Is this legal?

[Piorun]

Hi,

I have a question for you. Is this legal to gets any profits (you know, money) from server? I mean from premiums etc.

[Platinum]

Depends on what you mean... I guess.

If someone is donating for the server and you say it's for the server and you go on to buy yourself some new kicks or something, yeah that'd be illegal. But if you say that not ALL the money will be used on the server then I guess not.

Hope this helped!

[myonlake]

I am not really a lawyer, but like JayR said, it would be a fraud to spend money to something else than what you say they will be used for. Also, it depends on what kind of profit you're making. Sometimes if you're getting paid for scripts and maps and your profit goes very high, you should think of starting a trade name of some kind. Otherwise the tax office will start following your side business, even though they rarely do strike on personal accounts just like that, and random profit is legal.

Anyways, you can get profit any way you want without problems, just make sure they will be used accordingly and you inform your users where they will be used for if you want to keep it up.

[will briggs]

Depends if they are paying tax on it or not. If they are selling a service (ie extra game benefits) then yes it is illegal if they do not pay tax. They need to be a registered business to do this - if a server has taken your money for a service and they are not paying tax on the actual sale, then it is illegal.

You are then legally obliged to reclaim your money - and so is the government. i.e register yourself as a business so you don't have these problems. And before you think you can get round it via 'Donations' - no you can't. At the end of the day however much you dress it up - your still paying for a service even if you play the MTA server and the money goes on hosting it.

Hope this helps you

[Piorun]

But you know guys I wasnt sure that is legal because i'm using not-mine-software to build mine-software (i mean im using MTA to build server). That's the thing. If im using MTA for earn money im not stealing some of "MTA's codes". You know what i mean? I know few ppl are getting money from servers on SA-MP. But SA-MP isnt Open Source etc.

So once I ask - Is this legal to earn money from my server but using Open Source Software Multi Theft Auto?

[Noneatme]

In germany, there's a one-person limit - €450 / month. If you exeed this amount, you are forced to pay taxes.

(There's some other stuff going on, but it's kinda a summary.)

So unfortunately, it's legal to earn money with it in germany. (some german roleplay servers earn €33.500 / year using MTA... that's jaw-dropping D: )

[Woovie]

Yes it's legal, if you accept it as donations to continue providing a server. You're not taking money for MTA, you're taking money for your hosting and work.

[.:HyPeX:.]

I'd say that MTA is just a "way" to do your stuff, in fact, you are not selling mta, you are selling basically your work wich functions inside mta.