Legal Criticism of Unreal Terms

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

I read your Terms yesterday and I was not clear on meaning here:

*’’(ii) Non-Compatible Licenses

You may not combine, Distribute, or otherwise use the Licensed Technology with any code or other content which is covered by a license that would directly or indirectly require that all or part of the Licensed Technology be governed under any terms other than those of this Agreement (“Non-Compatible License”). Code or content under the following licenses, for example, are prohibited: GNU General Public License (GPL)…’’*

Blender 3d obviously uses the GNU General Public License (GPL). I don’t use Blender 3d but its obviously popular with poor people. Could you clarify what you mean in this statement here. Are you saying people cannot use Blender 3d as their 3d modeling suite in conjunction with Unreal Technology?

Also Secondly:
*

(iii) General Restrictions

You may not engage in any activity with respect to the Licensed Technology, including as incorporated into a Product, (1)** for any gambling-related activities or Products (as defined by law in the jurisdiction of use);** (2) for operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation, aircraft communication systems or air traffic control machines, **or for military use in connection with live combat; *(3) in violation of any applicable law or regulation; (4) in which the Licensed Technology is rented or leased; (5) that misappropriates any of Epic’s other products or services; (6) in support of a claim by you or any third party that the Licensed Technology infringes a patent. You also may not sell or grant a security interest in the Licensed Technology.

Here the text seems poorly written to me. you say your engine can’t be used for any gambling, but isn’t games like Diablo III just a lot of gambling, the popular Diablo series could be called ‘gamble-craft’? Don’t they use real money now? In the second part I guess your trying to say you don’t want anyone to think there is any relevant strategy going on in the war game they are playing. Don’t most people find value in games though abstraction? Are you saying that all games contented created in Unreal must be performed in fictional landscapes? That would satisfy the ‘live combat’ statement, sort of, but maybe not. In other words could not all war games including Unreal Tournament series be construed to have some connection with future live combat which may or may not happen simply because it teaches people to think strategically in combat environments. I would consider this poorly written and hypocritical and confusing and unclear and ambiguous.

The point I am trying to make regarding “(iii) General Restrictions” is that I think you would be wiser as a company to absolve yourselves of guilt in the event that the user for any reason gets into trouble with any legal authority whether that legal authority is good or evil. Put the whole legal responsibility for content creation onto the user.

For example if a man goes out and buys a chainsaw from a Chainsaw Manufacturer and then uses that chainsaw to carve up some cannibal BBQ, the crime should be completely on the head of the murderer. The Chainsaw Manufacturer should in no way be held accountable for that murder. The Chainsaw Manufacturer may be held accountable to provide suitably safe product. For example say that while the murderer is carving up his cannibal BBQ, the chain breaks, and severely damages the cannibals hand. The Cannibal complains to the company, the company should offer a replacement under warranty, and should pay medical bill (tort reform is desperately needed obviously with today’s laws companies are afraid of being hit with multi-million dollar lawsuits that don’t deserve it). So in your case, if it is found that your software unreasonably destroys peoples computers, you should be held accountable for that, but as for the Cannibal, his murders is entirely his fault, his responsibility, and his problem. The crime is his, not the company that made the chainsaw.

So I think your conflating a bit the matter of safety, which you do have partial responsibility, and the users own responsibility to be moral, and conscientious.

To sum up on General Restrictions. rather than telling people that they can’t make their own Diablo style gamble-craft, or make wargames, or simulation games, Just say something along the lines of:

  1. Don’t steal our technology, give us credit.
  2. Don’t Sub-license out technology out for personal profit.
  3. Pay us or we will take action
  4. You the user are solely responsible for the **consequences **of the product you produce whether good or evil, NOT US!
  5. in the event that Unreal tech may be found to destroy your computer, we will reimburse the damage. (Obviously some metrics need to be developed here to define what that means. Obviously some wear and tear is normal.) Here you would want to be clear as to what technology is supported and what is not supported (users own risk).

What people create is their own responsibility, just take their money whether good or evil.

I think you are creating an annoying device here in (iii) General Restrictions that is going to stifel the law abiding and the lawless are going to ignore anyways. I think you are conflating your responsibility and the users responsibility.

you have a great business model from my point of view, and obviously no incentive to produce anything but the best software in the world.

Lastly you say at the end, ‘I have read and** agree** with the End User License Agreement’ . This is wrong.

It should say, ‘I have read and Accept the End User License’

there is a HUGE difference between agreeing with someone and accepting them. I think your terms are acceptable, but it does not nor should it be construed to mean that I completely agree with all of it.

So you should make some corrections so law abiding people can use your product.

2

First one means you can’t use some other technology with the engine that would conflict with the licensing terms of UE4–so for example if some Nvidia tech had licensing terms that conflict with the UE4 licensing terms then you would not be able to use that tech.

Second one is for things like online poker gambling games or maybe a slot machine, etc. Diablo 3 does not have any form of gambling, even when it had the real-money auction house that is not gambling, and doesn’t matter if it did since they don’t use UE4.
As far as live combat is concerned they mean like if you used the engine for military hardware for example. So the engine can’t be used as a tool in real military combat. It’s not anything about RTS games, you can make something like ARMA which is very realistic military simulation game but you can’t use it to make a HUD for a fighter jet.

