I have a site that uses the ESI API but pulls only data that does not require authentication to access. I want to do the following:
Can I do that? From what I understand the license agreement that says you cannot charge users real money for your application only applies to applications that authenticate with the ESI.
You cannot charge money for CCP’s IP. The data, public or not, belongs to CCP.
Yes, but then there is the following page:
https://eveonline-third-party-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference/license.html
Which contains this text:
All use of authenticated ESI is subject to the terms of the Developer License.
The Developer license prohibits charging real money, but I am not using authenticated ESI.
If you are right and that applies to all use of the ESI API then so be it, but as currently written it would seem that the license in question does not apply to applications that only make use of unauthenticated ESI access.
Relevant parts:
Except as provided in Section 4.4 or by separate written agreement with CCP, Developer shall not sell, license, or otherwise monetize products of any kind based upon or incorporating parts of EVE, the CCP Marks, the Licensed Materials or Derivative Works.
Although the rights granted under this Agreement are intended for non-commercial and non-profit use, CCP recognizes that Developer may want to use the Application to increase Developer’s status or resources as a Player of EVE. In addition, CCP recognizes that Developer may incur costs to host, maintain, and support the Application. Therefore, the following methods of monetizing an Application are permitted by CCP: (a) Developer may condition the access or use of an Application on payment or other transfer of EVE’s valid in-game currency (e.g., ISK) to Developer or to any registered EVE corporation of which Developer is a member; (b) Developer may solicit voluntary donations of money from Players (i.e., U.S. dollars, British Pounds Sterling, etc.) solely to offset Developer’s costs of maintaining and supporting an Application, provided that use of the Application is not in any way restricted or conditioned on providing such a donation; or (c) Developer may generate revenue from displaying general advertisements that do not interfere with a Player’s access to, or use of, the Application. Revenue from general advertisements includes revenue from partner programs such as Google AdSense, YouTube, Twitch.tv, Ustream.tv, or similar sites. Each of the monetization activities above will be permitted provided they are not carried out in a manner that would otherwise violate EVE’s end user license agreement, terms of service, or other rules and conditions accepted as a condition to access EVE. In addition, receipt of advertising revenue must comply with any guidelines published by CCP from time to time. CCP reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to determine whether any method of monetizing an Application complies with the Purpose and the conditions of this Section 4.4.
tl;dr you can’t make rl money off of the service/tool/site, but you can ask for donations to cover costs as well as using advertisements to help cover costs as well.
However asking for x ISK per message is ok.
Okay, I feel like I’m being overly pedantic here…but we are talking about license agreements.
The two sections that you quote above are both from the Developer License, which, according to my reading of the line I quoted above only applies to applications that use authenticated ESI access. That line again is:
All use of authenticated ESI is subject to the terms of the Developer License.
On the same page as the above line is this:
To use authenticated ESI, you will need to enable your account on the developer site.
You can access plenty of ESI data without registering an account on the developer site and using authenticated ESI access.
I have not been able to find any verbiage stating that the Developer License applies to applications using _un_authenticated ESI access. Maybe the Developer License implies that, but you are only really presented with the Developer License when you are in the process of registering a developer account.
Why SMS? Why not slack or discord notifications. Those both run on a phone, and cost you nothing to send to, its as easy as them providing a webhook for the channel they want the notification to come in on.
I do not think that is relevant. The way I see it, you cannot use CCP material to make RL money. The fact that it is an authed or unauthed ESI endpoint does not matter. Just because it is public data doesn’t mean it can be used in not CCP related products to monetize the project/app/tool/whatever that you make/made.
tl;dr you cannot charge RL money for people to use your tool. Only donations and ads.
https://developers.eveonline.com/resource/resources FAQ
EDIT @Brock_Khans has a good point, there are plenty of other options available that accomplish the same goal without being in a grey area. In game mails, discord, slack are all solid options.
Why SMS? Why not slack or discord notifications. Those both run on a phone, and cost you nothing to send to, its as easy as them providing a webhook for the channel they want the notification to come in on.
I do intend to provide other options such as Slack or Discord, but not everybody uses those services or wants them running on their phone in the background. I would prefer just a plain SMS message.
I do not think that is relevant. The way I see it, you cannot use CCP material to make RL money. The fact that it is an authed or unauthed ESI endpoint does not matter. Just because it is public data doesn’t mean it can be used in not CCP related products to monetize the project/app/tool/whatever that you make/made.
This seems to be the consensus, and I can understand the reasoning. That said, I still think CCP should make the wording clearer.
I would also like to point out that I am not trying to profit by charging money for this feature (nor do I think I have been accused of that), I am just trying to not lose too much money in order to provide it. How many useful applications and features are never developed because of this clause? But that is an entirely different conversation. 
Yea, for sure.
Best bet would be to ask for donations or use a free alternative. Or at least have people pay ISK so its not a total loss haha.
Simplest way to understand CCP’s stance.
You can’t pay real money for a feature. Donations are fine (patreon, etc…) but if you put anything behind a paywall you are breaking a rule (be it EULA or somewhere else)
Also I’m +1 for the “Why the hell are you doing SMS notifications” camp. It’s 2018, discord/slack/your own app with push notifications should be the only things you even consider doing.
Therefore you are bound by the developer license.
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