Killing Team Cooperation and Freelancers: impossible to work with different subscriptions plans.

News & General Discussion
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Hi,

I was reading again the EULA, and there’s a point where it says:

"You May Not Use Unity Personal, Unity Plus and/or Unity Pro Simultaneously
You may not combine or integrate Your Project Content developed with one tier of Unity Software (e.g., Unity Personal) simultaneously with any of Your Project Content that you develop with another tier (e.g., Unity Plus or Unity Pro). Your Project Content developed with Unity Personal and/or Unity Plus will be tagged with an identifier that is used to enforce this restriction."
Source: Unity Editor Software Terms

Now, my interpretation was that this has been written to avoid someone to “borrow” the license from someone else in some subtle way, and then releasing it with a Personal license.

Or maybe to enforce that you must stick to your subscription, discouraging subscribing to lower priced plans.

So I contacted the Support, and got an answer I didn’t expect.

If I understood it correctly, each “project” can only be built and released if you and all your teammates are using, and have always used the same subscription plan for that particular project.
You’re not even able to continue working on a project started with the Personal subscription if you later decide to upgrade.
You’re not able to keep working on a project you started on Pro after the subscription ends, thus forcing you to subscribe for an additional year.

If you’re in charge of producing the final build and have Plus or Pro you can’t collaborate with, let’s say, a composer, a level designer, an animator, a background artist, who may only need a Personal edition since they may want to invest on their own tools. They ALL have to pay 1 year for Plus or Pro

So, you can’t possibly hire someone without knowing their subscription plan.

A Unity Pro freelancer can only work with Pro-licensed teams
A Unity Plus freelancer can only work with Plus-licensed teams
A Unity Personal freelancer can only work with Personal-licensed teams

So if you are not a programmer, you still need to have the same license the main programmer will be using, or have to upgrade. No turning back.

To apply for a single project could require you a 1-year commitment with a probably overly costly license.

I hope the support team did some mistake on interpretation, because all this seems absurd to me.

I also have asked several companies (even big ones) all around Europe, and they answered they use mixed license cooperation and teams, and said that it would be impossible to work if that was true.

Who is right? Is the future of Unity going to be splitted into “sealed classes”?

Were you all aware of this? Or is everyone out there infringing the EULA?

My personal opinion, according to the interpretation of the Unity Support, is that all this is killing cooperation and preventing a programmer to hire someone who is maybe just starting to work on Unity, since they’d be forced to pay in proportion to the recruiter’s subscription plan.

Is it really this the scenario that Unity wants?

I’m really really surprised. I hope Unity is going to reword that part in some way.

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https://www.unrealengine.com/

Yes I think most are aware of it, I used Unity in a professional manor a fair while ago and we all had Unity Pro. But on the off chance I ever did hire a freelancer, I wouldn’t sit there questioning his setup…

In common sense terms it’s a catch all, let’s say you have a team earning over 200K a year and they have to use pro… Because money is tight (for whatever reason) they hire some “self-employed” dev’s to work on the project and put them on a plus sub. Unity essentially get screwed.

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Wow !!! :hushed:

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License mixing is not allowed within a same company by it’s employees. Freelancers are not affected. This has been talked over several times since the release of Unity 5 :slight_smile:

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As a freelancer I use the lisence that’s appropriate to me. For all intents and purposes I consider myself a third party. I work at my own premises, use my own equipment, provide my own lisences, pay my own taxes, and work for multiple clients.

Legally I’m a completely seperate entity from my clients. I don’t ask what version they are on. Nor do I try and match my lisence to theirs.

The tagging system occasionally comes up occasionally in discussion with clients. You can easily see and edit the tags in the meta files in version control. But so far Unity has yet to object to the combination.

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I’m sorry, I haven’t been very present on the general discussions threads, and the EULA doesn’t talk about freelancers explicitly.

Yet, the Support Staff answered (and I double checked by asking more in detail) that if I’m going to hire developers for my project, I will need to have a number of license seats for these team members to use accordingly if my project is to be made in Pro or Plus.

Actually, I’ve been hired for the project as well. And so are my “teammates”. We’ve been hired by someone who probably doesn’t even own a Unity license or has relevant programming skills.

Now, this may be an old topic or issue, yet the support seems to think otherwise.

Where could I find some official answer on this (since the Support seems it’s not been around the forums as well)?
Is there someone up in the Unity staff who could give me some official answer?
Or, did I miss some step in the EULA?

