Making Money off Mods? Donations?

[Formulapower]

I was curious. I know you cannot actually "Sell" any mods for Civ 5 But what if I setup a "donation" site so people could donate whatever funds they want as a "thank you" for my work? Is there anything that prohibits something like this?

 

[ww2commander]

I'm no lawyer, but common sense would say no given you are using a copyright product.

 

[JFD]

It would be at the discretion of Firaxis to decide, but there's nothing in the EULA that explicitly states that you cannot - unless I missed it. Legally, the argument could be made that you would be receiving donations for your time, not for the end product - or even for the parts of the product that Firaxis does not retain any right to (but this depends what country you live in). However, I cannot imagine you would be able to do more than accept voluntary donations that aren't incentivized in any way, without Firaxis battering down your doors.

 

[albie_123]

Regardless of the legality, unless your mod is a large and time-consuming piece of work, it would probably be frowned upon in the modding community anyway.

 

[Formulapower]

I have a few mods that I seriously cannot play without (such as Info Addict) and I personally would dontate to their creator if they had something like this setup and I think much of the modding comunity would understand (especailly if they have done any modding themselves)

I enjoying modding Civ 5, and now that I am waist deep in a few of my own mods I understand just how hard and time consuming it can be and it would be nice and motivating to see the people that enjoy the fruits of this work donate to the creator.

As for Firaxis, you would think they would be all for this becasue it may motivate people to finish mods and create even better ones, Some mods get such a large following many people will buy expansions just becasue a mod they want to play or already love as been updated to the expansion version.

 

[Reptilius]

There are many file sharing sites which pay uploaders when their files are downloaded.
you could put your files in a zip/rar archive upload them there and just post a link

 

[Neirai]

I would suggest a few guidelines to avoid being sued:

1. Don't put a price on your mods. Instead, allow interested fans to volunteer to pay you to do your work better. Here's what I mean:

Don't:
-- Charge people $2 for your mod.
-- Suggest that people pay a donation before using your mod.
-- Make people pay an indeterminate sum for your mod.
-- Go mercenary, refusing to produce a mod or update a mod without payout.

Do if you want to go that route:
-- Allow people to donate to you just because they like you.
-- Promise to use their donations to make your mods better, by purchasing better art tools, or hiring artists to work on your mods, or by ensuring that you actually purchase the next Expansion Pack so that you will actually build mods that are compatible.
-- Sparingly (oh so sparingly) allow people to patronize you. I mean, to give you commissions. I'd recommend only doing these one at a time, and being very very specific about the amount of time you're putting into this.

Judging by the OP, I'd say you're leaning more towards the DO side than the Don't side, but it's worth saying something.

Firaxis is only likely to get on your case they decide that you are making money from their hard work. For example, if you're selling a Civilization at 2$ a download, they may be like "Hey! We made the XML actually DO what you're making it do and we're fairly protective of that, you know!" and sue you.

 

[ww2commander]

The licensing agreement states:

LICENSE CONDITIONS
You agree not to:
a. Commercially exploit the Software;
...

And here is how Oxford defines 'exploit'.

You make a judgement call.