Over the past few months I’ve developed some icons for use on our marketing sites and newsletters. A few of these icons have made it into production. Some are simple and some are detailed. Most haven’t seen the light of day just because they weren’t a right fit for what we were trying to communicate at the time.
I want to release the artwork for these icons as open source. They’re free for you to use and (hopefully) improve upon. I hope that you’ll find these useful for any web or print design projects that you’re working on. All you need to get started is a vector illustration program that can open up an EPS file.
Updated: This artwork is released under the CC0 1.0 Universal license and the WTFPL. Can’t believe it’s this hard to give stuff away!
Download the 37signals Icons ZIP (2.65 MB)
Michael R. Bernstein
on 10 Aug 09Jamie, what license are you releasing these under?
JD
on 10 Aug 09Michael,
No particular license. Use it however you want. Improve it however you want. Have fun.
Eivind Uggedal
on 10 Aug 09In other words, you are releasing these icons to the public domain?
Daniel Gasienica
on 10 Aug 09JD,
Great work! Though, «no particular license» is not good enough for many people (and «public domain» doesn’t work in many countries). Please, go to http://creativecommons.org/choose/, select your preferences and slap it on your inspiring work – it’ll make everyone’s life easier. Related blog, though about code, is: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000833.html
Cheers, Daniel
Gavin Carothers
on 10 Aug 09As a number of countries don’t have a notion of Public Domain I think some form of license would be a good idea. Lots of companies also won’t let assets without a license be used. Something along the lines of http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/ seems like it would work rather well ;)
JD
on 10 Aug 09Gavin, thanks for the tip. That Creative Common stuff is way too complicated. Plus I couldn’t figure out how to make it so that usage doesn’t have to be attributed to me or 37signals. I prefer that WTFPL license.
Is that legal? That sounds silly even asking. I hereby release this artwork under the WTFPL license.
Pelle
on 10 Aug 09Jamie, sounds like what you want is the CC0 license – it’s the Creative Commons license minus the attribution and makes your work public domain or as close as public domain as possible as far as I understand.
Here’s a link: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Nathan Borror
on 10 Aug 09The designer me never realized how paranoid people were about licenses until I the developer me started releasing code.
I end up slapping the BSD license on everything but it feels weird. Creative Commons is nice but it seems to force attribution and most of the time I don’t want that.
Nathan Borror
on 10 Aug 09@Pella That’s perfect!
JF
on 10 Aug 09What a perfect example of people making something more complicated than it needs to be.
Jamie did some work and he wants you to share it with you. He said “They’re free for you to use and (hopefully) improve upon. I hope that you’ll find these useful for any web or print design projects that you’re working on.”
They are free for you to use in any way you want. They are yours now. That’s as simple and clear as it gets. Done.
Steven Fisher
on 10 Aug 09It isn’t giving away that’s complicated, it’s the magic words “open source.” Those words have radically different meanings to different people, and without knowing what it means to you…
That said, thanks for clarifying CC0/WTPPL. That makes it perfectly clear! It’s also very generous. I don’t know if there’s anything in this set I need, but I’ll definitely look it over and keep it in mind.
Fred
on 10 Aug 09Hi There! Great icons. Some one just passed me your link—I work for Creative Commons. Have you considered using one our licenses?
It seems like Attribution (CC BY) would be a good fit as its our most permissive license. It would require people to attribute you, and that’s it.
If you want to waive even Attribution (and effectively put them in the public domain) check out our CC0 tool here:
http://creativecommons.org/choose/zero
Regardless, you can read more about our licenses here:
http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses
Please drop me a line if you have any questions:
fred[at]creativecommons. org
Best!
F
Fred
on 10 Aug 09Oh, just posted that and saw all the other comments.
With respect to making things more complicated than they need to be: unfortunately the fact of the matter is copyright law itself is more complicated than it needs to be for most people.
And there’s no avoiding it—as soon as you clicked “save” on those icons, you owned the copyright, all rights reserved, and it won’t expire until 70 years after your death.
Saying “no particular license” or “in the public domain” is unfortuantely not enough, and many software projects (see: Debian), and now cultural projects (see: Wikipedia) require more assurance that the rights won’t “claw back” and cause problems for downstream reusers.
Its about standardization of saying “I waive these rights”.
Another added benefit to using CC (and our license chooser) is that it creates metadata that makes the works machine-discoverable on the web. Now that Google and Yahoo both index CC licensed material, you can signal to them that you want your works crawled as such, and users can search for it that way (see advanced search, etc.).
Hope that helps!
Anonymous
on 10 Aug 09A KOPIMI license would have worked just as well. Not only does it allow anyone to do whatever they want with the work, but actively encourages them to do so.
Benjamin Welch
on 10 Aug 09I love this. Put a price on your product and the industry is gasping. Just try and give something away with absolutely no strings attached and “Oops, sorry. You’re doing it wrong.”
It was his. He made it. He gave it away. Now it’s yours.
