As an academic research institution we’ve been developing a UE4 based application for bridge inspections, intended to be used by state departments of transportation. Under our current contract the application would be distributed to the state funding that is funding us, and their contractors, at no cost. From what I understand this setup does not incur any licensing fees?
However, we are investigating the possibility of partnering with a commercial company for expanding the application to other state departments, to whom licensing for the application would be sold. (So government agencies and contractors are purchasing the application from a commercial entity). Under this new model would the 5% royalty fee apply or is it exempt because the end-users are still government agencies/contractors?
Would the 5% royalty still apply if the organization that is developing/distributing is a non-profit itself, consisting of a consortium of members that belong to government and academic institutions throughout the country? The idea is that they all pitch in to develop, support, maintain and would be distributing to other non-profits (municipalities, state govts, etc…?) with user fees plowed back into feature development, enhancements, and user support.