this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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Are they just hoping that literally no publisher will legally challenge these terms? You can't just change the terms retroactively without consent and start charging people whatever you want. They'll lose the instant someone takes them to court over it
Especially when there's a lot of high profile clients who's business literally relies on them. They will absolutely have a ton of lawsuits coming towards them. Good, fuck them for thinking they could, or should, ever do this.
I'm sure if this actually pushes through they'll change the terms for those clients just to keep them happy (and paying what they do pay, which likely dwarfs all the smaller players). And they sure as shit won't fight for the smaller creators when they get theirs.
Well, that certainly smells like a class action suit.
My question is what sort of "support" does Unity provide to these legacy engines. If the old versions are unsupported, does that mean they will be hard or impossible to use, or does it simply mean they don't get feature updates?
The challenged Microsoft. Fucking MICROSOFT. They are completely and utterly fucked
Let’s not forget Nintendo too. Their layers haven’t ruined someone’s life in at least a week, so they are thirsty for blood.
Its true theres no modders that the Nintendo ninjas are stalking currently so that whole division is bored AF.
I thought they were busy going after people for decade-old ROM hacks.
They can, if you don't like it you quit using their product that is the alternative they offer if you don't like the new license. If you want to continue to using it you have to accept and pay. It is not illegal, they can change the conditions anytime, the initial conditions 100% said that already as most terms have.
Not saying it isn't terrible tough to be clear.
EDIT: They ~~hated Jesus~~ downvoted the user because he told them the truth.
You’re right that a lot of Terms of Service documents and similar agreement documents have language that reserves the right to modify those terms.
At the same time just because something is in the terms doesn’t mean it can stand the test of adjudication and terms as well as changes are often challenged in court with success.
Unity is in a particular tricky situation because the clause that governed modifications in their last ToS explicitly gives the user the option to pass on modifications that adversely affects them and stick with the old terms:
https://web.archive.org/web/20201111183311/https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/TermsOfService/blob/master/Unity%20Software%20Additional%20Terms.md
I agree that it seems like a problematic part. That said... even if devs are allowed to stay using that version, for a lot of devs is not practical, so the end result is basically the same, they cannot afford to stay on the old version and would need to pay to continue using it.
Except for old games not being updated or similar that they don't need updates to the tools/engine.
You are right in terms of in-development and future games. But unity is also trying to enforce these terms on already released games. This could potentially bring a challenge to their subscription model, which essentially states you must continue to pay as long as your game is available. I don't know much about the law, but I do know that there are legal limitations on how rented/subscribed products work. These limitations are to prevent straight up scams from stealing from you and making it technically legal with some fine print. Which isn't too far off from what unity is doing now.
This is comparable to you renting a drill from someone to make a table. You agree to the terms that you must continue to pay a subscription as long as the table exists. Then unity drill co. decides you must also pay a fee every time someone sits at the table. Even though the table is already made, and you already had an agreement to pay for the drill you had previously used. Your only alternative is to destroy the table.
Just because the terms said they could modify the deal doesn't mean they can force anything on you as if you had already agreed to it.
I pose you this, I open a book store. I say my terms of service is say, all non racist books are allowed to sit on the shelves. I then later say, "I now own the copywrite and that physical copy of any book placed on my shelves. The new ones, the existing ones, and the future ones." You'd be scrambling to get my books back before I pretend a contract you never agreed to is on effect and illegally steal them.
It's a book store you wouldn't own the copyright that makes no sense. Plus wtf is on with the non racist part at the beginning what has that to do with anything in the rest of the text.
And in any case yeah that would illegal because you don't own the copyright neither those books. You own the book store and the shelves you could decide one day to charge them another fee if they want their book in your store and use your shelves, that would be an equivalent. And yeah any existing ones, and future ones would require the fee, of course, it is your fucking book store, maybe people won't like it and look for s different store to put their books but that's it.
A different thing is if you have a contract with the book store saying x year you will never have a fee. Or similar. Yeah that would be breach of contract and you could do something about it but this is not the case.
Their terms clearly indicate that they can be changed. If people didn't try to or couldn't get another terms/contract that specified otherwise is unfortunate but it is what it is.
Maybe I misunderstood it but I never got the idea this was case , they will not charge for the previous years. Just that to continue to use it you need to pay, and that applied to already released games. It's not exactly the same as you mention
In any case as other comments said the previous terms covered that case so yeah legally they cannot charge them for those already released games if they still use the old unity version, as the terms allowed for somebody that doesn't like the new terms to stay on the older version and the older terms.
But as I pointed out in another comments that generally don't works because sometimes the devs need to update the games for fixes on the engine to support new hardware or stuff like that or simply fix bugs on the engine itself.
It emulates the stuff they put into a TOS.
My original comment was trying to say the recource legally allowed is to be kicked out, however that isnt possable with how unity qants fees and by its nature intertwines with the copywrited work, witch is hard to impossable to un-publish.
I dont know if thats true. however, somtimes for whatever reason it goes out of your control and you cant revoke access to the game binarys (foss, public domain, pirated, etc...). Unity still wants someone to pay.