to or based on Mycena Cave (“derivative work”). When you submit any information, written work, materials, or any of the aforementioned things, you are acknowledging that you assign Mycena Cave all associated rights to the derivative work, and that you are legally able to do so and thereby take all responsibility for this.

—-

If you have any questions about the change, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Hey! Thanks so much for making this change. I’ve seen the standard clause in so many TOS and most people don’t think too much about, but it is really awesome that you guys have put enough thought into things to protect everyone involved. I really appreciate it and I think it is this attention to users’ well being that makes MC stand out so much from similar sites.

Y’all rock!

While I think this is already answered, I still want to confirm on something anyway because I am severely paranoid. I’ve been posting on a musings thread I made to help flesh out my character here, who has nothing to do whatsoever with Mycena Cave. As a matter of fact, she and the things mentioned have to do with a private roleplay plot between myself and a friend. Since this has nothing to do with Mycena Cave at all and I’m just using my pets here as placeholders, Mycena Cave won’t touch my personal plot stuff, right? My friend I roleplay with otherwise doesn’t even know I’m fleshing out characters here for our plot, and yeah… I kind of don’t want to confiscate our rights to our own stuff.

And I’m also wondering if by me posting my Raphtire (plot name) stuff here, if that gives Mycena Cave ‘permission’ to modify it and whatnot…

Hiya Yoshi!

I’ll start with your easier question:

> And I’m also wondering if by me posting my Raphtire (plot name) stuff here, if that gives Mycena Cave ‘permission’ to modify it and whatnot…

Yes, it does. Mycena Cave can modify anything at all that sits in its database, MC related or not. *Would* we? Absolutely not, unless it violated the site rules.

> Since this has nothing to do with Mycena Cave at all and I’m just using my pets here as placeholders, Mycena Cave won’t touch my personal plot stuff, right?

That’s harder to answer without defining what you mean by “touch”. If you mean access and retransmit, we will indeed touch it in that we will save it in our database, and we will access it and retransmit it any time somebody views the thread. If you mean modify, then much like your above question, we could but assuming you follow the rules, we would not. If you mean “claim ownership of”, then no, if your story is not derivative of Mycena Cave things, then simply having pets with the same names on your profile would not grant Mycena Cave ownership of your personal plot stuff.

Being a creative individual interested in legalese, I still have a huge problem with this clause. In order to fully engage with the site, I’d have to create derivative works in order to make a canon character to participate in things like the Halloween event, which then, automatically, wouldn’t be mine, at all, any longer, because you claim ownership of it. If I wasn’t planning on doing anything to “mess with” your originally copyrighted work to begin with (such as selling some artwork of an NPC, claiming I own the base concepts of the site, etc. - things that you can turn around and easily do with my derivative work with the way things are worded, regardless of who the actual creator is), what’s the point? It’s also worded loosely enough that most things on here could still potentially be construed as falling under its domain. Judging by what I’ve seen elsewhere, you don’t “need” to claim *ownership* rights over derivative works to begin with, which is what you had previously claimed in the “translated” part of the ToU (and really rubbed me the wrong way with).

I feel like, although it isn’t perfect either, the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA license gets closer to how I think things should run on sites like this.

Edit: I guess it doesn’t specifically say *ownership* in the modified agreement any longer, but it still accomplishes the same sorts of things. Nevermind. It does.

Zii-: Ownership of derivative works provides us with the necessary ability to intervent in the case of unacceptable derivative works. It is not so much the plotlines you come up with, but the potentially damaging things that may be associated to Mycena Cave through derivative works, that we are concerned with.

Regarding the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, I agree it’s a great license for a lot of applications especially in the creative realm, but it would not be suitable for a site like Mycena Cave. Mycena Cave is a community, which means that the content provided by the members (your posts, your stories and so on) are part of what make Mycena Cave what it is, and part of what draws members to the site and keeps them here. It is also a commercial website, and thus we would be in violation of the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

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EDIT: Looking at the [Flight Rising terms of use](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=tos):

> All of the contents and elements of Flight Rising, unless otherwise stated, are copyright 2014 Stormlight Workshop. This includes user-submitted suggestions, **derivative works**, and skins.

