I have a question about how royalty free licenses work. If there is an object available for free on turbosquid, and it is also labeled as royalty free, isn’t it basically public domain? I mean, I understand there are certain restrictions when you have to pay for the item and its royalty free(no redistribution etc), but if its free anyways does some sort of restriction still apply?
google
" general public license "
and
"Creative commons "
there is also the Apache foundation and the MIT ( yes the University) license
I already googled it, and I couldn’t find an answer to my question. Which is why I asked it on a forum.
isn’t it basically public domain?
No. Royalty free just means you pay a one time fee (could be zero cost) and can use it without paying additional licenses
Public domain implies it is free of copyright which may not be the case.
Whether something is give out for no cost really has no bearing on the license it may have
But if its costs nothing, it has no cost anyways. So I don’t understand where the restriction is for royalty free products that are free.
If I got something free on turbosquid that was royalty free, could modify it a bit and release it as an OSP (open source package) for mount and blade: warband for instance.
The cost of something (even given away for no cost) has nothing to do with whether something is open source or not. What does the original license say from where you got the file. Just because it was royalty free does not mean you ‘own’ it.
A clear description of Royalty Free https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royalty-free
Let me quote a specific (although, “non-CG”) example:
“The Linux Operating System” is an asset that you can download and use, absolutely free of charge. But, there is a catch: “you can never put your own proprietary ‘fence’ around it.” Why? Because it does not belong to you: you did not exclusively create it.
In fact, many thousands of people … and corporations … contribute, in the aggregate, millions of dollars’ worth of contributions to “Linux,” every single day! And why do they do so? Because: “You can never put your own proprietary ‘fence’ around it!” So, "cooperative software development is protected and enabled by law. “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
(If you tried to do so, you could be sued. “Legal precedents” to this effect have already been settled. A “summary judgment,” against you, would be handed-down without a trial.)
Even though a copyright-holder might grant you permission to use their work without royalty, that does not remove their legal ownership of the thing that they freely granted.