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There has been few threads about this, this is newest I found:

https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/mixing-unity-tiers-in-a-project.415676/

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Exactly what question did you ask, though? Unfortunately in cases like this specific wording is important, which is made all the more difficult in that the words might mean slightly different things in different places. When you tell me you’re going to “hire” someone I expect they will be your employee unless you clarify otherwise. If you’re “contracting” someone I expect they’re a freelancer or separate business. And according to a Unity staff member in the thread @Ostwind mentioned that’s where the line is interpreted to be drawn (by them… and I did raise in that same thread that the subjectivity of that is a bit of an issue).

@aliceingameland ?

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Technically speaking you have the interpretation of the EULA correct. As written it doesn’t allow you to hire anyone to work directly on your project unless they are using the same license as the rest of the project. The general assumption in the EULA is that the organisation running the project will provide licenses for all of the workers. The flexible license system means you can easily add and remove people from the license as they come and go. So the proper way to get things done is for the hiring body to maintain as many licenses as they have freelancers, and distribute them out as staff are added or removed.

The model doesn’t actually work very well for small time freelancers and the small entities that hire them. The general point of hiring a freelancer is so you don’t have to worry about all of the implications of an employee. Its further complicated by the fact that managing multiple licenses on a single machine is incredibly difficult. Plus there is the risk of a freelancer abusing the system and using a license for work outside of the scope it was provided for. Most of the conversations on the forums with Unity staff have amounted to ‘well, that wasn’t out intention when we wrote that’. However they haven’t actually updated the license to reflect that.

The EULA is really designed to allow Unity to hunt down bigger companies that abuse the system. The general concern is that a company could get around needing pro licenses by having all of their staff as ‘freelancers’, pay them all less then 100K a year, and get out a multi million dollar project without having to fork out for a license.

I’m reasonably confident that the license tier I use is within the spirit and intent of the license, even if it doesn’t match the exact wording. I doubt Unity will see the need to hunt down freelancers like me. However that’s a risk I’ll take. If I randomly disappear from the forums one day, you can assume my interpretation is wrong.

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Thanks for the link @Ostwind !

I had a look at that thread and have also bothered members of the Unity Staff in the meanwhile.
I think the key point is this, posted by @aliceingameland :

Followed up by this unanswered question I’d be curious to know the answer of:

@angrypenguin : you’re totally right. I’m not able to distinguish some legal terms in English.

I’m actually NOT an employee of my client, but I’ve simply on contract with him as a freelancer. And my other “virtual teammates” are on the same boat, we’re all under contract. We’re just a temporary team with a common goal until the end of the contract. In Italy actually it is not even considered “contracting”. It’s considered an “occasional performance” which doesn’t even need a contract (even if we actually signed one, which has no strict legal value, because “occasional performance” don’t need contracts by definition. It has the value of an oral agreement, but we decided to put everything black on white paper just for clarity sake).

The only possible cross-tier interaction on the project would be between me, the programmer, and the background artist/level designer (also doing an “occasional performance” for my client) which could (we’re not even sure I won’t be doing the level design as well) just open the scenes in the project and add/remove/manipulate objects. That’s all.

But, if the level designer had to buy a 1 year Plus or Pro license just to do that, it would be overkill, since most of his work and skills (and tools) are art-oriented, and he would just use Unity for the duration of the occasional performance. Which is probably less than 2-4 months of work.

@Kiwasi : I don’t think I’m into the “AAA company abusing the system”. The whole team is really small (3-5 people) and probably only me and the level designer are going to manipulate the same project. I own the Perpetual Pro license but I may be subscribing for the Plus license just to get rid of the splash screen, and I believe the artist is going to just use the Personal edition only to be able to collaborate and help me a bit with the level design. I mean, he should be investing in the Pro versions of drawing and graphical suites instead of the 1 year commitment Plus/Pro Unity license just for a 2-4 months “contract” job.

I think this should be fair use and interpretation of the EULA.
Don’t you think @aliceingameland @karl_jones ?

I’m concerned, because the final build is probably going to have my name and license on it, and I wouldn’t have accepted this “contract” if I had known I would have been responsible for the license tiers of other “contract” teammates my client had chosen to make me work with.