While they don’t state their right to retransmit and modify your non-derivative work explicitly, to my knowledge they also have forum moderation, and if you emailed them requesting them to remove references to something of yours from anywhere in their database and any backups I doubt you would get far.

Do you have an example of a similar sort of website which does not have clauses such as this one?

Okay, I read this (a couple of times), but I still feel really stupid for kinda not.. fully understanding? I’ve never been very good with technical/legal jargon. ^^;; I’m basically looking for black and white answers here. I think I understand it, but I wanna make 1000% sure I do. I feel so dumb right now, it’s ridiculously embarrassing, especially because I’m in my 20s… ; ; I’m gonna reiterate some of the things you wrote, and can you just tell me if I’m correct or incorrect? I just wanna know if I’m understanding things properly! D:

Okay, so. I like to post my art here. Like my main, non-canon OC, Tamako. I’ve drawn her for years, she has an entire back-story that has absolutely nothing to do with Mycena Cave. I have art of her on my profile right now. Art like this IS NOT yours, correct? Because she isn’t a MC derived character? For instance, what if I were to post a picture of Usagi from Sailor Moon, or Eren from AoT? They’re definitely not yours, know what I mean? So, other than like, storing it in your database, and retransmitting it for other users to see, it’s not yours, correct? I basically wanna know if it’s okay to post pictures of my non-canon OCs. o ~ o;;

This ownership of things only come into play when it’s MC related, like… If I draw a picture of Ilya, who is indeed a MC character, that artwork would then be considered yours, right? And you could use it whenever you wanted, basically? Or anyone’s MC character that I draw? Is it still my artwork after I’ve submitted it to MC? Or is it anything that’s MC related gets relinquished to you upon submitting? That’s where I’m getting confused. I suppose I wouldn’t mind too much if MC wanted to use my art for something, but…. would I get credit? Like, would you guys would be allowed to take my art of Ilya and sell it on T-shirts if you wanted, without my permission, because it’s MC’s property, even if I created it? D: I don’t think you guys would do that, but could you if you wanted to? Or am I totally misunderstanding something here? .__.;;

I apologize if I seem beyond stupid for wanting you to “dumb it down” for me. I just really want to understand this in the simplest way possible. >>;;; *hides self because of extreme embarrassment*

Tamako: not stupid questions at all!

> I’ve drawn her for years, she has an entire back-story that has absolutely nothing to do with Mycena Cave. I have art of her on my profile right now. Art like this IS NOT yours, correct?

**That is correct.** She is not derivative work of Mycena Cave (exactly in the same way as Sailor Moon). Actually, using Sailor Moon as an example probably makes things easier to reason about, because your own non-MC characters and Sailor Moon are essentially equivalent in the context of our Terms of Use: *nothing that you could do would somehow give us copyright over Sailor Moon.* What the terms of use grants us is two things: First, that we can manage our database as we see fit — if you have a non-canon RP about Sailor Moon, maybe our moderators have to edit it for content, maybe the post gets deleted, maybe you delete the post but it still exists in a backup somewhere. Second, that if you have a *Mycena Cave character based on Sailor Moon*, whatever “Mycena Caveyness” is copyright Mycena Cave.

To make this completely black and white, lets consider Ilya. First, art: [this](http://yaydigis.net/pets/pet_Ap_06Ftn.png) is copyright YayDigis, [this](https://www.mycenacave.com/img/pets/s/382.1405057709.png) is copyright Mycena Cave, [this](http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d31/Beta_Carotene/Other/IlyaByDelusion_zps69998638.png) is derivative work of Mycena Cave which (if we really felt it was necessary) we could appropriate / file a takedown notice against / etc, [this](http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d31/Beta_Carotene/MyArt/IlyaLovesFlowers2Smaller_zpsb3a2e651.png) is something we have absolutely zero claim over whatsoever.

On to character / story: Ilya’s character *as an ineki* is derivative work, as is Ilya’s story *as it exists in the Mycena Cave universe*. Ilya’s character as anything other than an ineki, or Ilya’s story as it exists outside of the Mycena Cave universe (e.g. a non-canon RP in which she does not interact with anything that is Mycena Cave) is entirely your own. So, if you started putting up comics starring *Ilya the Ineki* doing or saying things listed under the “unacceptable under ANY circumstances” content rules, we would file copyright takedown notices. If instead you started putting up comics starring some blue and yellow character who is called Ilya, we would have no legal grounds to file copyright takedown notices.

