[DGD] Commercial question

[Noah Gibbs]

  Actually, I think 'income' in the US doesn't require a profit motive.  And
while receiving anonymous donations may not be illegal, it's quite possible
that soliciting them would be.

  So basically, Dworkin has said, "you can't make money off this, whether it's
profit or not".  If you have a stranger walk up to you on the street and give
you $50 for undisclosed reasons, that's kosher (probably, and assuming you
really don't already know them).  If you put a link on your web site that says,
"MUD admins need to eat too, here's an anonymous donation link", a judge and/or
jury is likely to suspect that you're playing fast and loose.

  That is, in the end, the final test - does a judge/jury believe that you got
income from the MUD?

  For that reason, it's a good idea to stay away even from the appearance of
that.

--- Shentino <shentino at gmail.com> wrote:

> My two cents:
> 
> If the donations are optional, and no strings are attached to them,
> then IMHO no license can stop you from receiving this money, as it
> would be a freewill offering on the part of the players, or, as I
> prefer to call them, miscellaneous citizens that coincidentally are
> also playing your mud, because total strangers who liked the mud, but
> didn't play it, would also inevitably donate just cause they think the
> mud is cool (although in my case it would likely be out of pity :P).
> 
> Besides, if you accept anonymous donations it's kinda hard to tell
> who's who, and a donee may or may not be a player. :P  And in any
> case, keeping the mud up on donations (or lack thereof) would be
> entirely optional on my part from the donee's point of view, since
> they have no warranty on how the funds are going to be used.
> 
> However, owing to the confusion this has generated, I'm not going to
> start up a donation acceptimg mud until I get more clarification,
> preferably from Dworkin's revised copyright and NOT a lawyer in a
> court case or a consulting job.
> 
> I sincerely hope that Dworkin's revised copyright will shed some light
> on this.  If his lawyers are half as good as Dworkin is at coding,
> winding up in court over this would be a fearful thing indeed.  :P
> 
> Especially since I haven't GOT the big bucks to run a public mud out
> of my own pocket (i.e. without donations), and with the 100K/year
> licensing fee for commercial use, I'd have a very hard time getting
> enough capital to even START a pay for play biz like Skotos without
> starting a corporation and making an IPO, let ALONE keep it running. 
> I'm just a small fry in college.
> 
> Speaking of which, I humbly ask Dworkin to make it possible for a
> small hobbyist to run a decent mud on donations.  1.2K a year is quite
> a bit cheaper than 100K/year, but still a bit pricy for even MY type,
> the kind who go to college on federal grants and live on welfare. 
> Cheap is a relative term, and what may be chump change to one person
> can be a fortune to another. ;)
> 
> __________________________________________
> http://mail.dworkin.nl/mailman/listinfo/dgd
> 




__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com