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[Evan Balster]

Hello, all.

I'm working on a certain donation-funded online game (which I brought up previously here) and I'm hoping to cover its costs and maybe (maybe) even refund a bit of my own working time from whatever I get.  Blue-sky, it might even help me go indie out of college, but I'm not counting on that at all.


So.  Basic idea.  The game is completely free and I'm running my own physical server, recently paid for (and more!) by Kickstarter donations.  The game revolves around drawing, and the game-world is effectively one gigantic drawing created by the players.  In the future I'd like to offer prints and/or clothing as well as hosted worlds as rewards for donations.

One last possibility for revenue is showing the game's worlds electronically at art exhibitions, as giant crowdsourced paintings.


At this point I'm running into a few places where I want to have my definitions straight.  The primary need for donations is the running and maintenance cost of the server (currently quite cheap but apt to rise) and I was always a little iffy about the distinction between rewarded donation and sale.

I also would like to set up a creative commons radio within the game that plays content streamed from the server or my Dreamhost service.  At some point, by the way, I plan to open source.


So.

What would be involved in making this a legal nonprofit, and would use of any portion of donations to cover the time I've spent on the software invalidate that?

Besides the pretty word, what kinds of benefits would running a nonprofit have in practice?

Would the donation model cause legal issues with the use of noncommercial-licensed creative commons music?  (...which would be available to anyone anyway?)


Thanks in advance for the wisdom, all.

[Landshark RAWR]

although I do not know much about this subject, I think non-profit means that all money gained through this project must be used for said project.

I think donations are good for personal use though (again, not entirely sure)

[jrjellybeans]

My two cents:
You seem to be asking some very SPECIFIC questions that should probably only be answered by someone who's VERY familiar with the law.  So, basically, I'd be careful in taking anyone's advice that isn't a lawyer or something.

With that said, if I were you, I wouldn't worry about a lot of those issues.  I'm guessing that any amount of money earned isn't really going to be worth the trouble of legally establishing a company.

As for the noncommercial music thing - if you felt strongly about it, I would contact the individual artist and just tell him that I was planning to use the music for the project AND agree to pay him a small sum IF the game actually earns something.  If the game doesn't earn any money, then nobody get's paid.

I did this with the music for Platform Explorer.  I found all of the music on 8 bit Collective which allows music for noncommercial projects. Since I decided to try to find a sponsor, I just figured I would call my game a Commercial project.  I contacted all of the artists individually about using their work and they all said they were fine with this idea.

Hope that helps!

(Congrats on getting the money.  I was rooting for this project!)

[Evan Balster]

I actually had the good luck of talking to someone qualified in nonprofit management today.  The day after my first post there.

Apparently the big qualifier is that the business owner can't arbitrarily take the company's funds.  He can pay himself a salary (surprisingly) which I don't intend to unless I try to "go indie" in the future.  The advantages are mostly in a near-universal set of tax exemptions.

I think I'm going to go ahead with this.

[bateleur]

One other thing to bear in mind is that unless you reset the world at some point you can't make use of any of the game world's artwork for exhibitions, t-shirts and so on because you didn't have suitable terms and conditions in place when you launched. The copyright for artwork posted to your game remains with its creators.

Out of curiosity, what is your nonprofit company going to do with any money it ends up with over and above server maintenance requirements and your salary?

[Evan Balster]

Squirrel it away or spend it on expansion somehow, I'd expect.  I do not expect to ever have enough for the 'salary' thing, though.  If I ever did it would be just unbelievably awesome.

Regarding world contents, I had the foresight to draft this, though it's admittedly guesswork and might have problems.  It has been packaged with the game in a text file since the prototype world.

-------------------------------------------
|Infinite Blank End-User License Agreement|
-------------------------------------------


By participating in Infinite Blank, you agree to grant unlimited non-exclusive
distribution rights to your ingame creations to the Infinite Blank team.  These
include but are not limited to display through the game itself, through the web,
as part of a public exhibit, or in print.  (Drawings created with the program but
never uploaded to the game's server are not subject to this clause.)

To clarify on the last item, prints of the game's map(s) or parts thereof may be
sold in the future as a means of acquiring funding for the server or to support
development of Infinite Blank and other projects.  By playing you consent to this.

Infinite Blank claims no responsibility for the preservation of user drawings,
security of content, or accidental damages inflicted by the software or its
users, whether on your hardware or your sensibilities.

Infinite Blank claims no responsibility for its user-made ingame content.  By
playing you agree to understand that with freedom comes responsibility, and with
responsibility comes occasional immaturity and crude humor.


Infinite Blank copyright 2010 Evan Balster.  All rights reserved.  For now.

World contents copyright their respective creators.

[bateleur]

A paragraph at the very bottom of a text file the user isn't even forced to open to start the game? Even Microsoft have never tried that! (Not that I actually object, but you see my point hopefully.)

Also, you assume that all participants own the copyright to what they draw. This isn't true. For example, if I read your readme.txt and then draw the Pepsi logo in your game, that does not give you the right to print it on a t-shirt! (I use a silly example on purpose, but people probably will draw videogame characters.)

[Evan Balster]

Eep.  Any ideas on how to handle stuff like that?

I was hoping to figure out an arrangement like internet media portals, where copyright owners can express objections to content on an individual basis.

Perhaps the prints no es un good idea? 


Regarding the obscure EULA, I'll try to move it somewhere more prominent.  I didn't expect that to come off as a jerk move but I realize now it might.

[bateleur]

Regarding the obscure EULA, I'll try to move it somewhere more prominent.  I didn't expect that to come off as a jerk move but I realize now it might.

I didn't see it as a jerk move so much as possibly rendering it invalid. Law is complicated and I know little about it. But one thing I have picked up anecdotally is that even shrink-wrap disclaimers aren't necessarily legally binding. Suppose you wrote at the bottom of your readme file "By playing this game even once you agree to give me all your money". You wouldn't expect that to be binding, would you?

Bottom line: before you do something which might be illegal, make sure you're not putting yourself at unacceptable risk. A good first step is to make sure your company is liable rather that your personally.