legal advice needed - someone from SI please

Hi

I need a legal advice,actually,i have a question.I have a web site committed to Football manager series under construction,and it is soon to be online.There will be some interesting stuff there,and much more,but that's not what my question is about.

I am interested if i have legal rights to charge for some things (skins,tactics,advices and stories,and other things that would be made on request).All of this would,of course be completely unique,authentic and self made,but its still someway connected to SI.

Thx in advance,and please if yo are not completely sure what content would i charge for,contact me before your answer and decision

Boo! Hiss!

From a fan point of view, i wouldn't go down the route of charging for "add-ons" to the game.

When Genie decided to charge a small fee for his Scout application, i don't think he anticipated the reaction it received. Despite being a fantastic piece of software and a superb compliment to FM, the majority just weren't prepared to pay. He changed his mind and the application was free.

On the whole, the majority of FM gamers wouldn't pay for extras while others are offering them for free. FM is a fantastic example of an open community of individuals putting effort into work and sharing it with others, simply to feel the reward of seeing their work in action and gaining recognition from fellow FM gamers.

No point in charging something thats gonna last like a few months and then renderd useless when a new game comes out

From a fan point of view, i wouldn't go down the route of charging for "add-ons" to the game.

When Genie decided to charge a small fee for his Scout application, i don't think he anticipated the reaction it received. Despite being a fantastic piece of software and a superb compliment to FM, the majority just weren't prepared to pay. He changed his mind and the application was free.

On the whole, the majority of FM gamers wouldn't pay for extras while others are offering them for free. FM is a fantastic example of an open community of individuals putting effort into work and sharing it with others, simply to feel the reward of seeing their work in action and gaining recognition from fellow FM gamers.

That is a good point and i am completely aware of that,but i don't have plans like i it sounds,i don't pretend to get rich this way,maybe just pay for hosting,with very quality stuff.And its all because there is a lot of very good affiliate sites,but they are made with love,but people who made them simply don't have time to make it perfect,and i always wanted one perfect site,with everything on it,and there was times when i was really prepared to pay for this.Anyway,this is not definite decision(to charge for things that maybe should be free),but i want to be completely sure what i can,and what i cant do,because i don't want any legal troubles

You couldn't charge for skins. If you charged for downloading skins made by other people then you're breaking copyright law. Even if you made your own skins and put them up for paid download they'd be based on SI's code - again you'd be breaking copyright law by doing so.

The whole idea of charging people for downloads on an FM community site is utterly terrible in general too.

The whole idea of charging people for downloads on an FM community site is utterly terrible in general too.

Its utterly terrible idea to charge for my work?then its terrrible idea to charge for game avery single year just because somene else is working on it...An of course i would never offer for paid download something that someone else made or done,i am not that idiot

i am not that idiot

Urm. Really?

And just to make things clear.If someone asked me to pay for face pack i downloaded(the only thing i ever downloaded for fm),i would never pay for it.Because i found one in 5 minutes.But if i couldn't find it for some time,and someone offered me all downloads in one place for 1 or 2$,thrust me,i would pay with pleasure.And while there is 95% of people that would never pay fore something,i think 5% is enough for me to try with my idea.But i am not talking here about moral.i am talking about what can i do without breaking any laws

It's a terrible idea to charge for downloading your work if you're trying to be part of the FM community, yes. You cannot compare it to a company making money from video game development.

It goes against the whole idea of a community, where people are producing amazing work and letting people enjoy it for free.

If you're really bothered about it from a legal point of view rather than a moral one, I'll add some info for you:

1. Facepacks, Logos, Kits - You could not legally charge for things like that as they use copyrighted likenesses of real life players, kits and logos.

2. Skins - You couldn't legally charge for these either. As I said above even if you produce your own skins, they'd be based and and would contain code written by SI.

It's a terrible idea to charge for downloading your work if you're trying to be part of the FM community, yes. You cannot compare it to a company making money from video game development.

It goes against the whole idea of a community, where people are producing amazing work and letting people enjoy it for free.

