Can I monetize a Pokemon themed App in Google Store I have created a Pokemon themed app , and I'm going to upload it to Google Store but I have some doubts. I have two versions of the app , one free and another &quot;premium&quot; which costs 2$ , also I want to introduce ads in the app in order to get some money . Is this legal ? Can Pokemon turn down my app ? Do I need to specify something in the description in order to tell Pokemon that the content I use don't belong to me ?
Your app is a simple case of copyright infringement. All the Pokémon are copyrighted, the lettering and names are also protect by trademarks. Trying to claim fair use will be outright impossible: you'll use huge portions of the individually protected Pokemon (the iconic ones like Pikachu) and you are usurping a market they are already in. They have given licenses for apps (Pokemon Go). Pokemon are artistic and some form of fiction. The last straw might be if you'd do a rather obvious parody, but even then, I see no way to show Fair Use with what you stated. No disclaimer can change that, and publishing your work might open you to a huge lawsuit with damages for each individually protected Pokemon you infringed on. With between 750 $ minimum and 150,000 $ absolute upper limit per infringed item (last is for willful infringement), you don't want to infringe on Pokemon, as you could be very easily liable for a number in the 6 to 9 digits! Even if Nintendo might only try to get the statutory damages for all the 900 Pokémon, that is a number of at least 675,4000 $. And that's before looking at Trademarks. Pikachu has about 6 live word marks and there are 111 different Pokémon trademarks filed (some expired or dead)!
Ok, so it looks like there really are many questions being asked. 1) Is it illegal to host / own / operate a private server for games that require a server of such? And why? 2) Is it illegal to host / own / operate a private server for WOW? And why? 3) Is it illegal to join a private server for games that require a server? and why? 4) Is it illegal to join a private server for WOW? Answers 1 &amp; 2) This depends on the game that is being hosted. There are many games that require servers in which this is not only legal, but encouraged by the company. MineCraft is one that comes to mind. You can host MineCraft servers, and even modify the server code. You can even charge for this service. However,for games like WOW, In short, yes if the server is profiting or If the server is running stolen or leaked software or If the server is distributing client files. If the server was recreated from the developers own mind, and was only compatible with the WOW server, then it's a bit more gray and depends on the Judge's level of understanding of technology. 3 &amp; 4) This comes down to the EULA. If the EULA is like MineCraft, then you are good to go. If the EULA is like WOW, which forbids both modification of the client and participation on emulated servers then it is a violation of EULA. If WOW did not have the second part of "participation on emulated servers", then a user could modify on the router level to point to a private server.
Technically, as I've read the unreal license agreement, the person who made the mod would owe Epic 5% royalties on all your sales related to the mod, even if they did not collect the sale price. You cannot be a party to a license you did not agree to, but Epic has very strange royalty terms that seem unreasonable on the surface and I'm not sure they've tested that in court. Here is what the license says: Royalty You agree to pay Epic a royalty equal to 5% of all worldwide gross revenue actually attributable to each Product, regardless of whether that revenue is received by you or any other person or legal entity, as follows: a. Gross revenue resulting from any and all sales of a Product to end users through any and all media, including but not limited to digital and retail; b. Gross revenue resulting from any and all in-app purchases, downloadable content, microtransactions, subscriptions, sale, transfer, or exchange of content created by end users for use with a Product, or redemption of virtual currency, either within a Product or made externally but which directly affect the operation of the Product; c. Gross revenue from any Kickstarter or other crowdfunding campaign which is directly associated with Product access or in-Product benefit (e.g., in a multi-tiered campaign, if an amount is established in an early tier solely for Product access, your royalty obligation will apply to that amount for each backer with the same access, but not on additional amounts in higher tiers based on ancillary benefits); d. Your revenue from in-app advertising and affiliate programs; e. Revenue from advance payments for a Product (from a publisher or otherwise); f. Revenue received in connection with a Product’s inclusion in a streaming, subscription, or other game-delivery service (e.g., Apple Arcade, Microsoft GamePass, or any similar or successor services), including without limitation development funds and bonuses; and g. Revenue in any other form actually attributable to a Product (unless excluded below). So the first part says "regardless of whether that revenue is received by you or any other person or legal entity". So somebody else may have revenue attributable to the product (aka a 50% increase in sales due to this mod), and you owe it even if you are not collecting or receiving that money directly. The last part (g) also says that revenue in any other form attributable to the product. Epic's license doesn't allow you to make a "front-end" to a paid product and release the front-end free, and collect money on the back-end. So if revenue is attributable to the product you develop, you owe royalties on the sales related to the product regardless of you collecting that income or not. Notice how it doesn't say "directly attributable to each Product...", it says "actually attributable to each Product". This is the part I find a bit egregious and not sure it will hold up in court, however the terms of the license are written so that the developer of the Unreal product has to pay royalties even if they don't collect money from it themselves.
