The advice to every question about EULAs and other agreements in this forum seems to be ‘consult a lawyer’. I’m curious how many people actually do.
I wonder if this is a cultural thing, or if people just say this to cover their butts.
I’ve been a senior leader in a number of small companies (10-100 people) and we didn’t consult a lawyer anywhere near as much as what seems to be suggested here. Certainly for large contracts or custom agreements, but very rarely, if ever, for EULAs and other such ‘standard’ agreements.
Are solo developers, or small indies with just a few people, really running every question about a EULA or other standardised agreement through a lawyer?
I think part of it is the fact that people are coming to the forum for “legal” advice and no one wants to be the one to give them bad information. It’s different when it’s just you.
I have owned several businesses over the years. I have consulted a variety of lawyers over the years. For example, I’m happy to pay hundred or sometimes even thousands of dollars on large projects to have a lawyer double check all of the contracts. I also pay a professional accountant to handle tax paperwork on any businesses.
I have never paid a lawyer to explain an EULA to me, though. I just take my time and read through it slowly.
I’m tempted to go with “mostly butt covering”, but that would be an over-simplification.
Firstly, I don’t have time or interest to get familiar with their situation in enough depth to give a properly considered answer.
Second, people often ask stuff that’s clearly answered by the license anyway, so I can’t be confident they’ll understand my words any better than they understood the license itself. Half of the time the answer is more about explaining the concepts than it is actually giving the answer. (Example: people not understanding different types of IP, then asking a question where the answer relies on knowing about that.)
Third, I could have made a mistake. So could their lawyer, but it’s less likely as they’re trained and have far more practice than me, and presumably they have some form of cover for that which may give you avenue of recourse should things go south.
Possibly the most important reason, though: asking legal questions here is just misguided. Would you go to a law forum and ask for programming or game design advice? If it’s a Unity license question then you should just ask Unity themselves. If it’s a copyright or IP question then you need to ask the IP owners. If it’s a general legal question and the answer actually has value to you then, yes, you should ask a lawyer.
Please note that asking a lawyer does not have to be prohibitively expensive, at least in the context of starting a business - which is what you’re doing if you’re operating commercially. There are a number of online legal services which will allow you to ask questions (among a bunch of other things, such as getting legal documents and simple legal services) for fairly approachable rates, often with a cheap monthly sub. If you have no idea and no interest in this stuff then no worries - pay someone to handle it for you.
Something else to note is that there’s definitely some Frequency Illusion going on here. You see that advice get given a lot because you’re watching the group of people who are giving it. If you look at the individuals receiving it, they’re probably only getting it once or twice each in most cases.
This is a good point, and maybe thats some bias from my corporate background where bringing in the legal guys is absolutely an expensive choice.
Another good point, although I really am curious how common it is to act on this.
For me I can’t imagine getting a lawyer to review the asset store terms for example (I could see it if you ran a large asset business outside of the store, and were looking at moving to the store as another sales channel). But again maybe its not that crazy at all, maybe some, many or most, are getting such documents reviewed by lawyers.
Honestly I wouldn’t get Unity’s licenses examined by a lawyer, except as a part of if I was bringing new legal expertise on board and familiarising them with all of my existing contracts and such.
Instead, I’d contact Unity with my specific situation. “I am doing X, and your license is not clear on Y. What are my rights and obligations with regard to…?”
Because here’s the thing: even if I get qualified legal advice that’s still largely someone’s opinion. It may be a well informed one, but if Unity sends me a cease-and-desist letter or a giant bill or whatever then “but my lawyer said…” doesn’t change the fact that I’ve a conflict on my hands. Even if I win that conflict it’s a giant pain and cost to me. So I may as well just go straight to the source in the first place, avoid that whole thing.
There is one good reason to come to the forums though, and that’s that some of these questions have been explicitly answered in a Unity blog post, FAQ, etc, and forum users can (sometimes) quickly point you to the right spot.
The vast majority of threads seeking legal advice have a pretty common theme. They are seeking a quick black and white answer to a very complicated topic, and write the question in a way which makes it obvious they have no interest in gaining in depth knowledge on the topic. They want their quick answer, and move on.
Unfortunately, that is just not how law works. There are no black and white laws, instead always a shade of gray. The answers to legal questions generally come down to what is your acceptable level of risk exposure.
To answer that question, you need to first understand where the risk is coming from, which requires a fairly in depth knowledge of the applicable laws, and more importantly how the courts have historically applied them, and not just where you live since you’re probably selling your games around the world.
After you understand the risks, you then apply them to your situation, your finances and willingness to potentially appear in court to defend yourself from those risks, to determine how much risk is acceptable to you. Congratulations, you’ve answered a single legal question for yourself without a lawyer.
Fortunately though, for people who don’t want to put in that kind of effort there are Lawyers, who’s entire job is to do most of that work for you. That’s why seeking a lawyer is often recommended. Yes I know most won’t do it though, but most will also ignore advice to spend an inordinate amount of time researching the details of their specific legal issue as well.
In my experience lawyers and accountants don’t generally take on liability if you follow their advice so even if you seek professional help YOU are still taking on the risk of whatever it is that you’re doing and you will still need to defend yourself in court. You will then need to pay that same lawyer to defend you. It’s a win win, for the lawyers xD
I just started a new business and have been using https://lawpath.com.au/ which basically has pre-defined contract templates as well as the ability to chat with a lawyer on specific points. Found it to be pretty good.
I did call in the specalist tax lawyer for some work around the crypto projects I’m working on, but for the day-to-day stuff I’m finding the digital services to be great. I expect there are similar services for other parts of the world.
(This reads a lot like spam, I’m not affiliated with them )
i dont think i’ve ever seen one of those “consult a lawyer” questions that was not coming from somebody who didn’t seem like a twelve year old wanting to make an asset flip without writing code
I’m curious about how legally valid those disclaimer statements are. Even just by consumer law here you can’t sell a thing completely without warranty, which is more or less what they’re trying to do there.
In some cases it’s fair enough to limit the liability they’ll accept. But, for example, it’s standard for accountants to include a liability waiver in their terms even when they’re doing stock standard reporting based on stock standard records, and I honestly can’t imagine that standing up if tested.
At Disney, we did several times, for software and licensing plug-ins/tools/fonts. But… we had a legal department available for that kind of stuff, and being the size we were and the size of the projects, we were a big juicy target for lawyers.
Generally speaking, I consult a lawyer whenever I have a legal question where I’m not confidently saying “this will not cause me problems.” If you want a hard number? This usually amounts to twice a year for me, tops.
I think something indies would be better off doing than getting a lawyer is consulting with an accountant. You’re usually paying the same amount per hour but even a barely passable accountant can save you loads of time and money compared to going at that stuff on your own. Plus indie devs would do really well to just have their accounts in order.
If you do a lot of small work you can hire a lawyer you make you a contract template (custom for your needs, not some boilerplate off the internet you don’t understand) that covers everything and that you can modify to the any contract you create later, like goals, deadlines, conditions, copyrights, etc
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