--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Sat, Sep 10, 2016 at 12:04 AM, Sam Pablo Kuper sampablokuper@posteo.net wrote:
On 09/09/16 19:37, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
certainly, pledges are "gifts" - there's no warranty, there's no contract of sale, they're *definitely* not "orders". that's very very important even in light of the fact that i'm here on a 90-day visa waiver! customs declaration *specifically* asked, "are you bringing in product for the solicitation of orders" and the *only* reason i was able to say *NO* to that was precisely because this is a gift-economy-based crowd-funding campaign.
I don't know anything about visa waivers, but it seems worth pointing out that Crowd Supply pledges do not appear to be gifts. They are covered by a contract: https://www.crowdsupply.com/terms-of-use
It says, among other things:
"Creator: a User responsible for running a Campaign, filling Pre-orders, or otherwise supplying products for commercial sale. [...]
A Creator is required to fulfill all Premiums of a Creator’s successful Campaign or refund Pledges to any Backer whose Premium the Creator does not or cannot fulfill.
looks reasonable to me... so that people don't "run away" with the money, basically!
IANAL, but that looks quite a lot like a contract of sale to me.
a contract of sale has very very specific terms which involve things like "warranties", "WEEE Directives" and so on.
Also, Crowd Supply definitely promotes itself as a store:
https://blog.crowdsupply.com/2013/03/04/crowd-supply-is-a-store/
that's *after* the crowdfunding campaign... and it's run *by crowdsupply* - not by the backers and not by the campaign creators.
Now that the crowd-funding period is over, Crowd Supply has switched to offering pre-orders, which are distinct from pledges under the terms linked above. I have no idea what regulatory implications that has, if any.
they're sold by crowdsupply - not by me. crowdsupply will be ordering a batch of units (from me). i will be *crowdsupply's* supplier (for fulfilling *their* preorders). any "contracts of sale" - for the preorders and for the preorders only - will be with *crowdsupply* (not me).
l.