PhD student research license

Hi all,

I'd like to use Unity3D for my PhD, which involves deploying my Unity3D application to multiple instances of Amazon Web Services EC2.

I, for now, do not require any of the "Pro" features, and so I am content with the personal edition.

Would I require licensing? Would it cost me (my University) anything? I am not looking to make a commercial product - this is purely for research.

 

Personal is fine. The stipulation is if profit > 100k then Pro is required. Numbers might have changed recently since they made spaghetti out of their offering options, just read the agreements as it is all there pretty plainly.

 

So regardless of how many instances of Unity3D I have running, I will not have to pay and require no license, so long as it is for personal use and I am not profiting from it by more than 100k?

 

Yes.

 

Fantastic. Thank you.

 

You can use Personal as long as you do not use Unity on a university machine. The university will need Pro licences for any of their computers you use.

 

Okay, it will be running on my machine all the time. However, as I mentioned earlier, it will also be running on Amazon EC2 Instances (for experiments). I won't need a license for those Amazon EC2 Instances, will I?

 

I don't think that the answer for this is so clear cut. The university probably considers your project their intellectual property. That might mean that you need to use their license. You may be considered an employee of the university. That might mean that you would have to use their license. There are too many factors that could affect this so I would contact Unity directly to see what their view is.

 

@GoesTo11 Okay, thanks. I will do that. Alternatively, if anyone from Unity or someone who has had experience with this topic in the past, I'd love to hear your opinion, too.

 

One other point. You just need a proper license for developing with Unity. Assuming you are following the licensing terms, you do not need extra licenses for deploying your application. It is your application (or your university's). You can deploy as many instances of it as you want.

 

@GoesTo11 Great, thanks for the update.

 

This. Unless the application provides the core device functionality. Normally it doesn't, but PhD students can do some weird things.

 

@BoredMormon Thanks, but what do you mean by "Unless the application provides the core device functionality"?

 

Building an operating system for a device with Unity. It's an odd twist in the lisence, and I can't remember all the details. Basically means there are extra restrictions if you build a robot toaster powered by Unity.

It doesn't sound like what you are doing, but thought it worth mentioning just in case.

 

Ah right, thanks for clearing that up. I don't think that that would apply to me: I am studying Interactive Remote Rendering systems (such as cloud gaming -- which is such a system) and focusing on interaction latency. No Unity powered toasters, although that does sound rather fascinating!

 

There's a clause in the license that might effect that use case. Once again, contact Unity to find out.

Quoted for excellence.

 

Hi folks,

I found this thread by chance and have similar question:

For my student research project I developed the concept for an educational game. Right now I am designing a prototype in Unity.

In the end I will present my game to the teaching staff. It could happen that my advisor wants me to publish certain parts to a science conference.

Are there any restrictions in the Unity licence terms? In most of the Google results people say that "it is ok" - but no one talks about referencing the author of the assets. Any suggestions?

Kind regards!

 

If you're concerned that there might be something in the license that conflicts with your goals then read the license.

https://unity3d.com/legal/terms-of-service

You're a student. If you're somehow managing to make $100,000 with Unity then you need to buy it. Congratulations if so.

 

Get your PhD supervisor, or your department's IT specialist/sysadmin/whatever, to contact Unity and request education licenses for your project.

https://store.unity.com/education/license-grant-program

 

@creativeConny If you're not developing your game using any school resources, school computers, etc, and are not an employee or contractor of the school, then I don't see why you would need anything more than the free version.

Unity doesn't have restrictions on builds that take effect retroactively after you've completed your project. Their restrictions almost entirely have to do with your continued usage of the Unity Editor itself. For example, if you made your game using the free version of Unity, and then made $10 million dollars with it, you're prevented from using the Unity Editor free version due to licensing at that point going forward, but you're not prevented from continued distribution of the binaries you had previously generated with the free version. You just can't generate a new updated build with the free version at that point.

Technically you can create your game in the free version, generate the build, uninstall Unity and never launch it ever again, and then make millions of dollars from your previously generated build without paying Unity anything and without violating any license agreement. You're just not going to be able to fix any bugs down the road without paying for a license.

So that means you should be able to make your game in the free version, and shouldn't have anything to worry about if the school decides to run with your game for their use or at conferences as long as it is the build you created before that occurred. If the school then wants you to continue using the Unity Editor on their behalf though, rather than just the build you previously created, then you're going to need a paid license for the school to continue. I'd concern myself with it only if any of that actually occurs.

As to the original poster developing for remote cloud gaming, there is an interesting section in the license that applies:

https://unity3d.com/legal/terms-of-service/software

I am not a lawyer

 

Also, if you have received over 100k in financing you are required to use pro licenses.