Hello, a newbie here. I found out that in Introduction — Kdenlive Manual 25.08 documentation that Kdenlive is licensed under CC License SA 4.0
I click the link and it brings me there: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
It says that I must give approciate credit/attribution
Is it true that every video that I edit/create using kdenlive must provide attribution? (note: I want to edit/create video for the commercial purpose).
Thank you.
That is the license of the manual, not of Kdenlive. If you use the manual, say, to create your own documentation, even commercial documentation (imagine you write a textbook for a Kdenlive course, you use chunks of the Kdenlive documentation and you sell it to your students), you would have to write an attribution to the authors of the Kdenlive documentation somewhere in your book.
You do not have to write include an attribution to Kdenlive in your videos. That said, it is a nice thing to do
No you misread the intention of licenses they cover the software/documentation in this case. Same as all free software does with theirs. Anything you create is owed and copyrighted to you you get to choose your own terms you wish to release your property under. Only if you modify existing software/documentation and release the changes to others then you are subject to the terms and conditions they list. If you keep the changes to yourself no need to abide by anything when keeping personal copies.
Oops beaten to it while writing.
Software is rarely (if ever) licensed under CC licenses. They are not well suited for it.
My bad to misunderstood it. So, is it okay to let say: I create a video of still image of green screen, put a filter and effect from kdenlive and sold it without attribution?
I just want to make sure, because I’m worried that I’m violating copyright.
What you create is yours to do with as you please it is as simple as that. The attribution covers when you modify the work of others and release it for use. If you wish as has already been mentioned you can say something like “I used this great software to do it for free and so can you”. This would definitely be appreciated by the makers of the software but is in no way required to be done.
Kdenlive itself doesn’t place any obligation on you just for using it, but if you want to sell that work commercially, it’s still not quite that simple. Right down to the fact that even the camera you filmed it on may not give you a licence to sell what it produced without paying additional royalties to codec patent holders for a commercial use licence. And the same could apply if you use those codecs with kdenlive to create your video.
If you’re worried about that sort of thing you’ll need real legal advice, nothing that anybody here says can absolve or indemnify you from those restraints on trade. The best we can tell you is that kdenlive itself places no more (and in many cases, probably fewer) restraints on what you can do with what you create using it than any other video editor used to create the same video would.
From KDE’s side, yes, absolutely, knock yourself out.
It is the proprietary stuff you have to worry about. Those have sneaky clauses that ask you to surrender your work to them, or formats that require you pay the big tech companies a stipend the moment you make your first dollar off of your work.
The license CC-SA 4.0 is only applicable for if you use the material form the documentation of kdenlive., like you start your own kdenlive tutorial site, or channel etc. Not for the material you edit videos using kdenlive.
Thank you. I think that I can conclude is, everything that kdenlive provide is okay for commercial use without attribution.
But in case I am using third parties material, plugin, additional files, etc, I must worry about the proprietary stuff.
Clear explanation, thank you!
Thank you. I got it.
That’s not what anyone here has said.
Most builds of kdenlive provide codecs, like H.264, H.265, AAC, that do not include a licence for commercial use. They don’t necessarily require attribution, but if you use any of those, we cannot licence them to you. You will need to check that yourself and if necessary buy one from the people who assert they have the right to charge you for that use.
No. What @Ron said.
When you create your media, the audio and video, subtitles, etc., you will render them to a certain format and package everything together in a container. Both the formats and packages have licenses. Some of these licenses require you pay certain companies (not us) to use them.
Solution: use open formats and containers. For audio and video, for example, you can use Opus and WebM, and package them into Matroska. You can do this choosing from the list that Kdenlive shows when you go to render.
That said, will the megacorporations that hold the rights to those proprietary formats go after you to shake you down if you try and monetise your work? Probably not. The cost of just ringing their lawyers would be much higher than whatever they would make trying to extort you. But it is still better to use open software, open formats, open everything.
And stick it to the man!
Some, like AV1/Opus will give you better quality at lower bitrates than the more encumbered codecs anyway.
There’s also other things like fonts, which just because they are on your system and available to kdenlive does not mean you can “not worry” about the conditions they are licenced to you with. Those conditions may not freely include commercial uses.
I just read about that article on medium dot com.
You are right. I need to have the license if I sell the video in H.264.
But, what if the case is: I render my video in AV1/opus in kdenlive then I convert it into H.264 using Any Video Converter software (they allow the commercial use, so I assume they provide the commercial license)?
Thank you. I got it now. It’s pretty complicated that I just know that H.264 is not freely use without license.
What marketplace/microstock site that accept Opus and WebM? Because Adobe and shutterstock doesn’t accept that formats.
Also, what is the other open formats and container beside opus and webm?
We know that those megacorporations won’t sue small creator like me. But like you said, I want to stick with the rule.
What are you going to do with what you create?
Sell at the microstock site.
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I think I got the solution.
Shutterstock itself said to use a free program called MPEG Streamclip to convert my videos into .mov So, I think I will render my video into AV1 or Matroska, then convert it with MPEG Streamclip into .mov.
Sounds good. That said, I think you are worrying about nothing. These licenses exist, yes, but are rarely enforced unless we are talking about like a Hollywood studio or major streaming platforms. It is highly unlikely any of the license holders would bother about individual private creators. It would probably be counterproductive, as it could make the right’s holders lose market share.
Either way, happy you have found a solution that works for you.
They’re only allowing you to use their software, they don’t own or have the right to licence any codecs or anything else to you.
But really, if you need to ask these sort of questions, you really need to hire someone to give you legal advice specific to what you are doing. Nobody here can do that for you, and nothing anybody here says will hold any weight in your defence if you do the Wrong Thing.
