A program on steam called 3D visual novel maker is reselling Unity Asset Store packages as DLC. Now, in and of itself, I’m not entirely sure if this would violate the license of asset purchasers - but this program bills itself as a maker program and allows its own users to in turn sell what they make with the program. So in essence, the program is reselling unity asset store packs AS asset packs, which I believe is definitely against the store license.
For example, here is a link to their horror DLC.
Which is clearly a repackage of Artur G’s Abandoned Manor Package (and about a dozen other unity store packages by the look of it)
Overall it looks like the dev is reselling over 100 packages as asset packs for its own program. Of course, I suppose that it is technically possible that the dev has actual separate contracts with the makers of each of these assets, but I highly doubt it based on the general production value of the app. So if you have any popular assets on the store I would take a look to see if yours are being used improperly here.
There should be no issue with delivering content from the Unity Asset Store within DLC for a game.
But delivering as assets packs for another development environment instead of game content, this would violate the “Asset Store End User License Agreement” section 2.2, which bans any sublicense of assets from the Asset Store. This is assuming the assets were licensed from the Unity Asset Store instead of an alternative store with a more permissive license, or directly from the developers.
Also, Unity itself is often used for developing visual novels, which would make this a competing product to Unity. As such this would be a violation of “Unity Software Additional Terms” section 2.6 which bans the use of Unity software for developing a competing product to the Unity software. This would be the case if the software itself is a Unity build, but also if Unity was only used for the original download from the Unity Asset Store even if the software was actually created with another engine.
Is there a way to contact Unity’s legal dept? I’d guess Unity itself would be more interested in my second comment, as the asset developers themselves may have to on their own pursue the asset violations.
That’s bad, right? The issue isn’t whether that single game-maker buys the assets. It’s whether they resell it 20 times without the original creator getting anything, which this makes it sound like they do. Otherwise it would read more like “…and I’ll make a deal with them to resell it.”
From the “…and I will buy it…” I get the impression that they don’t even know what they’re doing wrong. Like they’re selling copies of Harry Potter, but it’s OK since they bought their copy.
Reselling stuff from asset store is against ToS. You can incorporate asset into your dlc (say, use a building kit to create manor in a dlc, and sell the dlc), but you can’t sell a kit as a kit.
Well, they won’t remain on steam for long in this case.
A good idea would be to alert creators of original assets and valve software as well.
The author clearly has no idea how copyright works.
I’m not sure this violates any clause in asset store directly.
The reviews for the app say that the end result is basically to make comics, and the app itself is basically a tool to pose models and camera for screenshots.
I think this kinda falls into a grey space in terms of legality. In terms of morality, I think even that’s a bit of a grey space.
I don’t think this is nearly as abusive as old asset flips and the like, but its definitely kinda sketchy. If it wasn’t being packaged as DLC I’d think it’s above board, as dlc, I donno.
Its being sold as a ‘visual novel maker’. Visual Novels are games, not comics. So its a game maker, subject to the restrictions Joe-Censored mentioned.
And as such, this is content for Unity being re-packaged as content for something else. That’s almost certainly a breach of the terms under which that content was being sold on the Asset Store.
That’s a misleading title. The reviews of the game itself say that the idea is to cap screenshots, dump them into photoshop and produce comics.
It does not appear to produce “visual novels” as we would call it.
I could be misreading it, but if the end product is a set of screenshots, i don’t think it necessarily violates ToS, and is actually a grey space. If I’m misreading and it does produce playable games, then nevermind.
Just curious, would the issue be different if the ‘DLC’ was just included in the basic game
as a single package and just costs more?
I’ve always viewed dlc as just stuff that could have been part of the whole, buyer just has a choice.
Doesnt matter. The Asset Store terms and conditions are clear.
They state
So for ‘game maker’ substitute ‘digital media maker’ and subject to the exact same restrictions.
Furthermore they explicitly state that a licensee of an Asset Store asset does not have the right to
“reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade or resell any Asset that you have licensed from the Unity Asset Store for any purpose.”
where the developer is offering to do exactly that
and that the licensee may not allow a 3rd party to
" copy, sell, license, distribute, transfer, modify, adapt, translate, prepare derivative works from, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Unity Asset Store or the Assets, unless otherwise permitted"
where preparing derivative works from those Assets is the very purpose of providing them.
The terms are also very clear that for anything you want to call a grey area, ie that which does not fall under the explicit provisions of the Asset Store terms and conditions, the creator of an asset has the final say on the reuse of their Asset, not some random who bought it.
Its not about how its packaged, its about the actual redistribution of Asset Store Assets as assets (ie for something else, in this case a digital novel maker).
(and its almost certainly the case that the Daz/Poser stuff this developer is offering to buy on request so he can redistribute tthem as assets for what his program does is equally dubious, given how restricted their licensing already is for actual game usage)
This is a known process. Regular artists will buy 3D models, pose them, tweak the lighting, render it out, then do a bunch of hand-drawing, to get a regular 2D picture. That’s all this game is doing, just on a bigger scale. I’d guess a copyright lawyer would take 2 seconds on this. And I’m pretty sure it counts as a Derivative Work, and isn’t allowed.
Taking screenshots is actually only allowed by the Asset Store License in the context of creating marketing materials, at least from my reading. Taking screenshots of assets for the purpose of creating another product (comic book) appears to be forbidden by the Asset Store End User License Agreement section 2.2.
Though there is certainly an argument that the individuals taking the screenshots actually never agreed to the Asset Store EULA, so aren’t bound by it. IANAL
None of this is relevant though because the individuals using 3D VNM are not the ones breaking agreements. It’s the author of 3D VNM that is breaking agreements. You can’t just purchase an asset pack and then resell that asset pack.
If this wasn’t called “visual novel maker” but was instead called “dollhouse poser” I don’t think we’d have this thread or this discussion. If it exceeds copyright or not is an issue for lawyers and cease and desists, if it stays up or not depends on negotiation between unity valve and others.
Lawyers being equal, I think this would go to court, could be debated, and could really go either way. Although obviously, it’ll never go to court and the lawyers wouldn’t remotely be equal.
Agreed, but that doesn’t mean the legalities would have changed. Game DLCs are legal because the content you’re selling is game content (eg story, levels, etc) and not just assets.
Say you purchase some assets and make a game with them and publish that game. That is allowed by the unity license.
Say you do the same as above but then purchase additional assets and sell them, unchanged, as new “levels” in your game. This would be sleazy, but still technically within the terms of the license. (At least by my reading)
This product is going a very significant step further than either of those. It is reselling purchased unity content basically unchanged and then ALSO saying to users of the program - “Now you can sell what you’ve made with this app.” Its that final step that puts it very much on the wrong side of the license because now they are -
A- allowing users to sell what they make with the program
B - which in turn means that the program is not a game but a creative publishing tool or maker program or development kit
C - which means that the content they are selling is no longer considered embedded game content but rather they are re-selling asset packs as asset packs.
D-which means that the dev is subliscening the assets.
E- by claiming that game revenue goes towards the dev purchasing more unity assets and distributing those assets to users they are engaging in asset purchase pooling.
The name of the product has nothing to do with if it breaks the license tos. It just happens in this case to make it more obvious.
But based on what is available on information, the developer of that visual novel maker is buying assets and offering them (slightly modified?) as DLCs. Those DLCs are content packs for said maker and players have solely access to them in-game once bought - never outside of it. See the third video on the 3D Visual Novel Maker Steam page on how that looks.
That’s like making a free-to-play FPS game, featuring weapon assets like this one that are sold as a DLC and can be bought with money in-game - and only in-game - for players to use, isn’t it?