As for T-shirts or the like, images like [this](https://www.mycenacave.com/img/avatars/60.1405598872.png) would be fair game, images like [this](http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d31/Beta_Carotene/MyArt/IlyaLovesFlowers2Smaller_zpsb3a2e651.png) would not. Images like [this](http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d31/Beta_Carotene/Other/IlyaByDelusion_zps69998638.png) would *legally* be fair game, but would be a horrendous thing for us to do without attribution *and* permission, and I imagine if we were to try to pull things like that we would lose members quickly.

Does that clear things up?

—-

I think perhaps one thing that’s getting lost in translation here is terms vs policy. Our terms state that we can edit any post. Our policy is that we absolutely don’t do that, and a moderator just going around editing your posts would be grounds for dismissal. Our terms state that we own derivative work. Our policy is that as long as you’re not doing things we find objectionable, you’re more than welcome to do whatever you like. As for non-derivative work, that’s *yours* — we simply reserve the right to maintain our database as we see fit.

I have a semi-related question.

What about Gijinka-style pets?

For instance this is Sentret, a pokemon. Of course owned by Nintendo. This is a character design based on Sentret that isn’t actually a Sentret. It has a similarly striped tail and ears, but isn’t clearly the pokemon in question.

If someone were to do a humanoid-style character or got art of a character that looked like that, would that art/character be possession of Mycena Cave, or would be be too different to claim?

@Ishy: No idea. No, seriously. (I assume in this context you mean a humanoid character that looked like an ineki)

What would actually happen is this: *If* the character was doing something we objected to strongly to the point where we would want it removed and *if* we felt it was Mycena Cave’y enough that it reflected poorly on us, then we would probably try to get it taken down. At that point, *if* the issue went to court, it would be up to a court to decide if it was similar enough to count as derivative work or not. Their decision would probably be affected by how the character was being used.

**EDIT:** If your post requires a moderator to edit it, they will let you know why (likely letting you know that you broke some rule and should read them more carefully)

Got it! Thanks so much. :3 I was mostly curious about those drawings where it is Ilya (or any of my other characters), but at the same time, isn’t (AKA, human versions/human drawings of my characters I have here). So, that cleared things up in my lil’ brain quite nicely. c’:

And I don’t think you guys would ever do something like taking user artwork and put it on T-shirts, but I was using that as an example of what you could do, if you wanted to! Thanks again! I understand everything about this now!  c’: 

Just another quick question! > 3>;;  As long as I’m not breaking any rules with my derivative work, I can pretty much post what I want here, and can trust you guys to not take it from me, correct? :3 I think that’s where people might get nervous, feeling like you guys can just take whatever you want. And technically, you could (if I’m understanding correctly), but I don’t think you guys would ever take user-written derivative work and use it for yourselves without at least asking first! Am I correct in assuming this of you guys?

Tamako:  Yes, feel free to post your derivative work here (I loooove to oogle at all of our members’ art, as you probably know)!  Like glitch mentioned, we wouldn’t use something you’ve done without permission.  For example, we’d never just take that turtle item mock-up you did and just start using it without first asking for your permission and compensating you for it.  And if you didn’t want us to use it, we wouldn’t touch it.  We technically could just take it but, as an art-heavy website that is very conscious about art and creativity-related issues, it would be incredibly contrary to our principles to do something like that.

If you wouldn’t do something with derivative works without permission anyway, why isn’t *that* included in the terms of use?

I still need to go back and reread everything since I posted last night, but another way of wording my issue is that the terms of use, as they are now, portray a completely one-sided relationship in which the users are expected to trust you without issue while, on the flip-side, you don’t trust the users, therefore setting anything that could potentially be problematic for you in stone.

Edit: Ok, I at least have a response to the response to my post, if that makes sense. xD

@glitch - As far as I can tell, Creative Commons licenses don’t restrict what you can do with your own work and can work in parallel with commercial licenses, so I’m not sure what the argument is there.

With the way Flight Rising’s ToS is written, it seems like as long as I write “Copyright Ziiendris” or whatever on my work, I no longer am bound by that clause.

