Quote:Original post by paulecoyote
Hi, just wanted clarification of the legal stuff (I'm sure it's changed a little over the last few days)

(Quotes from http://www.gamedev.net/community/contest/4e4/ )

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The entrant retains any and all rights of ownership, intellectual property rights and all other rights entrant may have in and to the entry.

So we get to keep and use our entry how we like...

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Notwithstanding mentioned ownership rights, by entering, the entrant personally or on behalf of their company grant GameDev.net permanent

permanent... okay...

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, non-exclusive, world-wide rights and a license, but not an obligation, free of any charge or compensation, to use, edit, copy, distribute and publish all or part of the entry,

Okay so that's basically keeping it on your website for free... fair enough...

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and all rights subsidiary to and derivative from the entry, in any medium now known or invented in the future, for promotional, advertising or demonstration purposes for GameDev.net's products or services or for GameDev.net generally.

... Okay thats the bit that worries me... what if the game actually ended up to be really rather good - and (very unlikely I know) some publisher thought "hey, this could be developed and shined up a bit and make money" - or a later version the author might want to make shareware?

Is this saying that Gamedev.net would own anything based on the entry and have the same distributing free of the entry even if a deriavtive (later version) was made as a commerical venture by the original author?

I don't see Gamedev.net as being evil though, and I'm pretty sure that you meant things like taking screenshots from the entry, perhaps little video clips and the like to promote Gamedev.net... because

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The entrant retains any and all rights of ownership, intellectual property rights and all other rights entrant may have in and to the entry.

... kind of makes me think you guys meant "you can keep the game and do what you like with it, just let us use whatever you entered to promote ourselves".

That is exactly what is said. They will use it for promotional or advertising purposes. No selling of the entry. The "derivative" portion refers to the rights aforementioned in the sentence, not a derivative product.

Yes. By entering you are providing GameDev with the right to "distribute" what you submitted indefinately (i.e. it can stay free for download on the contest page). However if you read the next part carefully: "and all rights subsidiary to and derivative from the entry". What you submit to us is the entry, and so we have full distribution rights to any "derivative" work we create from that entry (i.e. screenshots, videos, a CD of entries. In theory if we could "hack" the entry to add new functionality, we would have distribution rights on that new functionality, though you can be assured that's not the intent). You however maintain full rights and ownership of the original product, you'll note the rights passage says: "entrant retains any and all rights of ownership, intellectual property rights and all other rights entrant may have in and to the entry". The "entry" you submit is a seperate entity from your product - think of it like a fork. The specific build you submit as an entry is what we have distribution and modication rights to. You maintain full rights over the original product itself and any derivatives. If you where to make a new build, it would be part of your privately owned trunk, and not part of the fork that we call the "entry". By submitting your entry you are not binding yourself to some sort of GPL agreement with GameDev, the legal rules exist only so that GameDev can display, distribute and promote your contest entry without legel impediment.

EDIT: Bah, you are your easy to read one word answer. Damn your clarity!