I’m convinced.
anonymous
on 10 Aug 09This illustrates the complete and utter insanity created by the concept of “intellectual property.”
Good thing Newton didn’t copyright/patent calculus!
Don Schenck
on 10 Aug 09These are “FREE”, as in “beer”.
Tim
on 10 Aug 09@37signals
Can you really fault people for asking for clarification?
1. “Open source” does not equal free. 2. There is a huge difference between what people allow for personal use vs commercial.
In this sue happy culture, no one wants a company to come at them years down the line and claim ownership of the art that they thought was fair game.
Simply saying, “guys, here’s some art to have – it’s been BSD’d” would have been the simplest description that provides absolutely no ambiguity as to what you mean.
This whole blog post could have been just that 1 sentence and the attached image kit and no one would have asked a question.
Eden Jaeger
on 10 Aug 09Most of these comments do an excellent job of communicating to Tim that next time he wants to give away some graphics he has no further use for it will be much easier to hit the DELETE key.
Just what are we trying to accomplish here? Is Creative Commons really doing us any favors?
Simon Pascal Klein
on 10 Aug 09@JF: I can understand the annoyance, confusion… and hey, even frustration (I’ve had it arise numerous times before) when concerning licensing.
The reason things are so ridiculously complex—simply stated (IANAL)—is because the legal systems themselves tend to be. Secondly many open source licenses—particularly those in the copyleft arena—are trying to undo what the default legal case states (which is that you own exclusive rights to all work you create, and so on).
Overlooking the feud between the GPL (copyleft) and BSD (libertarian(?)) folks I think the open source/FOSS community isn’t to blame for the complexity of licensing and copyright issues (and we haven’t even mentioned public domain and jurisdiction issues…).
So, to summarise: totally expect clarification if you intend to release something ‘freely’ in the future because the legal world is stupidly outdated and grey.
Kind regards.
—Pascal
PS. Cheers for the icons. (:
JF
on 10 Aug 09This doesn’t have to involve the legal system at all. That’s the problem. Why do we assume that if someone wants to give something away for free, lawyers have to be part of it?
Break the chain. Lawyers don’t have to be involved in everything. This blog post can serve as the “license” or “proof” of his intention. And if you just asked Jamie to explain further, I’m sure he would. We don’t need complicated licenses or third parties. Simple statements, obvious intention, that’s plenty.
Jamie posted some icons he designed. He said they are free to use. Do what you want with them. That’s it. Done!
Eden Jaeger
on 10 Aug 09Aren’t I silly, put the name ‘Tim’ as the creator of the icons in my comment as I had seen that name above me apparently. Oops!
Bryan S
on 10 Aug 09Jamie, really cool icons, and oh by the way…
1) I am going to download them 2) I am going to use them 3) I may try to improve them and if I feel I have made a worthy contribution I will “share” my changes with you. 4) and, good grief, I don’t give a shit about “open source” licenses or whatever… I’ll just go with thanks!!!
Most of this post has my jaw on the floor!!!
Anonymous Coward
on 10 Aug 09I’m surprised at how surprised so many people seem to be about licensing. Even though it may seem like it, people don’t sit around dreaming up ways to make usage/copyright processes more complicated than they need to be – these things come after years and years of precedents separating gray situations into black and white. Ignoring that would eventually lead to the same trouble in the future. We all support standards, right? Roll with it…
Anonymous Coward
on 10 Aug 09“people don’t sit around dreaming up ways to make usage/copyright processes more complicated than they need to be”.... really?!?
Tom
on 10 Aug 09Wait so does your licensing allow me to use these without getting into trouble with copyright infringement?... JK
Matthew Riley MacPherson
on 10 Aug 09A very cool idea; now your effort isn’t wasted on icons that would have just sat idle on your hard drive. Thanks for the cool icons and the badass gesture.
Oh, and yeah, the licensing stuff gets out of hand sometimes. :’(
Simon Pascal Klein
on 11 Aug 09@JF:—
I share you sentiments but sadly that’s not how it works. If you live in a western, capitalist country the legal frameworks that govern our lives imply upon your work certain legal claims and rights. Unless you waive them explicitly under the terms of that legal framework, this could end up spelling trouble for a person who wants to do good by you and themselves to use what you have created freely.
“Well then”, as many folks might say, “let’s beat the system and fuck the lawyers!; they don’t need to part of this!”. It’s of course worth acknowledging that folks have been trying to fix this for up to two+ decades now and they’re slowly getting there. Sadly it seems it requires law makers to see the absurdity in the number of copyleft/similar licenses and their use before they would consider changing the default legal claims you have over your work, or the simplicity (cough complexity) of the legal frameworks we live by.
Cheers.
—Pascal
PS. Tom: the CC0 1.0 Universal licenses waives copyright, so you’re free do as you like essentially. For details see the license page linked above.
Andrew
on 11 Aug 09Good grief!