As far as examples of other sites go, deviantART’s submission policy specifically states the following.

“deviantART will contact Artist in writing about any individual commercial uses of Artist Materials instigated by deviantART.”

That seems to mean that they have to get my consent before doing anything with things I put there.

Tumblr’s ToS is a really good example of what is more user-friendly.

“The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purposes of allowing Tumblr to operate the Services in accordance with their functionality, improve the Services, and develop new Services. The reference in this license to “creat[ing] derivative works” is not intended to give Tumblr a right to make substantive editorial changes or derivations, but does, for example, enable reblogging, which allows Tumblr Subscribers to redistribute Subscriber Content from one Tumblr blog to another in a manner that allows them to add their own text or other Content before or after your Subscriber Content.”

Edit 2: I see references to “policy” vs. terms, and the issue with that is that said policy isn’t stated anywhere in which you would be held to the same standards as with the terms of use. So, it doesn’t seem like that really means anything legally.

As an artist on Mycena, I just wanted to thank you guys for updating this particular section of the ToS. =)
I understand why those clauses exist but they make me some of them make me squeamish. It’s good to know you’re reviewing your ToS and finding what makes the most sense and the most User-Friendly.

Ziiendris: You raise some interesting points in your post. I’ve had a few days to think about them, and will respond to them inline:

> As far as I can tell, Creative Commons licenses don’t restrict what you can do with your own work and can work in parallel with commercial licenses, so I’m not sure what the argument is there.

Ah, I misunderstood your intention with the license: I thought you were suggesting that user’s derivative work of Mycena Cave be licensed under the A-NC-SA license (which wouldn’t work for us as described in my previous post), but as I understand now, I think you’re suggesting that we license all Mycena Cave intellectual property under A-NC-SA. Unfortunately, neither that license nor similar ones give us the right to intervene if Mycena Cave IP is used in a manner we deem unacceptable. As a result, they aren’t an option for us.

> With the way Flight Rising’s ToS is written, it seems like as long as I write “Copyright Ziiendris” or whatever on my work, I no longer am bound by that clause.

For the benefit of other users who may believe the same thing, I’ll repeat what I sent you privately here: that interpretation is incorrect.

> Tumblr / deviantART

Tumblr and deviantART are both sites with wholly different models. We’re a virtual world / game, while Tumblr is a blog, and deviantART is an art showcase and sales platform. Terms that work for them don’t simply work for us. Even so, if you look closely they both have something to say about derivative works:

- deviantART does explicitly state that they do not claim ownership of any of your submissions there, but they also *expressly forbid* you from making derivative work of their own content. As such, our terms are more lenient in that regard than theirs.
- Tumblr has no content of its own. In the reference to derivative works that you cite, they are referring to making derivative work *of another user’s content*. Mycena Cave makes no copyright claim to work you produce that is not derivative of Mycena Cave properties (e.g. derivative works of another user’s content).

I hope that clears things up!

> I see references to “policy” vs. terms, and the issue with that is that said policy isn’t stated anywhere in which you would be held to the same standards as with the terms of use. So, it doesn’t seem like that really means anything legally.

A “Terms of Use” is a document that describes the ways in which the user is permitted to act in relation to the service (literally, they are the terms under which you are permitted to use the service).

You are absolutely correct in your observation that we haven’t yet explicitly published many of our policies (e.g. see the pitiful current state of [our rules](https://www.mycenacave.com/home/rules)) — we’re a small team and have been busying ourselves with creating content instead, so we’ve been making do with the minimum legal effort required to prevent Mycena Cave from going under. It’s also wholly understandable that you may not be willing to participate in the site until we do.

We’re sorry to see you go, but we hope that you find a site that makes you happy!

Meesh:  Tamako asked a similar question and it was addressed by glitch here .  Basically, your character as an ineki is copyright Mycena Cave (whether it is the official Mycena Cave art, or derivative art based off of the official Mycena Cave art).  This means if you posted an inappropriate picture of your character in ineki-form, we could file a take-down notice.  If you posted a picture of your character in its non-MC state doing something inappropriate, we’d have no right to file legal takedown notices.  So basically, the only time we have any rights over your rp character is when your rp character is in ineki form. :)