It's a trivial issue, I suppose, but a good enough excuse to make my own thread for a change :static:

Essentially, I see the use of the term "profit" as strange in the Commerical Use section of the official site. If I were to interpret the text literally, I would read it as not being required to pay any recurring cost to the developers if I charge my customers, provided I don't make profit.

I think it is fairly logical to come to the conclusion that I would not be running LFS as a part of my commercial venture, if it was not making profit. However, theoretically I see that it could happen. Therefore, I ask the following question: what is the context of "profit"?
- What if I charge for several games, but only LFS is not making profit?
- What if the operation as a whole is making loss, but LFS makes profit? What if LFS doesn't make profit, in this case?

I would like to suggest that the term "profit" be replaced by the term "revenue", or the phrase "gross revenue" to clarify that as long as the use of LFS is subject to a charge, net profit or loss, a recurring cost shall be paid to the developers of LFS.

An extract of the text referred to (note that there are other instances where the said term is used:

Quote :

2) Licensed Commercial Use

This is the situation where you use Live for Speed in a permanent or temporary simulator setup and you make profit by charging customers who use the system.

The full text can be found here:
http://www.lfs.net/?page=commercial_use

While I humbly apologise you lost several seconds of your life while reading this post, I am not liable to refund them in any way whatsoever, and thus, shall not do so.

Maybe you should send a message directly to the devs?

Maybe I want to discuss the issue to see alternate points of view I may have missed, before I send a message directly to the devs?

judgeing by the number of replies your thread accumulated, I guess that noone actually wants to discuss such a boring topic.

Also, I guess you're better off asking a lawyer instead of some random guys in here.

But I do thinkthat what you said makes sense

Quote from ColeusRattus :

noone actually wants to discuss such a boring topic.

You mean to say I'm the only one who finds discussing legal-text semantics refreshingly invigorating?!

I see the point here: you could charge people to play LFS on a rig, claim all the money pays your costs, and thus you wouldn't have give the LFS devs and royalties.

And for a real brain teaser, what if you make just 10p profit per person who uses your stand, before any royalties are taken into consideration, but the agreement you have with lfs devs is to pay them 20p in royalties per person. In that situation, not paying means you make profit and thus have to pay, but paying the royalties means you don't make profit and thus don't need to pay them.

I, I... I agree. I guess! :nut:

However, that semantics does permit charging for LFS if it is being used for a charity event, for example.

In such a case it would probably be appropriate to use the link at the bottom of the page to further discuss the terms.

Quote from Bob Smith :

I see the point here: you could charge people to play LFS on a rig, claim all the money pays your costs, and thus you wouldn't have give the LFS devs and royalties.

That would only be true if the word is meant to refer specifically to gross profit. If you charge any money whatsoever then that is your gross profit, even if your costs exceed that amount.

In any case, this is a legal question that can't be satisfactorily answered by anyone except the developers. Any comment or advice given here is pure conjecture and is therefore completely useless in a legal context.

Quote from Lateralus :

If you charge any money whatsoever then that is your gross profit, even if your costs exceed that amount.

Gross profit is revenue less cost of sales; revenue is income from sales before any deductions. Or?

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

Gross profit is revenue less cost of sales; revenue is income from sales before any deductions. Or?

gross profit = net sales – cost of goods sold

net profit = gross profit – total operating expenses

The cost of goods (i.e. time) sold would be zero for someone with a for-profit LFS setup, but things such as electricity, space rental, etc. would count towards operating expenses.

The only time when companies would use such a thing is when they release a new piece of hardware, and after all, they're advertising and so expect to have to spend in order to make good profits.

Quote from Lateralus :

gross profit = net sales – cost of goods sold

net profit = gross profit – total operating expenses

The cost of goods (i.e. time) sold would be zero for someone with a for-profit LFS setup, but things such as electricity, space rental, etc. would count towards operating expenses.

We agree on the definitions of gp, np and ns (aka revenue, turnover etc.) I think. Basically you're saying that the licensing fee is an overhead, not a cost of service (or good)?