And one of those parts says you agree that those rules are for a specific period of time after which the rules can be changed and you have to accept the new rules to continue your license.

In other words you agree to a rental of the engine. And you keep renting if you want to keep using it. You don't actually own it.

We already went over this five hours ago in post 169: the license already said you must accept changes to the terms or cease use.

You don't get to choose "I pick the parts of the license I like and ignore the others." The part where it says you must accept changes to the terms! FFS. Might be news to you but Unity is subscription based software. You pay a monthly or yearly fee. You pay attention to the terms of service too.

Unity makes this change retroactive to every game ever build with any version of the Unity engine already.
The version of Unity doesn't matter at all - says Unity here.
And if the copyright law (and which ones) will applie to this case will be debateable.
So far in the gaming industry we didn't got stuff that is vapoware. But this only means nobody is enforcing his rights to that stuff. And we got stuff that was turned into freeware by somebody who got the rights. But did we got stuff that already went out of copyright?

Btw, the 70 years after the death of the original creator wouldn't work in my example.

That's interesting.
I might have a older version of the game that never prompted me anything other than the: "Cannot launching Steam, it seems your copy it's not legit. If you like the software buy it", needless to say, the copy is perfectly legit and I run the game without Steam.
I'll check the version later.

Or in the event of a corporation/company and works for hire it's like 120 years.. I remember delving a bit deeper into copyright specifics back in 2010.

Pretty sure when push comes to shove, same with OGL you are allowed to select any valid license; And the previous ones were valid last we checked.

Though more than likely it would be easier to just remove all unity games off steam period, then lock the games so they can't be downloaded/installed. Epic games and others would do the same, and then all that's left is people on their own platforms who will also do likewise, unless it never sells a dime and can be downloaded/shared infinitely without being charged.

Uff, this is like arguing with a brick. You clearly don't understand contracts and subscriptions at all.

I hope the next time your teleoperator or bank sends their updated fees and contract, you tell them that you're sticking with the old one....

And I guess you think GOG is just delisting games just to piss off gamers and not because they have to oblige with the contracts they've agreed to.

You think upgrading the terms of a contract that explicitly says the other party must agree with updates or cease use (extremely common terms in any kind of professional software!) is somehow similar to a vague and never-tested-in-court clause about "authorized" versions in the OGL and the question whether something that's been once called authorized can be retroactively deauthorized. It's completely different. Please stop bringing it up, because it is not any more relevant than the attempt at misdirecting the discussion with an install of Windows 95.... The WoTC case is also completely different because it involves third parties slapping a license on their work whereas game developers enter a contract with unity (same as gog enters a contract with publishers).

I don't say it is time to read tos (nobody got the time to do that), but since we know they could do something like that in the near future, let's at least check if that's true or not.

You keep claiming that, but have you checked what the actual text said? There's questions about whether anyone who stayed on the 2022 LTS (or earlier) can still elect to stay on the old license: https://www.gamerbraves.com/unity-silently-deletes-github-repo-that-tracks-terms-of-service-changes-and-updated-its-license/

If Unity is relying on the new license to remove the old ones, then it's in WoTC territory.

But a license is a license (well more a adhoc contract), i don't see how it's irrelevant. Either everyone can do it... or no one can. There's no in-between, except if you accept a new license and agreement. When changing contracts you'd have to nullify the old one and sign the new one.

Hmmm makes me wonder if they could claim all xbox360's are invalid and game(s) (disc or otherwise) are invalid unless you log into the latest Xbox Live and get their current update to the OS which will let them track you and charge you each time you want to turn the machine on or play a game. Another hypothetical, though i think we can all agree wouldn't hold water.

Or Microsoft updates their license on their compiler, libraries and software development kits, and any time one of their runtimes, libraries, or a program compiled by their software both dev and user have to pay 1 penny, and said license is retroactive to the earliest versions of the software and thus since it's retroactive everyone has to pay up for every time any of their software was run in the last 30 years.

No, i am pretty sure by law you can't cancel an old agreement just because you want to, and just because Unity is decreeing the license has to be updated i don't think that's the case.

I looked at the april 2023 not long ago, and saw no area at all that said you had to update the license. There was a comment on 'relevant applicable fees' but wasn't spelled out with anything concrete. Half the license was qualifying a tier and income thresholds before you'd need a pro license.

https://nordic.ign.com/news/72666/why-unitys-new-install-fees-are-spurring-massive-backlash-among-game-developers

"We do already have fraud detection practices in our Ads technology which is solving a similar problem, so we will leverage that know-how as a starting point,"

So this will
A. Not work
B. Disadvantage developers
C. Spy on users

This is presumably also how they'll determine if users are in emerging markets with different pricing. So after the cookie wall on the web, whenever a unity game starts and the IP address of the end user is in the EU, you'll get a Unity dialog asking for permission to tell Unity about your game install, your location, mail address, phone number, credit card data and social security number (or equivalent).

If Unity wants to raise prices that's their business, but why would they shoot themselves in the foot?

Good find.

I only checked the current (April 2023) terms.

I'm not sure I can comment much on the legal situation now because it is starting to look a lot more complicated. However, it is worth emboldening one clause from the old terms: "You understand that it is your responsibility to maintain complete records establishing your entitlement to Prior Terms."

Assuming the terms mean what they appear to mean and there are no complications outside of these "additional terms" that you need to account for, it does seem as though it may be OK to continue distributing the unity runtime under these old terms.

I don't think Unity releasing a new version of the terms without these provisions is any kind of attempt to invalidate the old terms, so I would not call it WoTC territory (they explicitly tried to deauthorize old licenses). However, I would fully expect Unity to require proof from you that you're eligible for these old terms.

It does seem to contradict the lawyers' claim quoted by eric5h5 above. Something fishy definitely going on!

Isn't that the opposite of having to use the updated license no matter what?

This is why i keep saying following the terms of the license, of the version of the software i downloaded, which will have a license and information as part of the install package, all offline of course.

What matters is the content of the contract, not that it is a contract.

Granting an irrevocable and permanent right to distribute something is completely different from granting a limited license under terms that can be updated or terminated at any time.

You have to read and understand the small print. They are written for a reason.