Royalties?

[westfw]

What sort of arrangement does AdaFruit have with the original devlopers of circuits that they sell kits for? I'm particularly thinking of DrAwdio, where there are some significant differences between the original design and the Adafruit version, but I guess this applies to things like x0xb0x and TVBGone as well...

[amberwolf]

If they are open-source projects, then depending on which license they use, there are no royalties (or even permissions) necessary.

[westfw]

There can be a difference between "legal" and "polite."

[Fjornir]

There can be a difference between "legal" and "polite."

I tend to disagree. The whole point of the CC licensing levels is that the creator can pick which CC license to use in releasing their work. Likewise with GPL, LGPL, and the various and sundry other Open licenses out there. All of your obligations as a distributor are spelled out in the license. You are under no obligation whatsoever to go to the creator asking for permission to do what they have already explicitly granted you permission to do. The creator has already presented his terms to everyone regarding re-use and said "Yo, folks. This is how it is gonna be if you wanna distribute something based on my creation." That's it. The be-all, end-all of the permission granting.

If you want folks coming to you asking for permission to use what you've got then go ahead and pick a license that obligates them to do so. Otherwise what's the point of granting permission in the license?

[adafruit]

The x0xb0x is a 'wholly original' kit, so there are no royalties paid.
However, for TVBgone, Drawdio, Fuzebox and the YBox2 kit, I have an agreement with the original developers to pay royalties. The agreement is made before the kit is released and so far everyone has been very happy on both sides. While it is true that there is no -requirement- to do so, I think its fair and good practice and also gives the originator incentive to provide me with some support during the process.

[magician13134]

While it is true that there is no -requirement- to do so, I think its fair and good practice and also gives the originator incentive to provide me with some support during the process.

Isn't it required for the TV-B-Gone Remotes since Mitch has a copyright on that?

[adafruit]

mitch has a trademark, not copyright. one of the bonuses of giving $ to mitch is i'm permitted to use his trademark and he promotes the kit as a sister to the original tv-b-gone. technically, its not a requirement. like i said I think its fair and good practice. they worked hard, if i'm going to profit why not share?

[magician13134]

Oh of course it's good to pay royalties to them, I wasn't debating that (sorry if that's how it came across!), I just thought it was a requirement. Thanks!

[moses_410]

So would I be able to sell premade TV-B-Gones (ladyada's board) as I do MintyBoosts on my Etsy shop and the forums or would I have to pay royalties or something?

[sparr]

I am under the impression that if ladyada has permission to label her kits TV-B-Gone, then it is legal for you to advertise (that is, label on etsy) your assembled kit with that name.

If I buy an Accord, I do not need permission from Honda to use the "Accord" or "Honda" trademarks when I try to resell it, because it is a legitimate Honda Accord.

[eil]

Spot on. Conversely, if you were to take the designs for the TV-B-Gone and fabricate your own clone completely, it's definitely not good form (and possibly not legally correct) to use the trademarked name in selling the clone, even if the designs are open source.

[adafruit]

royalties are not paid on PCBs so if you're selling them made from PCBs, it would probably be polite to offer mitch some small percentage of sales

[moses_410]

about what percentage would you suggest? And would that be percentage of the total sale or percentage of the profit?

[adafruit]

thats kinda between you & him to work out
but starting out with an offer of 10% of profit is pretty respectable