According to this interpretation, you should also be able to start an indipendent project with the Personal edition, decide to upgrade to Plus, get more jobs in the meantime, until you are able to upgrade to Pro, still being able to complete you lifetime project which has transitioned different licensing tiers, without actually infringing the EULA. It would be a personal project carried out during different years, and would not constitute an abuse in every way.

Please correct me if I’m wrong.

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It is pretty clear that the terms should probably be clarified, and possibly have several example situations in the EULA to help understand the most common use cases.

For example, my understanding (which appears to not to be correct) is that licence only isn’t relevant when it comes to third party. In my experience, (in software/games in general) a contractor/freelancer isn’t third party, if they are working directly on a project, they are still first party. Though they may have a different employment agreement. Third party is an external service, or tool or discrete content/assets/libraries. First/third party is a relationship to the project and (not necessarily) indicative of employment/compensation relationship. I have worked teams internally, that are third party, even though we are all full-time staff of the same company. So that is how I interpreted the third party aspect, but Unity staff have indicated that isn’t the case. So clearly there is need for better clarification. If both new users and folks with several decades in the tech industry can’t understand how it is meant to be interpreted, it needs some work.

I also wanted to note that Unity licensing for indies and hobbyists is great, as it mitigates risk and lowers the barrier for entry. However, freelancers/contractors don’t have that same risk, especially with the lower rates and plus level. As a contractor/freelancer you are getting paid for your time, there isn’t anywhere near the risk that an indie has. Its a pretty good deal, even at the pro pricing, as far as costs go.

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Also if @NeatWolf can’t get a clear answer from support that indicates an issue. Of course there’s the distinct possibility of some language barrier there, but that still has to be dealt with effectively.

On that note, @NeatWolf , I’d suggest asking if there’s a local or regional Unity rep who you can talk to. They’ll hopefully be familiar with how things work where you are, might speak your native language, and can probably look in a bit more detail at your specific situation than the support staff are able to.

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On top of that, if, as they kind of indicated in one of the responses that is actually based on a definition of employment, that further complicates it as the legal types/definitions of “employment” appear to vary depending on where you are. They need a little flow chart or something. :wink:

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That’s obviously a mistake from Unity legal team since it violates everything Unity builds upon:
1- Asset store couldn’t exist since you are mixing all kind of licenses.
2-If you release a game with plus and exceed the 100.000 usd (did it change? can’t remember) yearly revenue you must upgrade to pro by contract. So will I be in a dead end? Can’t use a project started with plus but must upgrade to pro?
Doesn’t make sense.

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It’s just a misunderstanding. Clearly that isn’t the case. You can upgrade (or downgrade) your license without affecting your project. Several people downgraded from pro to plus.

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That’s not actually true. The key wording of the lisence is simultaneously. Up and down grading is totally legit, as long as you are authourised to use the lisence.

For example if the new splash screen is pretty, I might end up dropping the plus subscription when my subscription ends.

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I think to have understood well what the support said. I can’t copypaste the answer here because it is forbidden.

But, if so many doubts are still around, after about 6 months, and the support team answers in a different way in respect of all Unity Staff that is on the forums, some kind of action has to be taken.

If something is so prone to interpretation examples of the intentions behind the text have to be given, officially, in an easily readable way, without having to dig inside the caves of the forum.

Even new potential users may be discouraged just by looking at the EULA and giving it a wrong interpretation (when they actually read it)

I actually sent the ticket support in CC to 5(five) different deparments, and the local Unity rep.
Only one answered, and the answer triggered the creation of this whole thread.

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The EULA Rule indicating that you are not able to mix different Unity Licenses on a project (Pre-Unity 5’s Free/Pro, Unity 5’s Personal/Pro and now the current Personal/Plus/Pro) has always been the case; this is nothing new and tons & tons of studios have been managing for many,
many years. :slight_smile:

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Well… the EULA just is not clear enough if you look with the search how many times license mixing has been asked and how many interpretations or answers there has been from community, support or UT members. Improvements are required somewhere like at least in the official FAQ :slight_smile:

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Well, it is clear enough if people are finding the section about it and are posting on the forums linking it. The EULA is public and online (As OP demonstrates by sharing a link) and users abide/confirm to it when setting up a new Unity license/account. Its hardly hidden. :smile:

Edit: We also have a Knowledge Base which highlights that license mixing is not allowed (https://support.unity3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/208659006-Can-I-purchase-different-subscription-tiers-on-my-Organization-)

Where would you recommend we also post it?