[DGD] Commercial question

[Felix A. Croes]

lwl at black-knight.org (Lydia Leong) wrote:

> IANAL, but:
>
> The definition of a "gift" (vs. income), in US law, is essentially,
> "Person A gives Person B something, without getting something of
> comparable value in return."  A gift is never considered income,
> although it can be taxed (via a gift tax) if it's a hard asset (like
> property) worth more than a certain amount of money. Donations are
> considered gifts, and never income.

I see that I have been confusing my American readers with my Dutch
interpretation of the licensing terms in the file dgd/Copyright.

There are a few things I should explain about the licensing terms.
The first paragraph derives from what was written by the American
lawyers of ichat Inc, when that firm obtained an exclusive commercial
license, and originally stated:

    Permission is granted to copy the source and executables made
    therefrom, but any commercial distribution or use whatsoever is
    not allowed.  Commercial distribution or use refers to any
    distribution or use from which any form of income is received
    regardless of profit therefrom.  Use of the source and executables
    made therefrom to promote or support a commercial venture is
    included in this restriction.  Exclusive worldwide rights to this
    program for use as a server are held by ichat, Inc.  If you wish
    to purchase a commercial license, please send email to
    sales at ichat.com.  For more information please look at the ichat
    web site which can be found at http://www.ichat.com.

The passage about revenue was added later, again at the request of
ichat:

    ... Commercial distribution or use refers to any distribution or
    use from which any form of income is received regardless of profit
    therefrom, or from which any revenue or promotional value is
    received, as well as any distribution to or use in a corporate
    environment. ...

Later on, ichat, Inc. renamed itself to Acuity Corporation, which
was acquired by Quintus Corporation, which then went bankrupt,
terminating their exclusive license.  At that point, I removed the
last part starting with "Exclusive worldwide rights ..." and kept the
remainder.

Though I was not involved in setting the terms for sublicensing rights,
other than negotiating that DGD would remain free for non-commercial use,
I know that the strong language about commercial use was due to various
muds at the time which officially were supported by voluntary donations,
but in practice were run as commercial enterprises.  Ichat's CEO let
me know that he wanted to be able to close down any DGD-based mud which
received donations, while reassuring me that he would only do that to
"big players" who were "clearly commercial".

I regard the ichat-derived licensing terms as a placeholder which will
be replaced by new terms written by my own lawyers at the time I
release DGD/MP.  My intention is to let non-commercial use remain
free, to include a small commercial use license with some restrictions
(which will cover muds supported by donations) for a relatively low
yearly fee similar to the original $100 per month fee that preceded
the ichat era, and to allow full commercial use without such
restrictions for $100,000 per year, on contractual terms to be
negotiated with the customer.

Due to the confusion, also on my part, about the current ichat-derived
licensing terms, I am now considering speeding up the revision of
those terms.

Regards,
Dworkin