Discussion Keep receiving license infringement (threaten) mail from UNITY.CN

Hi All,

I'm a indie developer which just start up a small one-man company in Taiwan last year.

Recent days I keep receiving emails from who claim herself from UNITY.CN, an official China unity distributor agent. The email address seemed legit, but the content was a bit harassing.

The first email (quote below) saying that they been informed that my company's usage of unity seats is violate the agreement, demanding us immediately reply and clarify within 3 days.

The second mail (quote below) later received, requiring us paying RMB 13,831.2 (around $2,000 USD) per year for the violating period they identified.

There are many BSA relate scam past days, official sales in these terms often using tactics of combine coercive tone and large number of legal terms, threatening or even deceive small and indie companies.

The point I really concern is, if I ignore those mails, or after negotiation, they might still insist go to law, which may lead to the court enforcement in China. My small company in Taiwan, certainly has no ability to be known or defend this situation. I don't want future days, when I travel to China and later been detained by official customs, forcing me to pay the fine that I have no idea where it’s came from xD.

Hoping the community can provide some assistance or advise.

BTW, my company still have no income after all \O/


The first mail, I'm too lazy so I just using online translate xD
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The second mail
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Well this is the second thread about Unity China being particularly overzealous.

Sounds like someone from head office needs to reign them in.

 

It's actually been an ongoing problem with Unity China specifically. There was a pretty big string of them a couple years ago.

 

Well the last one was someone who had moved from Hong Kong to the UK.

Now this is someone located in Taiwan.

I don't want to insinuate anything, but...

 

Hi Tautvydas-Zilys, thanks for your reply. We do message them, but they demand further proof about it, and telling me that "if company or organization financial activities exceed 200K USD, will require purchase of subscription", which is very unclear and totally subverted my previous understanding of the EULA form unity xD.

The first mail is sent on Friday 9/23 3:00 PM, second mail sent on Monday 9/26 5:35 PM, first mail issued an ultimatum in 3 days and which two days are weekend, can I say there might be some not-so-good intention within it? xD

Hi Spiney, thanks for your reply, Yes, this is another annoying reason we considered.

First of all, I am not in China, if the Chinese company files an appeal, of course, we can not be present and have no way to learn this information, nor will we have the opportunity to defend, and according to the China single-aspects evidence, the court can really judge and enforces the seizure to the company owner, even he is in Taiwan or aboard.

Afterwards, if I arrive in China someday, I may be stopped at the customs and transferred to the court for that. The similar stuffs did happen before. x.x

Beside, the lawsuit for an indie developer can be an heavy financial burden...

 

Probably worth nothing this thread if you're not aware about it already. Only mentioning it as there were no comments by Unity staff.

 

I'm quote the mail from UNITY.CN below, now I have no idea which agreement need to be followed xD

 

I think they are right in saying, if your finances - whether it be related to Unity or not - exceeds a certain value, then by their license you're required to purchase the appropriate tier.

Effectively means businesses over a certain size (and lets be honest, 100k is pretty easy for a business to go over), then they need to buy pro or whatnot licences, even if they haven't made money via Unity yet or not.

But as you mentioned your business has no income so who knows how they're falsely finding that you have income. They're pushing you for proof, but you should push back and ask where's their proof that you have breached the license.

This Julia Mao chick is off her rocker.

 

Based on some of these threads, I think it's possible that Unity.CN, and Julia Mao specifically, may be targetting every Chinese user that registered as a company (including former Chinese and other southeast Asian users), without any proof whatsoever of the company's earnings.

Instead of providing proof of something that doesn't exist, perhaps you should ask her to provide proof of her allegation. This seems like nothing more than a scheme to raise capital from unsuspecting users. I would be livid.

 

I think the correct idea in this sort of situation is contact someone with higher rank and get problematic employee reprimanded or fired.

Given that TZ chimed into this thread, I'd assume that this process has started.

And obviously, in case the company fails to resolve the situation, then next situation would be termination of the agreement...