I must say I admire people like hm...i want name them...but there are lots of people doing great things here,giving advices,writing articles...And they are really something special.But we all live other lives.I love FM and play game since cm01/02,but play few ours for fun,and other things,i do for money.I am buying things for money,so i have to ask for money for my work.Many of community members have their jobs,and do this for fun,I am making thematic web sites for living,and i am really sorry if it hurts someone,but that was not my question at the beggining

If you're really bothered about it from a legal point of view rather than a moral one, I'll add some info for you:

1. Facepacks, Logos, Kits - You could not legally charge for things like that as they use copyrighted likenesses of real life players, kits and logos.

2. Skins - You couldn't legally charge for these either. As I said above even if you produce your own skins, they'd be based and and would contain code written by SI.

That's the answer i needed.Now I know that all of this stuffs are copyrighted and respect this,otherwise i wouldn't be posting here.But initial idea would be to charge some symbolic fee(or whatever fee i decide) for registering on my site,and downloads would,as everything else be free,so actually i am not charging for downloads,but for access to mu site.I should explain this at the beginning but everyone started to attack me so i couldn't say what i wanted.So from now on,my only question is IS my idea legal or not and why.Thx

Radestock has given you your answer. Legally, you cannot charge for facepacks, logos, kits or skins. I suspect tactics and training files, because they use SIs code, come under the same as skins.

What's left that you think you can charge for?

Overlap of posts. Whoops.

I don't think anyone can stop you having a subscription charge for your website, but you'd have to be very clear that you weren't charging for content. I've seen other sites that charge for their hosting (FM Base maybe?).

If people paid £x and then got access to the 'free' downloads, in my mind that still effectively means you are charging for them.

Anyway, with all the awesome free stuff out there on the 'scene' I don't think it's worthwhile doing it at all.

It might be an indirect charge, but it's a charge for using your website's features. One of those features is a set of downloads then you're still essentially charging for those downloads.

As 'lurkingwithintent' (you could have picked something shorter when you changed user names!) mentions though it wouldn't be worthwhile. I mentioned the moral side of this as it's something to consider from a 'business' point of view too. I'd say that if you're looking to cover server costs as you mention above, then you'd possibly make more money from donations by running a popular free site with lots of members willing to help out than you would from running an unpopular paid for downloads site.

Overlap of posts. Whoops.

I don't think anyone can stop you having a subscription charge for your website, but you'd have to be very clear that you weren't charging for content. I've seen other sites that charge for their hosting (FM Base maybe?).

yeah like sortitoutsi.com or whatever its called..

I believe that, legally speaking, you can charge to cover costs incurred upon you - e.g. hosting, bandwidth use based costs, etc... but it would be considered illegal if you make any profits - as you wouldn't hold the copyright or patent to the product/service your providing.

Firstly, I am not a lawyer and this cannot be counted as legal advice. If you need proper legal advice, seek appropriate avenues.

If you're really bothered about it from a legal point of view rather than a moral one, I'll add some info for you:

1. Facepacks, Logos, Kits - You could not legally charge for things like that as they use copyrighted likenesses of real life players, kits and logos.

Well not really, unless he actually goes and photographs everything himself (i.e. every single player, logo and kit). Then those images become his copyright and he may be allowed to sell them.

Slightly less murky is the logo and kit part, of course. Although the images will be copyrighted by you, the logos are still trademarked (maybe the kits as well - I'm not sure). It would generally be alright to sell photographs of yourself in a Coca-Cola tee-shirt - it may not be alright to sell a photograph which clearly only displays the Coca-Cola logo in a high-resolution photograph, for example.

But if I take a photograph of, say, myself with Titus Bramble, I usually will be allowed to sell this photograph in sensible circumstances.

Note of course that there are tons of exceptions in this area. If I use a picture of Titus Bramble to sell my new Titus Bramble calendar, then Bramble's, Wigan's and his sponsors' lawyers will unlikely to be happy with me. If I provide a set of images for the game, then maybe not. Informative vs. exploiting marketing? Hm. I wouldn't touch this area at all, personally. It's far too murky.

The more I think about it, the answer tends to no! One or two photographs may be no big deal (see signed photographs going on eBay all the time and people selling photographs to newspapers) - photographs of a whole team or league may draw angry glares from various quarters.

