is donation a commercial activity?
Faraz Azhar
Im making a project and using lots of icons and controls made by other
people in it. All such controls/icons are either free complete or
partial free ie. payment required for commercial use.
Now I am not planning to sell my project. I will put it online on WWW
for download, and there will be an option in it that if you like the
software then please donate.
Is this considered a commercial activity and would I be violating the
restrictions of icons / controls providers ?
-
Faraz Azhar
Ralph
"Faraz Azhar" <itzf...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:6d6901ab-69f0-4cf1...@13g2000prl.googlegroups.com...
Probably. Almost a certainity if you ask a lawyer for a "legal
determination". You may also be in tax trouble if you don't report your
"donations". It of course depends on the fine-print of the providers.
Why not just ask the providers if it bothers them? Many don't care as long
as they get credit. Some will like the fact you asked, others may be
horribly offended.
-ralph
dpb
> "Faraz Azhar" <itzf...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:6d6901ab-69f0-4cf1...@13g2000prl.googlegroups.com...
>> Hello
>> Now I am not planning to sell my project. I will put it online on WWW
>> for download, and there will be an option in it that if you like the
>> software then please donate.
>>
>> Is this considered a commercial activity and would I be violating the
>> restrictions of icons / controls providers ?
You're trying to finesse an obvious attempt to derive financial gain by
calling it a donation.
Depending on your place of residence tax law will be (slightly)
different but I would be surprised to find any taxing entity that would
_not_ consider such "donations" as taxable income.
General advice--don't try to rely on nuances such as what the meaning of
"is" is... :(
--
Eduardo
I think it is.
I remember the cases of sites that provide links to pirated music and
the only thing that the RIAA could find (i'm talking about some years
ago) is that they had advertising and I think I remember that also
because they accepted donations, so they considered they were profiting
with the links to the illegal content and could make the justice to
close the sites.
But as other person told you, ask the authors, and if they tell you
there is no problem, keep the e-mails.
Faraz Azhar
> "Faraz Azhar" <itzfa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Well I have no problem asking providers. But I plan on using some
controls for which the providers are asking to charge money if their
controls are used for commercial activity. I dont plan on becoming
rich on my software and i also dont expect to get much donations out
of it, but i'll still have to pay the providers for the control. As
far as taxation is concerned, in my tax jurisdiction.. I am tax exempt
until my annual income is lower than $1875. Obviously I dont expect my
donations to increase more than this :) and i dont have any other
income at the moment.. Im just a student making projects.
Can it be this way that "if" I get donations from customers... then I
pay the providers. But if I dont, then its not a commercial activity
and hence no need to pay the providers?
Can it be like tj
mayayana
Can it be this way that "if" I get donations from customers... then I
pay the providers. But if I dont, then its not a commercial activity
and hence no need to pay the providers?
>
You could set it up that you're inviting donations
for your website rather than for specific software.
On the other hand, you will probably get few if
any donations anyway. So it's probably not worth
the bother.
Personally I steer clear of anyone who wants
payment "for commercial use". That's a petty
attitude. Better to just write your own code than
to deal with people like that.
Jan Hyde
released on Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:41:44 -0700 (PDT) bearing
the following fruit:
Might help if you tell us what the product does. You'll find
that some of these 3rd parties don't define commercial use
purely as you making money. Generally I've found it to
really to mean, not for private use.
Really, you must find out for sure.
--
Jan Hyde
Faraz Azhar
I can build my own controls, its just for saving time that Im using
3rd party. Programming is no issue, problem is i aint good at
graphics. So Difficulty comes when I pick up some icons from the net,
theyre free for private use but some charge for commercial use. Icons
are the only thing mostly bothering me.
mayayana
> Icons
are the only thing mostly bothering me.
>
I did a long search a couple of years ago.
I found lots of icons "with strings attached". It's
like photos: You can easily find thousands, but
then once you start reading the fine print it's
hard to find even one that can be freely used.
I found only one collection that had some
usable icons and was also truly free for the taking.
Unfortunately, now I can't find the link. I named
the folder "iconstore", but a Google search turns
up all sorts of "icon store" sites and none of them
seems to be the one I got mine from.
In case it helps, though, I did find this:
http://www.kombine.net/free
The download is free toolbar icons. They look
like they might be intended for Mac, and the files
are PNG. But the PNGs should be easy enough to
convert, and the license seems to be unrestricting:
-----------------------------------------
Agreement
By using stock icons from The Kombine Group, you agree to the following:
All ownership and copyright of the stock icons remains the property of The
Kombine Group.
The stock icons may not be resold or redistributed in any way beyond
licensed use in your products according to the terms of this license.
All stock icons are provided "As is." You agree not to hold The Kombine
Group liable for any damage that may occur as a result of using these stock
icons.
Stock icons from The Kombine Group may be used by you in an unlimited number
of software or internet products. You may display the stock icons in
documentation, help files, and advertising materials that pertain to these
products. You are free to sell and distribute your products that utilize The
Kombine Group's stock icons without further royalty due to The Kombine
Group.
---------------------------------------
Saga
>rich on my software and i also dont expect to get much donations out
>of it, but i'll still have to pay the providers for the control.
Tell this to the providers, I am sure that most, if not all, will be
understanding
of your status as a student. There is a huge difference between well
established
software houses that offer commercial products and those who have a good
idea, make it available for free to the public, but greatly appreciate any
donations
made. Saga
Saga
Oh yes! This is very important! Always ALWAYS get the terms in writing
and make sure to keep a record of it. You really don't want to get into
"he said" arguments where you cannot produce a solid piece of evidence
to back up your claim. Saga
Schmidt
"mayayana" <mayaX...@rcXXn.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:e0mcjKUC...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> I did a long search a couple of years ago.
> I found lots of icons "with strings attached". It's
> like photos: You can easily find thousands, but
> then once you start reading the fine print it's
> hard to find even one that can be freely used.
Many great iconsets come under one of the
creative-commons licenses - and usually require
only the mentioning of the authors work (usually per
Name and Web-Link) in your About Dialog (or
alternatively at some other suitable place in your Docu-
or Readme-Files).
Here is a great (and huge) set from Yusuke Kamiyamane
(updated very often).
http://www.pinvoke.com/
coming under:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
(having lower requirements than the older versions 2.0/2.5,
now even conform to the "known as somewhat restrictive"
debian-requirements, specified in the DFSG:
http://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses)
other sets are e.g. 'silk' on famfamfam:
http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/
also coming under the CC-by-3.0 as the above sets.
The cairobased wrapper (and widgetset) will support the loading
(+ transparent rendering) of these *.png-icons natively
(either from file, or also from a Resource or ByteArray).
Olaf