Contributor Licence Agreement (Artwork)

Last updated: 7 September 2026

This agreement covers artwork submitted for use on LopoRail, specifically vehicle illustrations used by the train compositions section.

Review notice. This is a drafting template prepared to be read by a qualified lawyer in the operator's jurisdiction before the site relies on it. It has not been through legal review. Have it checked — particularly the governing law, the moral rights waiver and the entity name — before publishing contributions under it.

1. Why this exists

The compositions section draws rolling stock as scalable vector graphics. For those drawings to be safe for everyone, we need one thing that scanning and copying someone else's art cannot give us: proof that the person submitting a drawing has the right to licence it.

This agreement is that proof. It is deliberately narrow. It says nothing about your photographs, your written articles, your comments on the forums, or anything else you do on LopoRail.

2. What "the Contribution" means

"Contribution" means any vector illustration you submit for use as a vehicle, consist or formation drawing, in any file format, together with any metadata you supply with it (vehicle class, dimensions, operator, livery, notes).

"Licensor" means LopoRail, the operator of LopoRail, or its successors and permitted assigns.

3. Your copyright stays yours

You keep all copyright in your Contribution. We do not claim ownership of your drawing.

Nothing in this agreement stops you from using your own artwork elsewhere, from licensing it to others, or from displaying it on your own site, social media or portfolio.

4. What you grant us

You grant the Licensor a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable licence to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, distribute, publicly display and publicly perform your Contribution, and to incorporate it into other original artwork.

The word irrevocable matters: we cannot undo this licence later, so we do not need to keep asking you. It also means that if LopoRail is ever sold, the licence travels with the site and your drawing does not have to be taken down.

Because the drawing may be resized, recoloured for accessibility and contrast, simplified at small sizes, or converted to another vector or raster format, we need the right to adapt it. We will tell you if we make a substantive change to a drawing you credited.

5. Optional: assigning copyright instead

If you would rather we own the copyright outright, say so when you submit and we will use a short assignment instead of this licence. Choose whichever suits you; both are fine and neither affects your attribution.

6. What you promise (the warranties)

You promise that each time you submit a Contribution:

1. It is yours to licence. You own it, or you have written permission from the copyright owner to licence it under these terms.
2. You did not copy or trace it. You did not create it by tracing, digitising, screenshotting, or otherwise reproducing another artist's drawing, a manufacturer's CAD file, a photograph, a scale drawing, a game asset, or any other artwork — in whole, in part, or in outline.
3. It is not derived from a share-alike or non-commercial licence. You have not based it on material under CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, GPL, or any other licence that would impose conditions on our use or on a future commercial use of the site.
4. It is not AI-generated from a copyrighted dataset, unless you hold and can supply the licence rights for the model output. We do not accept AI-generated artwork by default.
5. It does not infringe third-party rights, including copyright, database rights, design rights and moral rights.
6. Marks and names are used descriptively only. Class numbers, class names, operator names and livery references are used to identify real vehicles. You have not used them in a way that suggests endorsement, sponsorship or official affiliation.
7. It contains no malware, tracking code, or embedded script.
8. You have the legal capacity to enter this agreement, and if you are submitting on behalf of an employer or a team, you have their authority to do so.

If you cannot promise all eight, do not submit the drawing. Draw something else.

7. Attribution

We credit contributors by name or handle where you ask us to, alongside the asset. We are not obliged to display credit where a drawing is used in a derived or abstracted form where a credit would be misleading.

We will not sell your name. If you would like your credit removed, ask and we will remove it from future use; the licence in section 4 continues to apply to the drawing itself, because that is what makes the site's drawings safe to redistribute.

8. Moral rights

You waive, to the fullest extent permitted by law, the moral rights in your Contribution — including the right to object to how the work is used, to claim attribution where you have not been credited, and to prevent exploitation for others' benefit.

Where moral rights cannot lawfully be waived, you consent to the uses in section 4 and agree not to assert those rights against us or our licensees. Where moral rights cannot lawfully be waived or consented to, you agree to use a licence compatible with your jurisdiction's law and tell us before submitting.

9. No warranty; use "as is"

The Contribution is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. We review submissions, but review is not a guarantee of legal status and does not shift responsibility for your rights onto us.

10. We are not obliged to use it

Submitting a Contribution does not oblige us to publish, feature, or continue to display it. We may reject or withdraw any Contribution, in particular where it does not match the site's style, where it is of low quality, or where we cannot satisfy ourselves about provenance.

11. Termination

If you breach section 6, we may terminate this agreement and require removal of your Contribution. Where the breach is capable of remedy, we will normally give you notice and a reasonable opportunity to put things right first. Contributions accepted before termination remain licensed for the term in section 4, which is what allows us to keep the site stable.

12. Your indemnity

You agree to indemnify the Licensor against reasonable costs and damages arising from a breach of section 6 by you, including claims by third parties asserting that your Contribution infringes their rights. This does not apply where the claim results from our own modification of your Contribution beyond the uses you permitted in section 4.

13. No partnership, no exclusivity

This agreement does not create a partnership, employment, agency or joint venture. It is non-exclusive: we may license similar artwork from other contributors, and you may contribute elsewhere.

14. Governing law and disputes

This agreement is governed by the laws of [insert the operator's jurisdiction], and the courts of [insert the venue] have exclusive jurisdiction. Nothing in this section limits any mandatory consumer protection you have under the law of your country of residence.

[Drafting note for the operator: fill in both blanks, and consider a consumer-friendly alternative if the site accepts contributions from private individuals in the EU/UK, where some clauses may be unenforceable as written.]

15. Contact

Questions about this agreement, or a submission you think has been handled wrongly, go to [email protected]. Write to LopoRail for anything that needs a postal address.

How to submit

Submit through the asset contribution flow or by email. Include a short note confirming that you have read section 6, the vehicle class, and where the dimensions come from. A drawing without a traceable source for its dimensions will usually be sent back — see the Artwork Licence Policy for what we can and cannot use.