HI UDK.
I’d like to buy a subscription, however need to understand more clearly the situation regarding copyrights and the 5% licencing fee to UDK. If I build and design a character outside of UDK in a combination of other software (say Max and Zbrush) then I bring it in to UDK to create a game sequence or a Machinima film with that character, do I retain the copyright of my character. Also if my use of UDK is to create a filmed output more than a games output (i.e. a you tube film, does the 5% still apply to say YouTube advertising revenue.
Also say I create the character and have some kind of traction and usage of it already, say for example it was a character I built for a pre-existing animation/film project, then decide to utilise UDK for it’s production toolset to create either a new film or game output, does my original usage and ownership of the character prior to incorporation in the UDK engine become invalidated by utilising it in the UDK engine and does UDK then make a claim over copyright of the asset/character I bring into the engine?
Thanks for the help, I couldn’t see the answer to this in previous threads or on the EULA terms and explanations.
Thanks Rama for the quick reply! do you have a link where it explains that definition, I couldn’t find the definition terms of existing assets v. final product assets in the EULA documentation?
You are not giving any copyrights to anyone when you are using unreal engine. If you create your character completely in 3ds Max, make a movie called “awesome character movie 1” with unreal, bring it to cinema and earn $100k, you have to pay $5k to epic. If you then take your character and make a second movie called “awesome character movie 2” directly in 3ds Max with the same character, and earn $100k again with this second movie, you have to pay nothing to epic for it.
You find more information about that under point 4 - “Royalty” in the EULA.
Epic owns all title, ownership rights, and intellectual property rights in the Engine Code and Assets. You own all rights in the Products you develop under the License, other than the Engine Code and Assets, Third Party Software, and any Submissions. All rights granted to you under this Agreement are granted by express license only. No other license rights shall be created hereunder by implication, estoppel, or otherwise.
So the question is - is a character or digital asset developed outside of UDK but then brought into UDK as part of a project considered an “Asset” under Epic’s EULA. In which case it would imply that copyright and IP of a character/asset passes to Epic simply by utilising Epic’s engine. Epic also states the user of their engine owns all rights in the “products” developed under the licence other than Engine code, assets and any Submissions. Does the inclusion of the term Submissions mean that any pre-existing assets or IP uploaded to the Epic engine become submissions and therefore become owned by Epic?
The definition of what is a Product developed under the licence is not clearly explained in the EULA in terms of projects that incorporate assets built outside of UDK. So, putting aside the issue of the 5% royalty which is not the main issue, the question is who owns any final asset brought into UDK or modified in UDK from a pre-existing asset? i.e If we bring an asset into UDK who owns copyright over that asset, us or UDK?
Thank you, I just reread the section 4 - royalties but I don’t see that it answers the main concern of this post which is where can we find the detailed definition of what is an asset, what is a product and what is a submission. The definition of the word submission obviously relates to anything submitted, which under section of 10 of the EULA (ownership) would imply that anything submitted to the game engine is a submission and not a final “Product” created with UDK. In which case the wording of clause 10 in the EULA does seem to imply that any individual asset that a person submits to the game engine therefore becomes the copyright property of Epic and not the person submitting it.
Ie. If you submit an asset to Epic as part of your production, by virtue of that being a submission does Epic own it or do you?
Case in point being the following disclaimer below, just read the bottom of this comments page:
By contributing…You hereby transfer and assign to Epic Games, Inc. all rights, title, and interest, including copyrights and other intellectual property rights, in such Information.
So this thread and all intellectual rights relating to the original question or any answers are now apparently the copyright and intellectual property rights of Epic.
So the question remains, if an individual or team develops a character (or characters) or other assets outside of UDK and then utilises the UDK engine to stage the character or assets for production, then, by accepting the UDK EULA and submitting the character(s) to UDK engine does Epic therefore claim ownership to the copyrights of the character(s) or assets by use of the term “submission” in clause 10 of the EULA.
Before we subscribe and submit our work to UDK it would be good if a representative of Epic/UDK could clarify this matter formally for us.
Before I dive in, a note about terminology. This thread talks about UDK, but since all of the references are to the UE4 subscription EULA, I’m assuming you’re talking about UE4. UDK is the Unreal Development Kit which is the binary version of UE3. If you mean UDK instead of UE4, let me know.
