scene and money
category: general [glöplog]
Hi everybody,
I recently got another request for a permission to add one of our demos to a commercial DVD-release. We would get some percentage as reward. I am a little confused about this:
pro:
- demos are made to be spread and shown
- having something of my stuff on a dvd gives a slight ego boost
Con:
- I hate dealing with money.
- How to split up the money (if there will ever be some) between the involved people. (sounds like a lot of organizing work, too).
- Why not provide the demo on the DVD for free?
- I hate dealing with long contracts with a lot of legal-shit. These contracts scare me shitlessly.
- Nobody of us needs the money for living anyway.
- I am affraid of having to deal with the finance office about this.
For me the perfect solution would be some kind of non-profit organisation like Digitale Kultur e.V. whom I could donate all the commercial reselling to. They could handle all the contracts, taxes and so on and use the earned money to help scene.org or little partys of something like this.
I guess I am not the only one who got requests like this. I just wonder, how you guys deal with this stuff.
pixtur
(Sorry for bad English)
I recently got another request for a permission to add one of our demos to a commercial DVD-release. We would get some percentage as reward. I am a little confused about this:
pro:
- demos are made to be spread and shown
- having something of my stuff on a dvd gives a slight ego boost
Con:
- I hate dealing with money.
- How to split up the money (if there will ever be some) between the involved people. (sounds like a lot of organizing work, too).
- Why not provide the demo on the DVD for free?
- I hate dealing with long contracts with a lot of legal-shit. These contracts scare me shitlessly.
- Nobody of us needs the money for living anyway.
- I am affraid of having to deal with the finance office about this.
For me the perfect solution would be some kind of non-profit organisation like Digitale Kultur e.V. whom I could donate all the commercial reselling to. They could handle all the contracts, taxes and so on and use the earned money to help scene.org or little partys of something like this.
I guess I am not the only one who got requests like this. I just wonder, how you guys deal with this stuff.
pixtur
(Sorry for bad English)
You won't see any money anyways, so it just doesn't matter.
i did a demoshow at an art exhibition this weekend, the fee for expenses will be donated to our party (outline), exactly for the reasons you describe :)
It seems like a bit of a waste to turn the money down, but if it's small change and involves contracts etc. maybe set your royalties at zero? You'd probably still have to sign though..
If you take the money.. well, if you need it then you have to sort it out between the group. If not, there's a ton of options really. Donate it to scene.org or whatever, spend it on a wild night out for the whole group, or use it to rent out a dancing monkey and film it for your next demo.
If you take the money.. well, if you need it then you have to sort it out between the group. If not, there's a ton of options really. Donate it to scene.org or whatever, spend it on a wild night out for the whole group, or use it to rent out a dancing monkey and film it for your next demo.
Isn't the money-splitting problem more or less exactly the same as with compo-prizes anyway?
Con:
- having the community throwing shit all over you for being commercial sellout whores ;)
- having the community throwing shit all over you for being commercial sellout whores ;)
just make sure you don't sign anything where you end up having to take responsibility for content (stolen, borrowed or otherwise legally entangled). If there is anything like this in the contract, rewrite it so that the publishers are the ones taking full responsibility before signing.
That, plus obvious things like don't give away any rights to your own work, or don't give permission for them to use your stuff indefinitely. Make sure your commitment (whatever it might be) has a clearly defined end.
In the end, save any income for drinks at the next party your group attends. That's the "no-hazzle" way of splitting dirty money :)
That, plus obvious things like don't give away any rights to your own work, or don't give permission for them to use your stuff indefinitely. Make sure your commitment (whatever it might be) has a clearly defined end.
In the end, save any income for drinks at the next party your group attends. That's the "no-hazzle" way of splitting dirty money :)
Most have been said already, but I'll add one Pro:
- When people pay for something, they are more inclined to treat it with respect because value is associated with it.
That being said, if you're getting nothing up-front and just a (small, I guess :) percentage from the back-end sales, the above argument might become void really fast.. and yes, you'll probably not see any money anyway. :)
- When people pay for something, they are more inclined to treat it with respect because value is associated with it.
