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I came across an asset with 3 different licenses. The GPL 3.0 license appears to just be a newer version of the GPL 2.0. Can the GPL 2.0 be disregarded if the GPL 3.0 is complied with?

Must all conditions from all 3 licenses be met? For example, the GPL 2.0 mentions printing or displaying an appropriate copyright notice, but this seems to be absent from the CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

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Note that BY-SA in CC BY-SA means "under same conditions" (i.e. the same license) and "with attribution". So you'll have to print or display an appropriate notice somewhere. –  Mario 2 days ago
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2 Answers

up vote 16 down vote

According to Open Game Art's FAQ:

You must follow only one of the licenses. However, when you re-distribute/edit, you are encouraged to include/use all of the licenses, so the license spectrum (and thus sum of people/projects who can use the art) doesn't shrink.

[Source]

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Also important to note that this is typically the same for everything released under multiple licenses. You only have to pick one that fits your intentions/conditions. Just don't confuse it with projects releasing different parts of something under different licenses. –  Mario 2 days ago
    
The first line would be better stated as "You must follow at least one of the licenses." –  MSalters yesterday
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up vote 6 down vote

The asset is offered under different license conditions. It is your choice under which of these terms you would like to license it.

Regarding your question about the GPL 2.0 and 3.0 compatibility: No, the versions 2 and 3 of the GPL are generally not compatible. However, you need to pay close attention to the wording of the copyright message. If the work is licensed under "GNU GPL Version 2.0" it is nailed down to version 2.0 for all eternity. But when it reads "GNU GPL version 2.0 or any later version", you are allowed to "upgrade" the work to GPL 3.0 (or a version 4.0 which might exist some day). Some projects trust the Free Software Foundation to still know what they are doing in the future and use the "or later version" wording, while other projects (like the Linux kernel, for example), don't want to risk giving the FSF a carte blanche to introduce a new license which can then automatically be applied to their software.

The Free Software Foundation also has a handy table regarding combining different GPL licenses. When reading that table, you might wonder if using an asset counts as use of a library or as copying code. That's a very good question. The GPL is designed for program code, not for artwork, which makes it quite hard to interprete in that context.

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Awesome supplement on the specifics. I was actually just on OGA myself tonight which is how I pulled out my answer but yours is amazingly useful and I will be doing some reading based on the links you've provided that I've even got my licenses properly sorted out. Thank you! –  SpartanDonut 2 days ago
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