How do you write a formal written permission ?

[yanuart]

Hi, I guess this is something I've never expected before when I released my game (most of them are legal, formal or business thingy.. I'm find with my programming skill ;) ). A magazine asked me to fax a written permission to use my demo in his magazine. I don't want to sound unprofessional by writing a crappy one so I ask in this forum is there a template/sample which I can look at ?

thanks

[Artinum]

I don't think there's a template as such. I think the important thing is that whatever you send is signed.

I await the voice of experience, however...

[GBGames]

You can wait a little longer, but in the meantime, I'll try to help.

You don't need to worry about writing in legalese. Just make a list of what it is you want them to have permission to do and what you don't want them to do. From there you can write, in plain English, exactly what you would like the agreement to be.

Also, your demo doesn't already allow distribution to others in the license? I would think you would want to explicitly say, "Yes, this demo program can be shared with others." If that is the case, I don't know why they need any more permission than that. If not, then check for the demo EULAs for a few shareware apps and see what language they use. Essentially you are just making a special license agreement for this magazine.

[Game Producer]

Not sure if this is of any use, but Retro64 had the following text:
http://www.retro64.com/vendors.asp



Retro64's Distribution Policy

Retro64 allows and encourages all websites, online services, shareware disk vendors, CD-ROM vendors, bulletin board systems, and end-users to freely distribute the shareware and freeware versions of our products. If you wish to distribute any Retro64 product, you may obtain the most recent shareware version from our download page. It is not necessary to contact Retro64 for authorization, and you may begin offering the shareware versions of our products immediately. If you have further questions, please feel free to email info@retro64.com .

[Robert Cummings]

IMO this distribution policy should be amended to include: You may not bundle spyware with or otherwise wrap, change or tamper with the demo version of our games in any manner other than distributing the demo version as stands on this site.

[WhereMyArm]

I don't have alot of experience, but it seems like for distributing a demo, Creative Commons should be your best friend.

http://creativecommons.org/license/

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 seems like the best choice.