You’ve asked a couple of questions, so let me take them one by one.
If you make a movie with UE4, no royalties are owed. This is one of the listed exemptions in Section 4.
When you use UE4 to make a game or movie, you own the IP you create. Epic owns the engine, but you own your own work.
The concept of a Submission is intended to largely cover code submissions to the engine. In any event, it covers content submitted to Epic and definitely does not cover content just because it’s used in the engine.
I think that gets to your questions, but let me know if you have a follow-up question or if you think I’ve missed something.
FYI we’ve just purchased our first subscription for the project (under our company name). In terms of above yes, sorry I was referring to the UE4 subscription EULA, as it’s a new project we’re not going to go down the UE3 route.
The EULA is a little vague in terms of clarifying definitions ie. what’s considered a submission. As you must have a lot of new signups from people or teams with projects where they may have already invested significant money in terms of IP creation of assets could those definitions not be made a little clearer in the EULA? It is after all a legal document for a product where end users can import their own IP and copyright assets.
Our project also has music copyrights concerned in which the company I work for are the authors/owners of the music that we’ll be incorporating in our work in UE4, so I’m presuming that music submitted is also covered in what you’ve said. You said “The concept of a Submission is intended to largely cover code submissions to the engine”, which is great however the EULA doesn’t really clarify that’s what the clause as written is intended to cover.
In order to better clarify this position for users of your engine and technology couldn’t the EULA also include some clarification phrasing such as your point 3: “The concept of a Submission is intended to largely cover code submissions to the engine. In any event, it covers content submitted to Epic and definitely does not cover content just because it’s used in the engine.” and could it also not include a more detailed and thorough set of definitions, thereby making it clearer for all users and for Epic itself.
No criticism at all about UE4 or Epic whatsoever intended - Epic is awesome, it’s just that copyright and IP are obviously fundamental matters to any project where there is any kind of investor involved in the process.
Thanks for your follow-up comments. I think in retrospect I could have been more clear, sorry about that. Let me try to clarify:
Per Section 10, Epic owns the engine, and you (the licensee) own your own creations. An exception to that is if your creation is submitted to Epic. The Submission definition covers “any code . . . or any other information or content that you make available to Epic by any means.” So while the general intent is to cover code submissions from licensees who want their code included in the engine, it was still drafted intentionally broadly to make sure we are covered to use other kinds of submissions as well. However, I want to be clear that submission of content to Epic is entirely optional. Using content in the engine is not submitting or otherwise making it available to Epic; that requires an affirmative act of sending us something. Still, we’ll consider your suggestion.
Thanks for signing up for a subscription. As a side note, please note that the subscription is per seat i.e. one subscription for each developer. You said “our” a couple of times so I wasn’t sure.
Thanks Canon, that does really clear it up. I guess the confusing phrase is “or any other information or content”, as obviously anything we use in the engine is content. Perhaps at that point of the licence if it just states something like what you’ve said above i.e. “submission of content to Epic is entirely optional. Using content in the engine is not submitting or otherwise making it available to Epic; that requires an affirmative act of sending us something” it would clear it up. Anyhow definitely resolved for usand we’re much clearer on it. Thank you for your time and help on this.
The “our” is because it’s a project who’s IP is owned by the company I work for and which originated in another medium entirely (music and the recording industry) with some animated character assets that were built for various music videos for the artist and which are still in production in a traditional animation/film pipeline. So we’re looking at UE4 for it’s potential production abilities to generate filmed output (i.e Machinima style stuff), and also the obvious benefit of it being a game engine. So our main output if UE4 is something we can integrate into our process will initially be filmed output for youtube etc. then possibly a game. We hadn’t previously thought about integrating a games engine approach to production but are assessing it now because of the new UE4 engine and because it’s potentially it’s much better pipeline to complete our existing projects. So for right now it’s only going to be a single seat because this is highly experimental for us and it’s only 1 person in our team (initially myself) who’s going to be doing any UE4 work. I have to produce a few simple landmarks in UE4 over the next few months for our backers to then be able to decide whether they want to get further engaged with it, hence the need to understand the complete IP/copyright implications of putting our existing content into the engine.