KickstarterForum.org

[Scylla]

1) Are you allowed to also fund your campaign on indiegogo as well at the same time?
Or does this go against any rules?

If your crowdfund is unsuccessful, can you do it on indiegogo then if the former is not allowed?

If it is allowed, why don't more people do it?
A lot of people seem to stick just to Kickstarter alone and not any other crowd funding souces. Why?

2) Let's say you're making a kickstarter project for a game.
I know there are a lot of games out there on kickstarter that get successfully funded but they don't appear as if they need the money because they have a ton of content.

It's my assumption a lot of those kinds of projects don't use the money on the game itself, but they use it on other things such as rent, car payments, etc. Is this legally allowed? To do whatever you wish with the money?

I mean I suppose it makes sense for rent for example, if someone is really down on their luck and they want to get their project up in the air, they need to at least still make a basic living with living costs done for them.

3) I've noticed some Kickstarter projects have their company name instead of their real name.
How do they do this? Do they just replace their name with their company name?

4) What if you have a game for example, but the game is part of an unofficial company such as: "Hello Games!", are you allowed to put "Hello Games!" as your name? And by unofficial, I mean they simply just made a website called "hellogames.com" for example, and put their game on it or announced their game on it, and they have their own logo but no legal forms of any kind. Is this okay for Kickstarter?

5) When you put your city, lets say your city is not very popular or known, but you want to put a different city that's more popular or at least one that's close to you in your state/province. Is this allowed? Or will Kickstarter automatically know what city you're in and place it there on the project?

If that's not the case and you are able to put any city you want, are you technically allowed to lie about which city you want to put down? Will putting a city you're not in affect payment issues such as when you put your payment address and things like that?

Thanks.

[sbriggman]

1) Yes you are, but it is highly discouraged. See: http://www.crowdcrux.com/running-multip ... campaigns/

2) The main rule is that you must deliver on your rewards. Typically, the cost of fulfilling the rewards is very high and creators will only make 5-10% profit on the campaign, which can be chewed up by cost estimation errors. That profit must be reported (taxes). You could use this money to rent a car if it is related to your business and deduct it as an expense. Kickstarter doens't allow charity projects though, so you couldn't use all your money to just pay your rent and post it as a project.

3) Yes, that is my understanding.

4) I think that this is okay. Be default if you are in the US I think it would be a sole proprietorship, which offers you no legal protection.

5) I discourage this. You don't want to be called out either - it seems disingenuous.

[Scylla]

Thanks for the reply.
I'm still a bit concerned about a few though.

2) I've actually seen campaigns and heard about them in the news, which completely bail out and cancel their game after receiving funds. It angers the community, but is this legally allowed? Or could the campaign starters be sued?
It seems that the profits are really donations, so it doesn't seem like legal action could be taken.

If they don't fulfil the rewards at least, could legal action be taken against that?

5) While you say you discourage this, would there be any legal consequences?
What if the city you are putting down is actually extremely close to where you live, and you actually commute to work there every day. Would it really matter if you live in a different city, yet the city you place down is so close?

[sbriggman]

2) The profits are not donations, unless no reward is chosen or if it's something like $50 for a mug. See Kickstarter tax information here: http://www.crowdcrux.com/kickstarter-in ... lications/

Yes, you can be sued by indiviudals or by the state. See: Washington files first consumer protection lawsuit involving crowdfunding -> http://www.geekwire.com/2014/attorney-g ... d-project/

"Is a creator legally obligated to fulfill the promises of their project?

Yes. Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) We crafted these terms to create a legal requirement for creators to follow through on their projects, and to give backers a recourse if they don't. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill." - Source: https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/accoun ... ickstarter

5) I'm not sure if there would be legal consequences for this. There may be tax consequences if the IRS considers that you "did business" in that city because you put it as the city of your project in the same way that if you sell products in a particular state or city, you can be liable for taxes.

[Scylla]

For question 5,
I don't live in the US I live in Canada.
Could there still be a problem do you think?

[sbriggman]

I don't know anything about Canadian legal or tax laws, so I would consult an accountant or lawyer if I were you.

[Scylla]

How exactly does kickstarter pay you?
Can't they pay you through paypal?

I'm not sure how this Amazon Payments thing works, but when I went to look at the account signup for that, I had to specify my city, so that would be a different city than the one on the Kickstarter campaign page.

Does the campaign page city have anything to do with the address for your payment?
Would it really matter?