Is it legal for paid asset in the store to limit usage based on unity plan used?

so I was surprised to see some assets saying in the bottom of the description that if you are using unity pro or enterprise you cant use this assets(legally) and need to buy monthly plan from the asset creator website.

now it got me wonder, since I don't always read all the docs regarding each asset I buy from the store as I assumed they all can use safely

1. is it legal in terms of unity terms from them to prevent usage even if I bought it from the store?
2. is there some easy of way saying if buying some asset will not allow me commercial usage of it like the one I saw?
3. is the asset creator get info who bought it and who using it?

(I am talking about the unity store only)

 

> is it legal in terms of unity terms from them to prevent usage even if I bought it from the store?

You need a lawyer for this one. This heavily depends on your jurisdiction.

Common sense says that this is not too different from having "income tier" for unity, but common sense may be wrong.

> is there some easy of way saying if buying some asset will not allow me

You need to read standard asset store EULA for assets and see if it is something you agree with ( https://unity.com/legal/as-terms ) . Then, when you buy asset and it uses something OTHER than standard asset store license, you need to carefully check the license and see if you can still use it. That's the only way, pretty much.

 

Thanks, by legally I meant unity terms.. not legal in general, I guess when you upload an asset they have some rules to follow

its kind of different than unity tiers since here unity know which tier I am in, and when they offer me an asset and showing me the price with buy now button I didnt realize they can prevent me from using it so I wonder if unity support this kind of licenses?

I just want to know if they support it, if yes I need to be lot more carful when buying from the store

 

As far as I understand, only select few certified/verified "partner" publishers can opt in to strike a deal with Unity regarding their custom license terms. The only asset that I remember having a custom "enterprise" licensing is Odin Inspector, but there are bound to be more. You can easily identify that by checking the License terms on the right of the product page - and that "Verified Solution" notice specifically should prompt you to check for non-standard license terms:




A run-of-the-mill asset will not have that custom licensing, it really needs to be either a "Verified Solution" or clearly made to support or give access to some company's own services that are (typically) not exclusive to Unity but are generally considered important service providers among game devs (and probably not directly competing with Unity's own services). But this is just my guess - in fact I think you cannot have non-standard EULA without becoming a verified solution first - but I have no data to back this up.

 

Thanks a lot

yes they do have the "Verified Solution" funny enough I though it meant its more safer to use than non verified ones
and yes they also not having the standard License agreement

I think unity should make it more like:

Warning: this is custom license

than

 WHOA this is verify asset you are good to go

am I the only one that this badge give me more confidence when it really should be the opposite?

 

The Verified Solutions program doesn't mean an asset is necessarily higher quality or safer to use, but just that it has a custom license agreed upon with Unity.

 

it just bad misleading name, its not actually "Verified" its "custom license" I hope people will not fall for that I almost used a tool without appropriate license, I don't know what the consequence for the whole project would be without noticing it

 

I mean you can look at the webpage about verified solutions: https://assetstore.unity.com/verified-solutions

Particularly:

In Odin's case it has the option of an enterprise license for large companies. However you can still get a personal license if you're a solo dev or small company and are making less than 200K. And if you're a solo dev making 200K+ then the $250 per year license is pennies at that point.

You haven't mentioned the specific asset but I can only imagine you're talking about Odin.

 

From the same page linked by @spiney199:

For further reading check out the Verified Solutions (https://unity.com/partners/verified-solutions) page. It's not as simple as submitting a request and getting a custom license. You have to go through a review process that is more in-depth than the actual process of getting on the store and you have to commit to support to stay that way.

You should be careful in general not just because there are a few custom licenses. For example an asset doesn't need a custom license to only provide binaries without source code and then have the developer disappear. I've purchased assets that I would have to reverse engineer to continue using.

 

I am actually not talking about Odin there is couple more verified ones( I am not saying the name because I have nothing against the company behind the asset)

unity talk about revenue, yes my business has more than 200k but most of it are expenses in the end of the year if I left with 15% I am happy
I am not rich or enterprise in any way I am still live with my parents

think about a service which give jobs to photographers, if you want a job from my site lets say it cost 1000$, you pay me the 1000$ and I pay the photographer 900$ taking a small fee to myself
so if my business has revenue of 400k and 10% of that is 40k minus 50% for the country and with 20k$ yearly I am poor but I am now "enterprise" its the only saas service I am considered that lol

 

Most business don't even have a 15% margin. They are talking about people like you when they mean 200k+

 

I know they mean people like me.. but the funny thing is most people make more money than me.
like I could be a normal 9to17 developer and make 5x easily and use the free unity license

and I don't have 15% margin, I gave an easy to understand example, if making 20k$ a year is a lot (1600$ a month) I guess it depends where you live..