could the CC licence be interpreted as 'if you use our image, do not alter it, but if you modify it you must credit' ?
No. Anyone who makes derivative works of something covered under the CC license just has to provide attribution to suit the terms of the license. We are not allowed to change the wording of the license ourselves, but we can state our preference for how attribution is shown.
I have an odd question...If someone were to use a SB image for a publication, unfit though they are as Colo laid out earlier...would proper crediting be an issue, as far as tracing it to a particular artist? What I mean is, "Navybrat85" has no meaning outside of Shipbucket. Where I've seen, for instance, the Alaska class drawing Colo has done the credit has been done to Ian, not Colosseum.
I assume they could contact us to determine whether or not the original authors want to provide their real names or use the username on the drawing credit.
Actually in publishing you find that the source/credit is almost always in the caption line e.g. "Drawing of HMS Hood (James Jackson)".
Perhaps in the new website we should have the ability to create a caption textbox for each drawing which sits alongside the drawing on the site?
One of the required fields on any drawing submitted will be the author name, which will then tie to a user field in the system (allowing people to search by author etc). Generating a small caption will be easy.
Is it possible with the new Forum and archive to record specifically who downloads each drawing so we can at least track to some degree where they are going? May make it a bit easier to trace theft and miss use.
With some written notification in the usage requirements it may help as a deterrent. Note also, the coding and particulars are outside my knowledge base.
Not particularly. You'd end up with just IP addresses and that's really not any use to anyone. Our best defense comes from a good legal framework to go off - Gollevainen and I have been refining what we want in private chats. We will post the full verbiage shortly.