The currently proposed wording for the revenue limits of the JUCE licensing tiers is:
The annual revenue or funding limits applicable to the Starter, Indie or Pro Licence Types are based on revenue received or obtained by the Licensee over the previous 12 months.
If owner of a Licence is a company, or other legal entity the applicable annual revenue or funding limit is the total revenue or funding received by the entity and all its affiliates (being any business entity from time to time controlling, controlled by, or under common control with the Licensee) from all sources, whether it be received in connection with the entityâs use of the Framework or not, without offsets of any kind.
If the owner of a Licence is an individual the applicable annual revenue or funding limit is the total revenue or funding generated by that individualâs use of the Framework from all sources, including donations, sponsorship, advertising, and any other indirect revenue from your use of JUCE.
As per the previous thread, I strongly suggest you separate Micro-Enteprises (1-man full liability companies, i.e. self-employed, meaning the company name is my name, and I can have a âdistinctive nameâ but legally it is my name) to SME and above (LLC, etc.)
All the EU countries I know of require a person to become a 1-man company (micro-enterprise) to do business, and the income can be split between several professional activities that might not have anything to do with one another.
Most Indies fall in the above category, they are far from being a company (SME or LLC or Ltd, etc).
Question: Letâs assume that sole proprietor/micro-entreprise style businesses count as âindividualâ and I make 10000$ in 12 months using JUCE. This letâs me be in the starter tier. Letâs say I am also employed by a company (not as an contractor, but full employee) part-time doing JUCE-related work and make 50000$. My employer has a JUCE8 license for my work. Now I have an income as an individual business for doing JUCE related work AND an individual salary for doing JUCE-related work. Do these add together and I can no longer qualify for Starter tier?
I would assume that they should not but they are both ârevenue or funding generated by that individualâs use of the Frameworkâ.
They key differences between the three types primarily relate to liability and avoiding double-taxation (i.e. both taxed at the entity and as the owner).
Sole proprietor - No dedicated entity. There are no implied liability protections and the proprietor pays taxes on any income as âhimselfâ. This is what many consultants do if they do not have concerns about liability. This is sometimes referred to as âdoing business asâ.
LLC - separate entity with an attempt to limit the liability to the LLC. There is some limited double taxation. Common for attorneys and consultants with more income and/or risk.
S-Corp - a separate entity with pass through taxation and an attempt to limit liability to the corporation. Itâs essentially a mini-version of a real company (a.k.a. a C-Corp). I havenât met anyone whoâve done this.
Sole Propietor (self-employed) has all their income combined into one, so yes, selling a house would impact that. As long as the âcompanyâ is called YOUR NAME, you are considered a sole proprietor with full liability.
If you work for a company, using a licence seat the company supplies, this is not âyourâ use of JUCE: that company is the owner of their Product, they supply the licence to work on that product, so that is âtheirâ use of JUCE.
A good proxy might be this: if you can get an OV code signing certificate youâre an organization, if you can get an IV certificate youâre an individual.
You have reduced the Pro tier revenue limit from 500k$ to 200k while simultaneously increasing the price for Pro from 2600$ to 3500$ and changing the conditions so that the contractor will need to buy licenses on behalf of all freelancers that contribute to a project.
If I was an Indie developer making a little over 200k$ per year, I would have one perpetual license worth 800$ with JUCE 7. Occasional freelancers working for me would have their own license so I wouldnât pay for that.
This makes sense since they will usually work for multiple employers so I shouldnât need to bear the whole cost for the license.
With JUCE 8, I would now need to buy an upgraded license for myself at 2450$ (assuming I can use the 30% upgrade discount when going from 7 Indie to 8 Pro) and an additional perpetual license for my freelancer at 3500$. So my cost is going up from 800$ to 5950$ without a change in my revenue. This is an over 5000$ price increase which is intense.
I also donât quite understand the logic with subscriptions. If I will need to keep a license as long as the product where a freelancer was working on is being sold, I could never cancel the subscription. This absolutely doesnât feel right.
This is exactly the thought process some of my clients are/will go through and it will cost me work. It will also stop me from hiring a contractor to help out with my own products. Too expensive.
Ensuring that the distributor company has at least 1 license is totally fair. Forcing small businesses to pay to double up the license of a contractor who already has one is crippling.
My opinion (edited):
$200K limit for Indie tier is way too low for registered entities. It includes revenue from non-JUCE products, too. One-man shows easily exceed that limit (also depending on US Dollar rate). If youâre also producing hardware, or reselling unrelated products with very low margin, revenue will be inflated (but income may stay low).
In my case, I have a registered entity, work alone on the code. Only an estimated 10% of my revenue are related to JUCE products (and I only use JUCE for GUI). Becoming Pro would be prohibitive for my business.