Generally, no, this will not violate copyright. Your end user might violate copyright, but that is their problem not yours. Your program is a tool, just like a word processor is. If I copy a Harry Potter book into a word processor that does not make the word processor maker liable. There is a concept of "contributory infringement", which I think is what you are concerned about. I don't know about Danish law in particular, but most countries would require evidence that you had reasonable knowledge that actual copyright violation was occuring, rather than just being aware that it might happen in theory. This is normally applied to file sharing services who have to have "notice and takedown" measures, file filters and the like. This isn't your concern as you never have any access to the files created by your users. You can also be found liable if you induce anyone to commit copyright violations. Don't draw your customers attention to the custom monster feature as a workaround for those copyrighted monsters, as that could be considered to be inducement. Also don't provide any "wizards" or similar tools which make it noticeably easier to duplicate the custom monsters (e.g. if you notice that the copyrighted custom dragon stats are all on a linear scale with dragon size, don't create a "dragon creation wizard" embodying that fact.) This assumes that your program runs entirely on the end user computer. Its different if you provide any kind of cloud storage for generated characters.
Check your license! By operating the original client, you might have agreed to a license, the EULA. Check that license for what it says about you being allowed to do with the product. In a recent case of Bungie vs. Elite Boss Tech, a US court found in a default judgment that a certain cheat software that would interact with both the game's client and the company's servers among other things did... constitute copyright infringement [as a derivative work] was a breach of contract [formed by the EULA and agreeing to the Terms of Service for the game] was interference with Contractual allegations [of other users that obtained the software] However, not all internet games or experiences are locked down like that. Other companies do offer an open API set or terms under which a client's software may be modified. As a very generous example, LindenLabs does for its SecondLife Virtual World, for which they provide not just the framework, but also the terms under which you are allowed to make a third party Viewer Sometimes, the Terms of service are rather hidden. For example, the Chinese Go platform Fox Weiqi operates in china. To get to the terms of service, you need to download the free client, go to Settings (via the cog), then choose 野狐围棋用户协议, which is Chinese for Wild Fox Go User Agreement. This links to https://edu.foxwq.com/complex/useragreement.html. The user agreement is of course in Chinese, but Google Translate manages to get that to English. It contains the following clause: 7.2 Unless permitted by law or with the written permission of Yehu, you shall not engage in the following acts during the use of this software: ( 1 ) Delete the copyright information on the software and its copies; ( 2 ) Reverse engineer, reverse assemble, reverse compile the software, or try to find the source code of the software in other ways; ( 6 ) Log in or use Yehu Go and its services through third-party software, plug-ins, plug-ins, systems not authorized by Yehu, or make, publish, and disseminate the above tools; ( 7 ) Interfering with the software and its components, modules, and data by itself or authorizing others or third-party software While it takes a court to see if the terms hold water and are actually enforceable because of how the EULA is offered, the face value of those clauses is, that it is forbidden unless you have a specific law that allows such or you obtain written permission. With that kind of possible liability that might cost millions, there might be serious legal problems. Read your license agreement and terms of service and consult a lawyer.
You must get opt-in affirmative consent to process personal data, including tracking people's use of your site or providing targeted advertising. The banner on StackExchange is likely in violation of the GDPR. Do not copy it. It does not have an explicit opt-in, only an opt out which is onerous (leave the site, then manually go in and delete any cookies they set, which may be hard to identify if they are from 3rd parties). The sites you mention that have a gateway are a more correct implementation. Consent must be acquired before processing of data begins, and it must be explicit.
If the app (and the service accessed from the app) truly doesn't have any EULA, ToS, or license agreement, to include restrictions on reverse engineering, you can probably create an alternate front end, so long as you aren't using their logos, etc. However, their data may be a different beast, depending on the nature of it. For example, extracting data from Twitter would potentially violate Twitter's license on the original text copyright held by the authors in question. Wikipedia explicitly includes redistribution in their license agreement with authors/content creators. If all you are extracting and storing is the temperature at a particular weather station, you might have less of a concern. Anything beyond merely factual runs the risk of a copyright infringement as you store the data in your own database.
They have copyright in their additional text, and possibly in things like their visual design choices (fonts, layout etc). They may also have introduced a few deliberate typos to detect any literal copies from their version (rather as mapmakers add a few imaginary features to their maps). None of this creates any rights to the original text. You are still free to produce your own copies of the original text. Just get it from some other source so you can be sure not to include anything of theirs.