That being said, if you're getting nothing up-front and just a (small, I guess :) percentage from the back-end sales, the above argument might become void really fast.. and yes, you'll probably not see any money anyway. :)
pixtur, seeing this as a commercial release it's just natural that you're going to get a little outcome from that, else it would be a big damn ripoff and you wouldn't want that.
to be honest, this smells like a german thing, people over here are usually pre-emptively over-secure and rather bid you money than not getting anything at all in the end.
also, i don't think the finance office is going to get after you, unless it overrides that certain amount you usually don't have to lay open. from my side, there's way too much semi-ethical cons on your list, but the actual emotionally hurting one was missing out, but gladly mentioned from our jägermeister-loving-mate from hungary:
:D
and so far, all the dvd/magazine-cd-requests that i was involved in didn't involve any money at all. all i was promised is fame, so i'm looking forward for the big break. :)
let's have a talk about that anytime soon. =)
to be honest, this smells like a german thing, people over here are usually pre-emptively over-secure and rather bid you money than not getting anything at all in the end.
also, i don't think the finance office is going to get after you, unless it overrides that certain amount you usually don't have to lay open. from my side, there's way too much semi-ethical cons on your list, but the actual emotionally hurting one was missing out, but gladly mentioned from our jägermeister-loving-mate from hungary:
Quote:
Con:
- having the community throwing shit all over you for being commercial sellout whores ;)
:D
and so far, all the dvd/magazine-cd-requests that i was involved in didn't involve any money at all. all i was promised is fame, so i'm looking forward for the big break. :)
let's have a talk about that anytime soon. =)
Quote:
or use it to rent out a dancing monkey and film it for your next demo.
Sounds cool! :D
buy ATI demoboxes from the money
or a goodlooking stripper for the next bp.
I don't expect to get any money, either. But this wouldn't keep them from wanting a contract to be signed. And these contracts are ten or more page long monsters which are very(!) hard to understand without legal background. Hyde already names the points that hurt most. But I doubt any of those people would accept a denial of those issues.
I remember that XXX once suggested to have some kind of copyright database for demescene releases. We (at still/lkcc) never really cared for a license -- something which now turns out to be a big mistake: We should have added some kind of light CC.
Also, it would be cool to have a legally correct standard contract for demo scene people, how to grant somebody the right of commercial usage (DVD, TV, interviews, public viewing on festivals, etc) for free. Then you could just tell their layers: "I will sign this or nothing".
I remember that XXX once suggested to have some kind of copyright database for demescene releases. We (at still/lkcc) never really cared for a license -- something which now turns out to be a big mistake: We should have added some kind of light CC.
Also, it would be cool to have a legally correct standard contract for demo scene people, how to grant somebody the right of commercial usage (DVD, TV, interviews, public viewing on festivals, etc) for free. Then you could just tell their layers: "I will sign this or nothing".
Quote:
- When people pay for something, they are more inclined to treat it with respect because value is associated with it.
in fact when people have paid, they don't have the honesty to say something is shit, because they would rather think that they haven't wasted their money
first:
i like the term=dirty for this sort of money !
second:
i myself dont need that much money at all...
...but,if i would get such a request,i would do exactly what other ppl and youself stated already:
get a CC-License first,then go through that 10-pages-monster-of-a-contract ( maybe Digitale Kultur E.V. does that job atleast mostly for you anyway then,dunno! ask them! ) and afterwards just split up the money into as many parts as ppl involved ( like if you win a compo ) !
my way would be trying to count overall_hours_spent multiplied by an amount_of_money you think you deserve for your hobby_per_hour divided through ppl_involved ...and thats what every1 gets...the rest should go straight back into your groups-wallet ( sth you could use if some1 has no money to visit a party or sth alike! ) or into anything else demoscene-related,as you stated yourself already :)
i wouldnt give a fuck about anyone telling me sth about demoscene-sellout btw ;)
scene is scene,stays scene and will forever be SCENE! ( and if some1 makes some bucks out of it,why not...it´ll mostly help scene again anyway,as most ppl have a good-paid-job :) )
last sentence: if you could need the money for reallife,take it and use it,why not! ( if you need all_the_money,you should ask your group-mates tho,lol ) ...there could be times_without_any_money again whyever... ;)
Quote:
way of splitting dirty money :)
i like the term=dirty for this sort of money !
second:
i myself dont need that much money at all...
