Can I frame my app business as a nonprofit if users can choose the amount to pay to download my app? This question is inspired by the website https://elementary.io where you can set the amount you want to pay to download the product, which is by default set to $20, and you can even set it to $0 in which case, if you look closely, the button to the right will change from &quot;Purchase elementary OS&quot; to &quot;Download elementary OS&quot;. This makes it confusing to me, if I set up a similar business model, are users really &quot;purchasing&quot; my product? Or can I say in my About page that we are a nonprofit who users can donate to if they want, but it's not required to download our app? I don't want donations to be a separate element or page because... if it's more streamlined, maybe one or two more users will consider donating.
Being a &quot;non-profit&quot; organization, in the US at least, does not mean you don't make a profit. There are plenty of for-profit companies that don't make a profit. What it means is that you have filled out the paperwork with the IRS and other interested parties in your city, county, or state, that says your organization is a non-profit. That invokes certain rules as to where and how the funds you receive must be spent. It also relates to your purpose as an organization. If it's to &quot;sell some software&quot; then you likely don't qualify as a non-profit. If it's to reduce illiteracy in your community, that likely does. If you intend to pursue becoming a non-profit, you should consult a local attorney who is experienced in these matter so that you do it properly. I also caution you about using the term &quot;non-profit&quot; or &quot;not-for-profit&quot; or any variation of this as you may run afoul of various laws governing such organizations. Presenting yourself or your company as something that it's not is likely to cost you dearly. What you are describing is more commonly known as &quot;shareware&quot; where users pay for the product, usually software, if they want to. In some cases paid users get more functionality. How much users pay also falls into this category.
No You are limited to “your ... use only”. You are not given permission to make this available for 3rd parties either commercially or for free.
Making a profit does not make the act illegal: it is illegal without there being any profit. The act of copying without permission is what makes the act illegal. Profit might maybe enter into the matter if you are talking about the "fair use" defense, since certain kinds of works can be partially copied for certain purposes. You could quote a few lines from a novel in a review, for instance. The judgment of whether a given act of copying without permission is allowed under fair use is complex and involves a balancing act. Profit becomes relevant in that a non-profit use favors fair use and a for-profit use disfavors it. Wholesale copying of works of art as you describe is illegal (is infringement). However... "illegal" is a pretty broad concept. If you infringe on my intellectual property, you almost certainly will not suffer any consequences unless I sue you. Taking "illegal" to mean "in violation of the law", infringing copyright is illegal because it violates the law, but I have to make a federal case out of your infringement – I have to sue you. As it happens, it can also be a crime to infringe copyright, and in that case, the government and not the copyright holder pursues the matter. If a person knowingly infringes copyright, he might be prosecuted, thus the Megaupload case which in the US is realized in the indictment US v. Dotcom. Moreover, profit motive is a required element for criminal infringement. (Also note that you don't have to actually make a profit for the profit element to be present). You cannot sue a person unless they have harmed you, so if you know that Smith copied Jones' work you can't sue Smith for harming Jones. (This is what they call "standing"). You might sue Smith, but not for infringement itself. If they sold you an illegal infringing copy, then you could sue. Or, their infringement could diminish the value of your legal copy. This website gives a multi-nation overview of criminal copyright infringement laws.
You are making an argument along the lines of promissory estoppel, but this requires reliance on a promise (roughly). From Google's Developer Distribution Agreement: Google reserves the right to suspend and/or bar any Developer from the Store at its sole discretion. From Apple's iOS Developer Program Agreement: You understand and agree that Apple may, in its sole discretion, reject Your Application for distribution for any reason Apple and its licensors reserve the right to change, suspend, remove, or disable access to any services at any time. Neither company makes any representation or promise that a developer will have the right to distribute their product through these official stores. It is irrelevant that an app happens to not violate any terms of the agreement. Even if you demonstrated this, distribution of an app through the official stores is at the sole discretion of Apple and Google.
StackExchange probably has no obligation to continue to provide the content, however StackExchange probably cannot stop copies from continuing to be used, reproduced, etc. from the Terms of Service (click on Legal below): You agree that all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Exchange under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. Bold added by me. The content is licensed to SE, unlike some sites where you transfer ownership of content to the site. SE can continue to use your data, but you still own the copyright. They can't limit your use of your own content, because you remain the owner. SE cannot use your content in a way that violates the Creative Commons Share Alike License, but I don't see any limitations on how SE makes your work available, including to a limited audience. They could, for example, probably move to a paid model because there are no commercial exclusions (unlike the Creative Commons non-commercial variations of the license). You could post a copy of SE content elsewhere, as long as you adhere to the requirements: In the event that You post or otherwise use Subscriber Content outside of the Network or Services, with the exception of content entirely created by You, You agree that You will follow the attribution rules of the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license as follows: You will ensure that any such use of Subscriber Content visually displays or otherwise indicates the source of the Subscriber Content as coming from the Stack Exchange Network. This requirement is satisfied with a discreet text blurb, or some other unobtrusive but clear visual indication. You will ensure that any such Internet use of Subscriber Content includes a hyperlink directly to the original question on the source site on the Network (e.g., https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12345) You will ensure that any such use of Subscriber Content visually display or otherwise clearly indicate the author names for every question and answer so used. You will ensure that any such Internet use of Subscriber Content Hyperlink each author name directly back to his or her user profile page on the source site on the Network (e.g., https://stackoverflow.com/users/12345/username), directly to the Stack Exchange domain, in standard HTML (i.e. not through a Tinyurl or other such indirect hyperlink, form of obfuscation or redirection), without any “nofollow” command or any other such means of avoiding detection by search engines, and visible even with JavaScript disabled. Making a complete copy of SE would seem to be within the terms of the license, as long as all the requirements for attributing, linking, etc are met, so you could mitigate the risk of the SE material going away in that manner.
If the blog author holds the copyright on the ebook, they can distribute the ebook anyway they choose, either via download from Github or elsewhere, or sell it in an online store. They hold the copyright, they alone can decide how to distribute it. If they also sell the ebook in the Microsoft press Store, they may have an agreement with the store to also allow their own free downloads; it's hard to say without knowing the agreement. If there are ebooks on Githb available for viewing or download, the owner of the Github page should hold copyright of the ebook, both 1) for their own protection against copyright infringement, and 2) to not break GitHub's TOS against copright infringement: https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service/#f-copyright-infringement-and-dmca-policy
You're misreading the law. You need to keep reading the section you referenced (emphasis added): The disclosure...shall be made in writing and delivered through the consumer’s account with the business, if the consumer maintains an account with the business, or by mail or electronically at the consumer’s option if the consumer does not maintain an account with the business Thus, the option to have the disclosure sent by mail only applies to consumers who do not have an account with the business. Since presumably a large number of sites only maintain personal information for users with accounts, such sites need not provide a mail option. Further, it doesn't say there needs to be a button: you just need the ability to say you'd like it mailed to you in the request somehow, and then they need to comply when you do.
There is no contract between you (the licensee) and the licensor of the software. The creator of the open source software just says "here's the software, you may use it if you like, as long as you fulfil some conditions. ". No contract, no liability. I think the developer would only be liable if they intentionally created software that causes damage. (Which has happened, some open source browser plugins have recently been modified to run bitcoin mining software, or worse. I suppose the miscreants could follow all the GPL rules or whatever license is used).