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On commercial forks of FOSS projects

Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Saturday 18th of December 2021 07:38:14 PM Filed under
Software

The gaming and live streaming industry is a lucrative and rapidly growing commercial sector with a unique understanding of copyright and intellectual property, and many parties with conflicting interests and access to different economic resources.

The understanding of intellectual property among gamers and the companies which serve them differs substantailly from that of free software, and literacy in the values and philosophy of free software among this community is very low. It is then of little surprise that we see abuse of free software from this community, namely in the recent (and illegal) commercial forks of a popular FOSS streaming platform called OBS Studio by companies like TikTok and StreamElements.

These forks are in violation of the software license of OBS Studio, which is both illegal and unethical. But the “why” behind this is interesting for a number of reasons. For one, there is a legitimate means through which commercial entities can repurpose free software projects, up to and including reskinning and rebranding and selling them. The gaming community also has an unusual perspective on copyright which colors their understanding of the situation. Consider, for instance, the modding community.

Game modifications (mods) exist in a grey area with respect to copyright. Modding in general is entirely legal, though some game companies do not understand this (or choose not to understand this) and take action against them. Modders also often use assets of dubious provenance in their work. Many people believe that, because this is all given away for free, the use is legitimate, and though they are morally correct, they are not legally correct. Additionally, since most mods are free (as in beer),1 the currency their authors receive for their work is credit and renown. Authors of these mods tend to defend their work fiercely against its “theft”. Modders also tend to be younger, and grew up after the internet revolution and the commoditization of software.

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