And because I have not seen any reply, some of my ideas to fix this (mix and match):
revert the Indie limit back to $500K
(or increase to $1M, what is elsewhere considered as the limit to distinguish personal from corporate)
also for small entities, only count revenue of JUCE-based products
accumulate maximum limit with each seat. Purchasing two Indie licenses will increase the limit to $400K, and so on.
introduce tier(s) between Indie and Pro. That step is harsh or even prohibitive when your revenue is below $1M.
I also see it that way. $200K is a too-low limit for a 3500-dollar license and with this EULA. For some of us, this means a 3.5-fold price increase and a more restrictive EULA at the same time.
It is IMPOSSIBLE in the EU (or at least in all the countries I am aware of) to make money legally without registering as a company (the minimum being a self-employed, unipersonal company with full liability).
As a self-employed person, ALL INCOME is taken into account in your declaration, you can bake cookies, you can cut trees, and you can code for JUCE, all that is declared under your VAT number.
Micro-enterprises (as @pstitt01 described, or 1-man full-liability companies, where the company name is THE PERSONâS NAME) should be excluded from this.
Not only are you lowering that threshold, but you are including in the income stuff that might be completely unrelated to even using a computer.
Additionally, I believe that the option of having an increase on the threshold per license held, as described by @florian is a good idea: for example, for Micro (1-man) and SME enterprises, maybe 1 license = 200k, 2 licenses = 350k and 3 licenses = 500k, and then after you have 3+ licenses and an income above 500k, you are considered a Pro? Something along those lines?
Iâd much rather have the limit simply raised to where it was in JUCE 7 at 500k, as I donât see the logic in that change. That goes completely against the inflation argument.
If it was INCOME, then OK. But weâre talking REVENUE, which is a very fuzzy indicator for the financial situation especially for any small business with revenue below $1M. You can sell software with a 100% margin, or you can distribute some products making a 10% margin.
With a 10% margin, as a one-man company, youâll need $1M revenue to have a life in any larger European city.
I think the form of incorporation should not be taken into account. I go to great lengths to enjoy a limited liability company, which alone costs thousands per year in additional taxes, publishing, and bookkeeping requirements. That does not mean that I am a large corporation, Iâm still a one-man shop. But I have to do everything under the same roof. I couldnât just register another entity for selling my JUCE products.
Any of the following three will fix these problems:
increase the Indie tier threshold
add another Indie 2 tier
let licensees increase the Indie threshold for a fee (e.g. purchasing another seat)
only count JUCE-related revenue.
apply income, not revenue (though probably not a popular option)
Apologies for partly repeating myself. But this is important. If I donât count as Indie anymore, I will have to abandon JUCE, eventually. Which I would hate.
I think so many people reacting to this really shows that the users want to follow the license agreement in good faith, which the Juce team should be thankful for and respect by changing these terms back to what they were if at all possible. For one thing, you canât believe that Juce will always be the only viable audio API.
I have to say Iâm extremely confused with the proposed new license tiers and funding limits so I hope you can help me clarify things for my situation. I am currently fully employed in my âday jobâ as a full-time employee - this is nothing to do with JUCE and I do not even develop code in this day job.
In my evenings I am working on developing audio apps and plugins, dipping my toe in the waters to see if it has any potential, the first of which I am looking to release soon. My understanding is that I can do this through one of two ways:
As an individual, which means any earnings I receive from these sales I would have to declare on my existing tax return and pay additional income tax on
Or I could start a one-man company (or set up as a a sole trader - Iâm in the UK incidentally) just for this side project, which has some pros (I guess liability/indemnity in case someone tries to claim one of the gnarly bass sounds from a synth I wrote broke their Ming vase on the other side of the room, and perhaps being able to claim tax back on things like a JUCE license as business expenses) but some cons (a second tax return and probably paying an accountant once a year to help with this - which seems overkill right now as Iâm just testing the viability of this endeavour).
So if I go down the first route (just sell these products without setting up a company) am I correct that I could use a Starter license if Iâm not expecting the total sales revenue from my apps/plugins to exceed $20K per year (and realistically I doubt Iâll get anywhere close to that), or do I have to take my day job salary into account in the $20K limit (and hence would immediately be in one of the upper tiers simply because of my salary - which seems unfair)
Or⊠if I setup a company for the benefits mentioned above (reduced liability, potential business expense claims) would this be the same? i.e. only revenue for my apps/plugins need to be considered in the $20K per year etc. tiers or does my day job salary get taken into account simply because this would now be a company? Again, this seems unfair as my day job is completely unconnected with JUCE.