It looks like the only way to avoid posting a license is to accidentally “lose” them on the internet. Post it as a torrent, with no names, addresses or anything that would link you to them. Upload them to a couple file sharing sites. Register a domain name for a short time (“absolutelyfuckingfreeicons.com”) and post a link there with no attribution, then put it in your sig on Digg or Slashdot.
It seems like that’s the only way to ensure they’re truly “free.” Anything short of that has the lawyers down on your head with “but, but! You have to! It’s the law!”
What’s the difference between posting them on a website for absolutely free use, or them ‘accidentally’ becoming part of the folklore of the internet. These could be the icons that everyone uses and everyone downloads, but nobody knows where they came from.
That’s pretty cool.
John Topley
on 11 Aug 09All I have to say is – thanks Jamie and 37signals for your generosity!
Peter Cooper
on 11 Aug 09Awesome icons – thanks 37signals!
Now, license loons.. when your mom offers to give you her recipe for those roast potatoes you loved as a child, do you ask her what bloody license she’s releasing it under? Let’s keep it real.
Ed
on 11 Aug 09Thanks for the icons 37s!
Galephico
on 11 Aug 09Thanks for the icons. How do we read the EPS format in Windows ? Thanks
LicenseLoon
on 11 Aug 09@Peter Cooper – Recipe’s aren’t copyrightable so they can’t be licensed.
Daniel Earwicker
on 11 Aug 09I have a solution to this license crap. I’m going to steal the icons, and if anyone asks me where I got them, I’m going to lie about it. Based on my understanding of copyright law, I think that puts me on very solid legal ground.
Jonathan Penn
on 11 Aug 09To add to thoughts about our system of law and copyright…there certainly are limits to what Jamie wants us to do with these icons! He does not want you to take these icons and try to claim them as your own and sue others to stop their usage.
That may seem like an absurd violation on common sense, but then so is much of our copyright litigation. Jamie does and should maintain the “rights” to these icons. He is the undisputed creator and we can reference this post in any court of law.
And Jamie has used those rights to grant public ownership. If anyone tries to take over those rights and reassign ownership, we have a system of law to keep the control in Jamie’s hands. And he can then, in turn, keep them public, open source, WTFPL or whatever.
Erin
on 11 Aug 09When Brightmix released an icon set last month, the first comment was, “Why don’t you officially license these…?” I didn’t realize it was so difficult to just say, “Here, do whatever you want with these.” As Daniel and Gavin mentioned, the concept of public domain varies worldwide, so the WTFPL seems like a good idea. Though, who’s to say WTFPL would be recognized worldwide?
Daniel Earwicker
on 11 Aug 09@Jonathan Penn – “He does not want you to take these icons and try to claim them as your own and sue others to stop their usage.”
Hmmm… in that case, http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/ was probably the wrong license to choose. It clearly allows anyone to try to do that. Whether they’d succeed can only be tested in court.
Jason Z.
on 11 Aug 09You’ll need an application for editing vector graphics like Adobe Illustrator, though I am sure there are less expensive editors available.
JD
on 11 Aug 09I am glad that this post has engendered a good discussion on licensing. It has certainly opened my eyes to how complicated this can get.
For the record: 1. You CAN do whatever you want with this artwork. 2. You CAN use it for commercial purposes. 3. You CAN use it for personal purposes. 4. You CAN change the colors, shapes, and forms. 5. You CAN (even) claim that you created these icons yourself.
Thank you, and have fun.
Sandeep Sood
on 11 Aug 09Thanks Jamie!
Appreciate it, and we are going to instruct our legal team to allow us to UTFOOT (Use The f* Out Of Them).
jorel314
on 11 Aug 09Great to see more people using CC0. You may also be interested in this list of notable works whose copyrights were waived by its creator.
http://setfree.dyndns.info/
Keep up the good work!
Jacob
on 13 Aug 09Why do so many of you care so much about the license? He’s released it here in the post and written down what you can do with it - i.e. do what the heck you want with it - that’s his statement of consent, and it’s sufficiently clear. Licenses are there to protect the creator, and I it’s clear here that 37signals are not going to sue you for using these icons they’ve just released for your use. This level bureaucracy is simply disgusting. Yeah, if you’re buying assets for use in your work, you better check the license - people are making money from those assets and so have it in their interests to license their creations appropriately - but this is just a freebie that the author wants to give away. Just stop worrying and start creating stuff.
jorel314
on 14 Aug 09@Jacob
One reason is using a machine readable license makes it easier for people to find the work you want to share.
kirk cameron
on 15 Aug 09question: why do i need a license to give something away for free? answer: because if there is no license i will maybe simply take the work and tell everybody that it is my COPYRIGHT because i created them. after that i will find out if you are using these icons somewhere and after that i will tell you that you are not allowed to use your OWN icons, because you maybe can not proof that it is your work which you gave away for free.
it is absolutly crazy, but unfortunately true.
This discussion is closed.