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You may not do any of the following with respect to the Licensed Materials or any of its parts:

(a) use it commercially or for a promotional purpose; (b) use it on more than one device at a time; (c) use Content with or in connection to any games, projects, products, or services other than the Software, (d) copy, reproduce, distribute, display, or use it in a way that is not expressly authorized in this Agreement;

The use of "use" here really baffles me, as I understand "using software" to mean making use of it (user interface and functions) as the owner intended or repurposing/reverse-engineering its code for something else.

As described above, does that blanket both of these scenarios?

I'm wondering more specifically, if gameplay streams fall under this scenario.

The goal is to use a service similar to Twitch for streaming gameplay to viewers/players who can place bets in their respective locations. This game has player communities in various chat rooms that coordinate and play organized matches. Within these communities, I'm wondering whether "using [...] Content with or in connection to any games, projects, products, or services other" bars such activity. I understand "Content" here to mean game components, player models, etc.

"Use it commercially or for a promotional purpose" still makes me wonder whether I'm doing something wrong if no advertising to the public is being done with game material, but with video of people playing (like Twitch).

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  • Clarify what you mean by gameplay stream? I suppose you mean you want to use the software and broadcast a recording of you using that software. The act of you interacting with the software is "using" it. The act of you capturing/recording that interaction and broadcasting it may not be, but maybe you should clarify what you are trying to do.
    – Brandin
    Commented Dec 4, 2017 at 23:02
  • @Brandin edited to add more info which might clarify any confusion
    – Will
    Commented Dec 5, 2017 at 23:43
  • "...viewers/players who can place bets in their respective locations." This is also a red flag; online gambling is illegal in many jurisdictions. Does your proposed streaming service offer gambling? Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 0:47
  • @BlueDogRanch it was a project I began working on for fun, then decided to make sure I wouldn't be breaking some rules or something and found that text which baffled me. I also said "respective locations" because I intend to block players/viewers from countries that do not regulate/allow gambling.
    – Will
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 17:17

1 Answer 1

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The problem does not have to do with "use", which is completely clear – applied to software, the word means "execute; run". The problem comes from "for a purpose" or "with or in connection to". If someone licenses a spreadsheet program with the provision that it not be used for commercial purposes, that means you cannot use it in a business, but you can use it at home, or for a non-profit purpose, and you cannot use it to do bookkeeping for money, or keep your companies books. If you take pictures of someone using the software and post that purely for lulz, that is not using for a commercial or promotional purpose. If you do so in order to generate interest in something else, that is promotional, even if you're not selling the product in question.

I assume that the "Content" is something like a bunch of sound and graphic files; you can't do anything with that stuff, except in The Software (I assume this is source code that you could modify and re-build). So you can't take pictures of those images and print them on paper or put them in a game, even for amusement. "With or in connection to" is very broad, and deliberately chosen so that you know it means that you can use it "in this software only".

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