...but,if i would get such a request,i would do exactly what other ppl and youself stated already:
get a CC-License first,then go through that 10-pages-monster-of-a-contract ( maybe Digitale Kultur E.V. does that job atleast mostly for you anyway then,dunno! ask them! ) and afterwards just split up the money into as many parts as ppl involved ( like if you win a compo ) !
my way would be trying to count overall_hours_spent multiplied by an amount_of_money you think you deserve for your hobby_per_hour divided through ppl_involved ...and thats what every1 gets...the rest should go straight back into your groups-wallet ( sth you could use if some1 has no money to visit a party or sth alike! ) or into anything else demoscene-related,as you stated yourself already :)
i wouldnt give a fuck about anyone telling me sth about demoscene-sellout btw ;)
scene is scene,stays scene and will forever be SCENE! ( and if some1 makes some bucks out of it,why not...it´ll mostly help scene again anyway,as most ppl have a good-paid-job :) )
last sentence: if you could need the money for reallife,take it and use it,why not! ( if you need all_the_money,you should ask your group-mates tho,lol ) ...there could be times_without_any_money again whyever... ;)
Scene ain't nuthin' but bitches and money!
Pimps 'n Ho's....
Quote:
Thou shalt remember that guns, bitches and bling were never part of the four elements and never will be.
10-page contract? Yikes. I wouldn't sign it - just say that the software is released under this and that license, deal with it - the money can go to the local red cross or whatever..
sol_hsa: A license and a contract for use that include a payout are two different things - of course payment has to be regulated by a contract. Remember: the people releasing this DVD has to protect themselves as well, so I'm guessing a "Oh yeah, I did indeed make this myself and I didn't use any copyrighted material"-clause is part of such a 10-pager. If not, the people wanting to license the demo are idiots. :)
a commercial dvd release of what by the way ?
what pohar said
here's a little AFAIK:
legally there is no difference between the contract required if you get paid or one if you give it out for free. *commonly* things given for free are generally agreed upon by speech only, i.e. a oral contract (which is legal too, just a bit hard to prove the existence of if needed), and things with payment typically have a paper contract.
if you trust them enough to give your work to them for free and want to do this without any paper work, you're in fact entering an oral contract with them. this means that it's relatively easy for them to abuse you by somehow taking your work and doing something else with it than agreed.
note that all of that has nothing to do with the fact that you intend to give it for free - the only thing why non-free things are typically covered by a paper contract is because when people pay/receive money, they typically want to be more precise about what is being sold, to prevent any nasty surprises afterwards.
as such, if you trust them enough to give them permission to use your work for free and with only an oral contract, you can just as easily enter an oral contract where they agree give you some percentage of the royalties. whether or not to put things on paper is pretty unrelated to all that.
about tax, in holland the tax sheet has a field for "other income", which is elaborated as being income from hobbies, volunteer work, etcetera. i guess such a field should exist in other countries too. if you really want to formally file that income, you can fill it out there. i'd just not report it, nobody's going to find out and it's surely not going to be big. consider it demoparty prize money - nobody puts that in taxes either. the same holds if you want to donate it to sceneorg or digitale kultur; just transfer the money. unless you support all kinds of charities with large sums (after which typically charity donations aren't tax-deductible anymore), the tax office doesn't care.
legally there is no difference between the contract required if you get paid or one if you give it out for free. *commonly* things given for free are generally agreed upon by speech only, i.e. a oral contract (which is legal too, just a bit hard to prove the existence of if needed), and things with payment typically have a paper contract.
if you trust them enough to give your work to them for free and want to do this without any paper work, you're in fact entering an oral contract with them. this means that it's relatively easy for them to abuse you by somehow taking your work and doing something else with it than agreed.
note that all of that has nothing to do with the fact that you intend to give it for free - the only thing why non-free things are typically covered by a paper contract is because when people pay/receive money, they typically want to be more precise about what is being sold, to prevent any nasty surprises afterwards.
as such, if you trust them enough to give them permission to use your work for free and with only an oral contract, you can just as easily enter an oral contract where they agree give you some percentage of the royalties. whether or not to put things on paper is pretty unrelated to all that.
about tax, in holland the tax sheet has a field for "other income", which is elaborated as being income from hobbies, volunteer work, etcetera. i guess such a field should exist in other countries too. if you really want to formally file that income, you can fill it out there. i'd just not report it, nobody's going to find out and it's surely not going to be big. consider it demoparty prize money - nobody puts that in taxes either. the same holds if you want to donate it to sceneorg or digitale kultur; just transfer the money. unless you support all kinds of charities with large sums (after which typically charity donations aren't tax-deductible anymore), the tax office doesn't care.
