HISE Commercial Licence

[d.healey]

@Robert-Puza said in HISE Commercial Licence:

Exactly. But if the combination of modules, etc. change it by 0.000001 mm and it's not mine anymore. Or not?

If you change a line of code then I guess (I'm no lawyer) you can claim a copyright on that change, but it doesn't affect the rest of the code.

[Robert Puza]

@d-healey Okay. I don't understand programming at all and I don't know the code language. So forgive me for possibly stupid questions

I always respect copyright. I'm just saying that the copyright on my own preset of existing software (open source) is funny.

[Robert Puza]

@Robert-Puza e.g. I will design and implement the reverb control in my instrument. and the user will get the copyright for setting the reverb that I enabled? I designed it so that only a small part of the reverb control is available. so that from the sound designer's point of view the user cannot mess up my settings. And he will get the copyright for setting the algorithm that I compiled because the creator of Hise gave me a tool for it? it's funny

[d.healey]

@Robert-Puza said in HISE Commercial Licence:

the user will get the copyright for setting the reverb that I enabled?

The user doesn't get a copyright, only the person who made the software.

[Robert Puza]

@d-healey ok Hise creator is a creator or not? me too? you too?

[Lindon]

@Robert-Puza said in HISE Commercial Licence:

@Robert-Puza e.g. I will design and implement the reverb control in my instrument. and the user will get the copyright for setting the reverb that I enabled? I designed it so that only a small part of the reverb control is available. so that from the sound designer's point of view the user cannot mess up my settings. And he will get the copyright for setting the algorithm that I compiled because the creator of Hise gave me a tool for it? it's funny

Well this is a poor understanding of copyright... you have a copyright over the product you made, and yes the user has a copyright over the preset they make...but......

Copyright is a right - a right to sue/prosecute someone for stealing your intellectual property and passing it off as their own,...but...you(or they) will need to prove that the intellectual property in question does not already exist in the public domain, or as prior art(that someone else made one just-or sufficiently- like it before you/them..). If it does exist in the public domain or there is prior art then you dont have a case that needs to be answered.....

So the case of a preset for a reverb FX, for example, is in the end such a finite (and small) number of possible combinations of settings then there is a very very good chance that prior art exists, and that art is in the public domain, and any sane judge would throw you out of court and award costs to your opponent. So in the end we dont generally consider stuff like presets to be copyrightable in any sense.

But in any case, copyright allows you to sue someone for the losses you incurred, so even if you win a copyright case you then need to prove that you had some financial loss(direct or indirect) from your opponents actions, and/or that they gained a financial benefit, and that you are entitled to some (or all ) of this revenue. So again a single Reverb preset - isnt going to fly.....

[d.healey]

@Robert-Puza said in HISE Commercial Licence:

ok Hise creator is a creator or not? me too? you too?

ROLI has copyright for JUCE, Christoph has copyright for HISE, you have copyright over anything you create with HISE.

[d.healey]

@Lindon said in HISE Commercial Licence:

Copyright is a right - a right to sue/prosecute someone for stealing your intellectual property

Oh that's a dark view :)

My take is lighter, I see it as the right to make copies and share them with others.

According to the US constitution it exists to promote science and art. By granting authors (for a limited time) an exclusive copyright.

Disney and the like kind of ruined it and turned it into a method to profit from and restrict users/viewers - even after the original author is long dead!

[Robert Puza]

@d-healey I understand. Thanks for the explanation.

[Lindon]

@d-healey said in HISE Commercial Licence:

@Lindon said in HISE Commercial Licence:

Copyright is a right - a right to sue/prosecute someone for stealing your intellectual property

Oh that's a dark view :)

Dark or not its whats written into copyright law, but yes without these laws we would have no shoulders of giants to stand on...

Disney and the like kind of ruined it and turned it into a method to profit from and restrict users/viewers - even after the original author is long dead!

• Yes Disney rorted the system good and proper. Shame on them.

[Robert Puza]

@d-healey Ok. Thanks

[HISEnberg]

@Lindon @Christoph-Hart @d-healey what are your thoughts on "distributing the source code" under GPL3? Does this entail simply publishing your folder on something like GitHub or displaying that link on the your website? Or are you obliged to send a link to the GitHub repo with each sale? I suppose this implies that a motivated user could download your product for free but there seems to exist a grey area around what "reasonably accessible" means. Also it is my understanding that you only need to distribute this after the sale...

Also JUCE's EULA is somewhat unclear to me, but it looks like for individual "Starter" subscription, if you make less then $20k annually you can create products that are closed source (not subject to their AGPLv3).

[d.healey]

@HISEnberg You need to make the source code available to each person you distribute the binary to. I just host mine on Codeberg and put a link on my site.

[HISEnberg]

@d-healey Wonderful thank you for sharing. I imagine that samples do not need to be distributed but I usually work on FX anyways.

[Christoph Hart]

@HISEnberg There are two different "requirements". One that is the legal minimum and one that I would consider fair use (in the sense that you really want to publish an open source project that people are supposed to modify and not just cheap out on the licensing fees for JUCE and HISE).

1. The legal minimum requires that you provide everyone that you give the binary the source code of your project. This can be done on request, so you can hide the repository and try to make it as opaque as possible that you're rolling with the GPL, but you can not deny such a request. Furthermore you cannot restrict the publication of your work so anyone is free to upload and share your project.
2. Fair use (and practically how almost all HISE based open source projects do it) is to publish the HISE project folder on GitHub or other repository hosting services and put a link on your product page (or company website). If your projects uses samples then I would assume that there is some way for people to get those samples without paying you money, but this is not a legal requirement and I would expect that 90% of your customers won't compile your project to save some bucks.

[HISEnberg]

@Christoph-Hart Great answer and thank you for clarifying. Personally I don't really care about protecting my product, most people are free to do whatever they want with any code I write. My concern is more using other source code, and sometimes I work with people who don't want to go the GPL route, so it is all good information to have.

[Robert Puza]

@Christoph-Hart Thank you for the information and for your attention

[dannytaurus]

I'll just flip everything 180° here and ask about completely closed source projects.

I don't want to release any of the source code, visual assets or audio assets for my plugins.

My annual revenue is within the HISE Indie plan (given that it will start at $0) and within the JUCE Indie limit.

Under these conditions I'll need to pay $50/mo for HISE Indie license and $40/mo for JUCE Indie license. Correct?

And how is the HISE annual revenue calculated? Would I just start the annual period when I start the Indie license, then 12 months later if I have earned more that $50k from HISE products move to the Pro license?

Answered here:

What if my revenue exceeds the threshhold of the INDIE tier after a certain time?
If the revenue of products made with HISE exceed 50.0000€ within the last 12 months, you will need to upgrade to the PRO license - just cancel the Fastspring subscription for the INDIE license and get a PRO license.

And just to clarify a different situation - if I wanted to give away all my HISE products for free but keep them closed source I still need the HISE commercial license? Correct?

Answered here:

Do I need a commercial license if I want to release a free product?
Yes. The commercial license does not make a difference between paid and free products - as soon as you don't want to release your HISE product under the GPL license, you'll need a commercial license, which will also be the case for free products. Be aware that you can always release free products under the GPL license and the real world implications for free products are almost neglible.

[Robert Puza]

@Christoph-Hart Good. I understand. I will start with a non-commercial project. I upload the folder project to github. I will use the samples from Github. Can I do this no commerce project as a private person? without organization, without companies? All under GPL3

[d.healey]

@Robert-Puza said in HISE Commercial Licence:

Can I do this no commerce project as a private person? without organization, without companies? All under GPL3

Yes