SotA Con Logo Art

Hey guys,

I've had a lot of PMs over the last few years from people who are trying to get artwork from me because they think there's some legal measure I'm going to take against them. I can't seem to find my original post on the matter; however, I have publicly released this once before with some stipulations about being nice and not charging others for it.

Since I can't find it, and I don't have a lot of time to keep handling one-off situations, here's a more official and completed Public License for the SotA Con logo:



I, Duke Violation, hereby grant the Shroud of the Avatar player community to freely use the logo for their personal use as described below.

1. You may not use the art to defame, harass, or otherwise put down Portalarium, it's employees, or the game of Shroud of the Avatar in any way.
2. You may not use the art to defame, harass, or otherwise put down members of the Shroud of the Avatar community.
3. You may not profit (sell) my art without an extension of this release done in private. This is a non-commercial release ONLY (this is done to protect others in the community from having to pay for something that was designed to be free). One exception to this is item 4.
4. You may use the art on memorabilia that you sell to promote your personal Shroud of the Avatar player gathering AS LONG AS it has the goal to meet the mission of SotA Con (restated below), and does not involve breaking the community rules.
   1. "players and developers can come together, grow together, and share ideas." -sotacon.org
5. This is being released under a modified form of the CC4 by-nc license and must always reference the original license and should somehow attribute the owner as "SotACon.org" or, if you feel it must, you may use my Avatar's name "Duke Violation" and never my IRL name.
   1. This license DOES allow you to add text to the logo to personalize it for your gathering.
   2. This license DOES allow you to modify the logo colors if you want (I don't recommend it because I used game logo colors but whatever you want is up to you).
   3. This license does not allow you to charge others for usage of the logo, or the one you modify from my logo
   4. This license does not allow you to charge others to modify the logo for them; however, you may pay someone to modify it for you if you are unable (IE: you cannot open a "sotacon icon modification service"; however, you can seek help from someone who is an artist to modify it and then compensate them for their time).

Further explaining points 1 and 2:
If at anytime you use my work to try and attack or abuse another living person I will do what I can to go after you legally. Every soul is worth fighting for, and everyone here should know I never meant for people to say I didn't want them to use my art. My goal with SotA Con has always been to have it grow beyond me and I hope dozens of people start to pick up and grow gatherings. I personally endorse @Winfield gatherings if you want an amazing experience and a great environment that promotes lifelong friendships.

Further explaining point 3:
The goal of this is to stop people from charging others in the community from using this artwork. Relics by Rild, as an example, has a copy of this art and is a member of this community. I have released a commercial version of this license to Ben for use at Relics by Rild. If they want to make a shirt or coin then another person from the community is not allowed to charge them for usage of the photo. I would be happy to make the same exceptions to other vendors that are of the same caliber of Relics by Rild and I only try to retain commercial ownership to protect the brand from being "exploited" and not to exploit people. I did not, do not, and never will "sell" the commercial license. It has and will always be given freely without cost to community vendors who embody the purpose of SotA Con.

Further explaining point 4:
If someone wants to put on a player gathering they need to raise funds. Since this is not a commercial release I want an exclusion to the license that I will never revoke as follows: if you are putting on a specific gathering and modify the original artwork with a lower banner update to YOUR location name and want to put the logo, in it's new modified form, on shirts/coins/banners/hand bills/etc to sell as fundraising purposes for your convention... please feel free! The rights of this release are held to the standard that we want the logo to embody a specific taste/feel/experience for end convention attendees: your convention must embody the Community Rules. If you are hosting a convention and using our logo to fundraise and it's actually a supremacy group or hate group of some kind... I reserve the right to revoke usage of the logo. I don't expect that to be something I ever have to do; however, I don't want the general public to see the logo and associate it with the wrong types of gatherings. NOTE: if you attend a gathering that breaks the community rules and want to log a complaint and have their usage of the logo revoked please email me directly at

Spoiler: show email

info@sotacon.org

and allow a liberal amount of time for me to resolve the situation (you know, since I don't get paid for this and I do it in my spare time only). Just to be clear on this point: I don't have the time to mediate if you do or don't like someone and the exclusive type of situations should be if someone has done something bad enough to be banned from the community but they're still trying to run events with this logo... beyond that, your personal issues are between each other and I don't have the time or desire to get between them. I simply made an image and want everyone to enjoy the happy trees, and the happy puppies, with the happy clouds in the happy sky.

Further explaining point 5:
I don't want people to claim rights of the logo and then somehow exclude others from using it. This should be seen as a community logo that can never be licensed away from the community. My goal is to keep it freely open for people to use. FREE... if I somehow did not make that clear here, then let me restate: the goal of this license and release is to allow people who want to use the logo for promoting conventions that embody the mission of SotA Con to do so without fear of lawsuits, takedowns, or some other financial ... something.

Oh, yes, and on a side note:
At the same time I make this release I want everyone to know publicly that I have released the same image in its entirety to Portalarium, in a private message that was originally sent back in 2016, under a different license. They have a fully released for personal or commercial use however they see fit for perpetuity. If you ever try to use the logo and then charge portalarium to use it, it simply won't work out. I never intended for SotA Con to do anything but help grow relationships between players and between developers and players. I believe having a strong healthy community will help grow the game. I personally like the developers and see many of them as friends. Growing the game will help them. I do not think having a licensing fee for Portalarium fits in the spirit of my vision of SotA Con's brand and I would encourage you to find a different brand name if you want to do that.

On a final couple notes
To forum moderators: If this somehow was placed in the wrong place in the forums a moderator is free to move it without notifying me. I didn't know a better place to put it. You are also welcome to lock this post if you want as I don't see the need for conversation and it hopefully removes the ability for anyone to edit it.

To everyone in the community: Understand I only retain ownership of this to help protect it and not to lord it over anyone. I hope you can see that in this type of release. If you read the license you see the "you'll never have a fee!" legal in there... also, I hope you guys have had a wonderful couple years (since I've been active on the forums) and if you have any questions about this release you can find me in a private message. I don't plan on making anymore posts on this matter as I feel like this has summed up allowing everyone to use this image to make gatherings visible as a SotA convention and not something for another game or a one-off "we're meeting for dinner guys!". I am doing a LOT better on a personal level now that I've moved to a better climate and hope everyone who I have not had time to keep up with is doing equally well. A special thanks to Winfield and Eternal Knight for helping to make the first SotA Con what it was. Another special thanks to DarkStarr for his efforts as well. And, a final special thanks to everyone who attended. I hope you guys realize how great this group is and how we're not alone in the gaming world... there are other high-quality gamers that appreciate values and role play and embrace a similar lifestyle without shame and hate.

Please do not direct follow-up questions to me here as I don't have my email notification enabled and don't frequent the forums. If you want to message me in-game you can do so to "Violation Clauth".

Happy Release 62 Avatars, and Huzzah!