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Can you include other parties free assets when submitting an asset in the store?
I've read this: http://unity3d.com/company/legal/as_provider and this http://unity3d.com/company/legal/as_terms
But I didn't find a straight answer. Let's say I wanted to include a free asset provided by Unity in the Asset Store with no special license, could I do that?
Answer by Eric5h5 · Dec 29, 2012 at 04:07 AM
By default you can't include other assets. In section 3.8 of the default EULA: "You agree that you will not, and will not allow any third party to, (i) copy, sell, license, distribute, transfer, modify, adapt, translate, prepare derivative works from, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Assets, unless otherwise permitted." Free or not doesn't make any difference. The only way you could is if the asset includes a license expressly allowing it.
The other issue is that if the asset you're including got updates, it wouldn't be updated in your package unless you update your package as well, which potentially adds complication and unnecessary duplication.
$$anonymous$$mm, makes sense... Ok, I guess I'll have to work with what I have and reinvent the wheel multiple times :)
Answer by whydoidoit · Dec 29, 2012 at 01:49 AM
Assets on the store may be licensed under standard terms or under MIT licensing terms. MIT licensed assets can certainly be included in anything without any restriction whatsoever. You can tell the terms of a particular license by checking on the license entry in the asset or on the Asset Store.
My Unity Serializer is MIT licensed and there are no restrictions on its use or inclusion in other packages.
Answer by Geo.Ego · Dec 28, 2012 at 07:50 PM
2.2 Licensor grants to the END-USER a non-exclusive, worldwide, and perpetu- al license to the Asset to integrate Assets only as incorporated and embed- ded components of electronic games and interactive media and distribute such electronic game and interactive media. END-USER may otherwise not reproduce, distribute, sublicense, rent, lease or lend the Assets. It is emphasized that the END-USERS shall not be entitled to distribute or transfer in any way (including, without, limitation by way of sublicense) the Assets in any other way than as integrated components of electronic games and inter- active media. Without limitation of the foregoing it is emphasized that END- USER shall not be entitled to share the costs related to purchasing an Asset and then let any third party that has contributed to such purchase use such Asset (forum pooling).
I would think this is the key section in the agreement. I am not a lawyer, but I would think that redistributing assets as a portion of Asset Store downloads would not qualify as "components of electronic games and interactive media", or at the very least, would not go in the spirit of that statement.
I think to be entirely safe, you should email assetstore@unity3d.com and get an official answer. I sent them the question as well as a link here, so hopefully we'll get one.
Thanks. It makes sense to me for purchased assets, but for free ones distributed by Unity itself... it would be a shame if you had to reinvent the wheel
Answer by Owen-Reynolds · Dec 29, 2012 at 01:31 AM
I'd say you generally wouldn't want to include other people's stuff in yours, even if you were allowed to.
Free or not, it looks a little like plagiarism.
Maybe your part is completely different from the part you borrow (your code, using free Unity textures.) But then you might be better off using obvious placeholder art.
And free Unity assets tend to be just OK -- one step up from placeholders. No knock on Unity -- "everyone" knows game engine assets always need to be replaced with better ones.
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