2. Skins - You couldn't legally charge for these either. As I said above even if you produce your own skins, they'd be based and and would contain code written by SI.

I only have the Football Manager 2008 CD on me at the moment (still in my drive after another long season), but I'd imagine this is true for Football Manager 2010 too. SI have put this in:

3. Use of the Game Software

You agree only to use the Game Software or any part of it in a manner which is consistent with this Licence and you SHALL NOT:

[snipped]

(f) reverse engineer, derive source code, modify, decompile, disassemble, or create derivative works of the Game Software modify, adapt, merge, translate, decompile or disassemble the Game Software or any part of it (save as the applicable law expressly permits whereupon all and any modification, adaptations, improvements etc shall belong to, vest in and be the exclusive property of Sports Interactive on creation in any event);

So no, you can't sell things like skins.

But wait, does this contradict what I said above? Not necessarily. I don't know how facepacks work but if it's something which involves some of the code, then no you cannot sell it. You can probably sell a set of images without any sort of source code binding, possibly with instructions (again, this is murky), as you own those images' copyrights and are entitled to do so.

Again, I am not a lawyer and this cannot be counted as legal advice. If you need proper legal advice, seek appropriate avenues.

Basically, no-one would pay anyway, so whether it is legal or morally okay or not isn't an issue. No-one would pay so you are on to a loser from the beginning.

Well I'm not going to dwell into any legal advice here but I'll say that there's really no point in trying to do any of this as people would simply go look for the same things that are offered free of charge, and there are plenty of places that do. In all honesty, I think you'd be wasting your time and efforts in trying to convince people to pay for such things.

On top of it, several posters here have said it correctly, this is a community, like many other communities for other games. People make content and share it with others. This is what makes the community great, a free exchange of everything from ideas to any kind of eye candy for the game.

Now, plenty of website/forums have set up ways to donate to themselves in order to help with running costs, however, these are donations through and through, completely optional. If you say that you would want to raise money for helping to pay for the server or what not, then you'll most likely have to specify that that is what you're looking for, not start charging people money for game content as a guise for it.

Why would we pay for something we can get free at sortitoutsi.net, you might make more money just begging for donations like they do.

I am sorry but this sounds like someone trying to make a quick buck out of something every day people make on a day to day basis and offer it up for free. I think you would be best trying to catch on to the ebay boom (or is that dead now as well?)

Whatever you want to provide, if you are able to use it in the game, it is therefore based on the games code, which SI provide, so you could not charge from a copyright point of view - directly for the download or indirectly via a charge for using the site.

Even if this is a normal jpg. If the implication was that if you download it to use in the game, you are impying use in the game, and therein the games code.

End of.

Lets take an example from real life shall we?

sortitoutsi.com have downloads which are free however you have to download them from filefront and the like.

They have a sceme which if you register and pay a quid a month then you use their site.

Why in the world would you want to do that?

Overlap of posts. Whoops.

I don't think anyone can stop you having a subscription charge for your website, but you'd have to be very clear that you weren't charging for content. I've seen other sites that charge for their hosting (FM Base maybe?).

FM-Base ask for donations towards hosting, but there's no obligation to do so. Same as with most non-commercial sites which generate a lot of traffic really.

As for charging for content as the OP suggested, well I chuckled. I hope no-one is silly enough to waste their money buying 'Super Tactic Number 1' etc and will instead continue to support fan sites which don't try to do this.

It might be an indirect charge, but it's a charge for using your website's features. One of those features is a set of downloads then you're still essentially charging for those downloads.

As 'lurkingwithintent' (you could have picked something shorter when you changed user names!) mentions though it wouldn't be worthwhile. I mentioned the moral side of this as it's something to consider from a 'business' point of view too. I'd say that if you're looking to cover server costs as you mention above, then you'd possibly make more money from donations by running a popular free site with lots of members willing to help out than you would from running an unpopular paid for downloads site.

Just call me lurkin

Donations is a much better way to go. For example, FMRTE is a free program but a fair few people donate to it as they appreciate the author taking a lot of their time to create such a piece.