3

Standard disclaimer I’m not a lawyer so if it matters hire one.

If it matters contact Epic’s licensing department as to clarification of terms and conditions. They have bee always quick to respond to our inquires.

GPL was written to ensure that there would always be a free version of an otherwise commercial product and was originally written to cover the licensing requirements of the Linux operating system. The intent was/is to break up the copyright ownership across a broad rage of owners so that a single individual or company does not own the full IP rights that goes against the ideals of free and productive applications.

A good example would be a company like Microsoft can not buy full ownership rights of the Linux operating system and shelf it in an effort to increase sales of the Windows system.

To comply with GPL licensing Unreal 4 would have to be placed into the public domain, in full or part, as to fulfilling the requirements that that the full source code would have to be made available on demand as to functionality as part of the application that makes use of GPL licensed products.

This does not effect your use of Blender as a productivity application as content is not covered as a GPL element as in just because idtech3 is GPL licensed would mean that Quake 3 falls under the GPL licensing by default and the only way the requirement could be enforce is if you wanted to use code made available with in Blender as part of the UE4 code based product.

As bullet pointed GPL is non-compatible with the Epic license where CC0 and MIT is as they are written to share with out loss of full IP ownership.

Well the key statement “as defined by law in the jurisdiction of use “ says it all and paraphrased would be like a handgun manufacture making a statement of use that their product can not be used to rob a bank.

So

Yes “absolve yourselves of guilt“ would be one aspect but for the most part wish to avoid complicity after the fact of an activity deemed illegal under sovereign law.

As an after though.

In concept would be true but has no or adds weigh that just because you are right means that you will “not” be sued. Civil law is not about right or wrong but who has the best story so a bit of wording might at least prevent some trolling from occurring.

4

specifically in ‘(ii) Non-Compatible Licenses’ they appear to be saying that Blender 3d cannot be used as 3d modeler in conjunction with UE4. Your answer does not clear that up any better.

in ‘(iii) General Restrictions’ your proving my point that it is ambiguous the way that it is written, the statements can be taken so many different ways. So Unreal only supports fictional content creation? I could not create Flight Simulator with UE4 tech?

5

The Blender license applies to itself and would not conflict with the UE4 license.
The other part has to do with uses that could cause physical harm to people–they don’t want people to depend on the engine in cases where it could glitch and cause injury or death.

6

so in(ii) Non-Compatible Licenses, if I understand you. You are saying that Users cannot create a blender 3d plugin directly in UE4 to use the tools and features of Blender3d inside the UE4 environment. But they can create all the models and animations and textures they want inside the blender3d environment, and then export and import those files into the Unreal Engine environment? Users can’t conjoin the two software products, but they can use them independently with one another?

as for the second part i don’t they should think of themselves as some kind weapons manufacturer trying to keep their weapons out of the hands of terrorist, which is way it comes across. I think it is really just freedom speech. Freedom of speech is a calculated risk, it always has been, but I think it is better to just let people create whatever they want. For example say someone wants to design an educational program that teaches chemistry or atomic science? I think they are better to think of themselves as being like a paper manufacture, than as a weapons manufacturer.

Also most real military simulator are not used for any particular live combat, its just drilling to stay sharp.

7

The fact that Epic has donated $10,000 dollars to the developers of Blender is a rather large statement on Epic’s part that the use of Blender as a productivity tool is fair use but since Blender is covered by GPL licensing you cannot make use of any of Blenders “code” base in your product. GPL only covers code use and has zero impact as to content or content creation.

8

its sounds like your trying to say that Epic doesn’t want the military to install their technology inside military vehicles or commando suits… but anything can be construed as being for live combat. It need only be requisitioned for use.

this part really needs to be rewritten.

9

yeah, well obviously I am checking for continuity. I see ‘base’ is the key word here. i am not a low level programmer. obviously blender users are writing code in blender for their models that they import into Unreal, but they are not talking about that code, they are talking about the ‘base’ code? ok, I see.

They should clean the language up so artists know what they are saying.

10

LOL yeah welcome to the wonderful world of games development where the needs and demands of code and content will always be a gap that cannot be crossed. The ideals are two totally apposing forces of what right and whats wrong. :wink:

Copyright and fair use though is the number one issue that a “games developer” faces today and is yet another skill to learn once you are in a fit for distribution mode.

As always the Internet is a good resource and I found Leonard French a resource as to clarification.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChBJtu4BhT8b8t9Qe9R-EZg

11

In all of these cases if they are depending on UE4 for part of their operations then if it makes a mistake then people can be injured, it’s not any political statement they just don’t want to be responsible for injury.

12

thanks for the info.:slight_smile:

13

I agree with you, for me this sounds more like “Hey what happens if we use UE4 to control airplane autopilot” - something happens and the engine crashes together with the plane. Is this now Epics fault? Probably not because they forbidden to do that. This is like the fact that you are not supposed to put a cat into a microwave.

14

Ok that makes sense. thanks for the help.

15

Well I “think” the concern is Unreal 4 being used for weapons development. :smiley:

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