Hi everyone,

I have a question concerning the "proper" way of giving credit for CC-BY licensed work.

I would like to use a couple of 3D models from blendswap.com in academical research and publish those results (including the files which might require slight modifications). Some of those are licensed under CC-BY which requires giving proper credit to the author. In addition, all sources in publications must by properly cited anyways, so the same issue also holds for eg. CC-Zero.

My problem is, that the files only contain the internet alias of the respective authors. The CC - best practices guide seems to indicate that the nickname in combination with a link to the persons website is sufficient. This feels very wrong to me: The idea of giving credit is to, well, give credit to a person. A nickname usually only gives you anonymity. In addition, it is very uncommon in academia to cite a person's work by refering to the person's internet nickname.

How do you handle this in academical or non academical projects? Do you use the nicknames? Do you email each and every author and ask them for their preferred handle? Do you have a special CC credits section on your project website that you refer to (this is mentioned very briefly in the best practices guide)?

Any ideas or advice is appreciated.

You can also list them in more than one place.

Many games include a credits section, that could also be appropriate.

Games increasingly have something in the menus for assorted side-content, including links to the company web site, cross-selling, the credits, and ToS/Eula links. You could create yet another link in that area under "special thanks" or "additional legal notices" or similar.

Games often have a web site where information is available, sometimes buried within them are copies of open source libraries like Webkit.

I'd consider putting it in multiple places, including lines in the game credits in a similar fashion to other credits, and again with the full details the license requires both in a legal notice area in your game and on your game's web site. Better to over-credit those who helped you rather than sticking to the minimum and slipping slightly below requirements.