3 ms·

> I think that if you've paid money for a promised product and haven't received it, and go for an extended period of time without honest communication, it's abs

> I think that if you've paid money for a promised product and haven't received it, and go for an extended period of time without honest communication, it's absolutely fair to get the law involved. That's what it's there for. If I remember correctly some weeks ago Kickstarter changed its terms and rules for running a campaign, in order to stress out that these are not pre-orders but just donations. You might receive something in return for this donation (i.e. the funded project thanks you for believing in him), but there's no way to be sure that you are actually going to get anything. The problem is what people expected when they pledged money: they thought they were pre-ordering.. nope. They were just donating.

alexkus 14y ago
The lawyer-ish response to that would be that such a change could be considered an admission that, at the time of the original campaign, the T&Cs weren't clear on this matter and that some people therefore had expectations of a guaranteed return on their pledge. It doesn't matter what the T&Cs say now.
jbri 14y ago
It gets a little more interesting when you're promising tangible rewards in addition to completing the project. For instance, if I say "$50 will get you a T-Shirt", it seems reasonable to me that I am contractually obligated to give you a T-Shirt even if I am unable to follow through on completing the game to the desired standard. The extra rewards certainly seem like more than just a "donation".
dragonwriter 14y ago
<blockquote>If I remember correctly some weeks ago Kickstarter changed its terms and rules for running a campaign, in order to stress out that these are not pre-orders but just donations. </blockquote> The current rules on Kickstarter provide an obligation to provide the reward or refund the backer, so the model is still (by the terms) more like a sale than a donation. There's a "good faith effort" requirement regarding the estimated date on which the rewards will be provided, but that's really not that unusual for sales-type contracts.

alexkus 14y ago

The lawyer-ish response to that would be that such a change could be considered an admission that, at the time of the original campaign, the T&Cs weren't clear on this matter and that some people therefore had expectations of a guaranteed return on their pledge. It doesn't matter what the T&Cs say now.

jbri 14y ago

It gets a little more interesting when you're promising tangible rewards in addition to completing the project. For instance, if I say "$50 will get you a T-Shirt", it seems reasonable to me that I am contractually obligated to give you a T-Shirt even if I am unable to follow through on completing the game to the desired standard. The extra rewards certainly seem like more than just a "donation".

dragonwriter 14y ago

<blockquote>If I remember correctly some weeks ago Kickstarter changed its terms and rules for running a campaign, in order to stress out that these are not pre-orders but just donations. </blockquote> The current rules on Kickstarter provide an obligation to provide the reward or refund the backer, so the model is still (by the terms) more like a sale than a donation. There's a "good faith effort" requirement regarding the estimated date on which the rewards will be provided, but that's really not that unusual for sales-type contracts.