non-profit?

[mad30]

First off.

Why does everyone think that non-profit organization can't sell goods and services? This is as wrong as people believe non profit organizations can't pay it's employees. Fun fact, I can legally be paid and PWO would still be a non-profit organization. You may google search these claims, ive taken a few moments to do so myself:

On paying employees in general, a employee may be paid, with full set of benefits just like any other organization. What can't happen is the board of directors be paid other than for their work, and left over profit (profit = income - expenses) can't be distributed amongst owners or employees. All profit must be reinvested back into the organization.

Links to back up my claim:
http://voices.yahoo.com/how-much-nonpro ... 91311.html
http://www.nonprofit.pro/nonprofit_organization.htm
http://nonprofit.about.com/od/faqstheba ... ystaff.htm

As far as charging money for merchandise, completely legal. Was a bit harder to find links that didn't have a bunch of other info about non-profit organizations, but a found a few that you may or may not consider useful and for those that don't feel free to google it on your own and try to prove otherwise:
http://www.linkedin.com/answers/non-pro ... 3-20113071
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110501/th ... ncome.html

Now some personal experience
In the town I went to high school at, we had a non-profit country club. The country club had both a swimming poll and a golf course and its goal was best serve the community. Because of this there was different pricing options for membership and fees to golf/swim base on how close a person lived the the country club. Those that live a mile or more away had to pay extra. When I wanted to golf I had to pay $10 for 9 holes. They payed the life guard and some other employees MINIMUM WAGE. At the end of the year they did various things to reinvest any left over money back into the country club. This includes buying new equipment to maintain the swimming poll and golf course, and a few years ago they even expanded onto one of the holes by buying land creating a new teabox and adding a pond on the particular hole.

This is all information based off of american laws, sweden laws may be different.

 

[Merse]

Ok, here is the deal Mike:
1) Do you know the basic principle of any legal system which is called "Innocent until found guilty"? So either you have proof that they use the money players donate for personal gains, in which case you should go to the court. Or you have no proof at all, in which case you just try defame the PWO staff. Sadly, I think it's the second, because you seem really pissed off because you were banned recently.

2) Nobody told anything about complete equity of the players. Those who donated and got the tokens may gain things easier. But they CAN NOT GAIN ANYTHING that other players couldn't. You even can buy Tokens for Pokemoney if you wish. What you're suggesting is that if you gain more money for your work, the law shouldn't let you buy a bigger car, more clothes than those who gain less. Even if you're both secretaries, but at different companies so your payment is different. That's completely ridiculous.

3) You and Petter completely misunderstand the meaning of "buy" and "donate". In the first case, you pay and you get a product you expect. If you don't get it, you may go to the judge and demand the thing you purchased. In the second, you give the money, and you either get something or not. The staff may decide any time that they reduce the shiny chance of MS, that they remove the possibility to buy MS for tokens, completely overhaul the system so Members can get level 150 Pokes and you can't, or even refuse to give any tokens for the donation. And you can't sue them, because it WAS NOT a sales contract.

Why does everyone think that non-profit organization can't sell goods and services? This is as wrong as people believe non profit organizations can't pay it's employees. Fun fact, I can legally be paid and PWO would still be a non-profit organization. You may google search these claims, ive taken a few moments to do so myself:

On paying employees in general, a employee may be paid, with full set of benefits just like any other organization. What can't happen is the board of directors be paid other than for their work, and left over profit (profit = income - expenses) can't be distributed amongst owners or employees. All profit must be reinvested back into the organization.

Getting paid is different from gaining money from the Pokemon Franchise, in which case you would be responsible for copyright infringement of Pokemon World Online, because you gained money in bad faith from their work. And that's exactly why PWO staff can't see a cent from teh donations. They would be liable personally.

 

[mad30]

Why does everyone think that non-profit organization can't sell goods and services? This is as wrong as people believe non profit organizations can't pay it's employees. Fun fact, I can legally be paid and PWO would still be a non-profit organization. You may google search these claims, ive taken a few moments to do so myself:

On paying employees in general, a employee may be paid, with full set of benefits just like any other organization. What can't happen is the board of directors be paid other than for their work, and left over profit (profit = income - expenses) can't be distributed amongst owners or employees. All profit must be reinvested back into the organization.

Getting paid is different from gaining money from the Pokemon Franchise, in which case you would be responsible for copyright infringement of Pokemon World Online, because you gained money in bad faith from their work. And that's exactly why PWO staff can't see a cent from teh donations. They would be liable personally.

That's a different arguement than being a non-profit organization. Issue i find with this topic is everyone not understand what non-profit is.

 

[Merse]

I know. I wrote it to support your arguments

 

[MikeO37]

Please dont doubt my legal IQ...You are getting all worked up while I remain completely calm. Just give me a few days and we will see how Nintendo feels about your company accepting money for their copyrighted product.

 

[Jinji]

I will say this and nothing more on this topic. You are merely repeating the same hollow threats many before you have attempted to scare us with. Unless you have something new to say, I can only request - despite much expectation of ignorance - that you please do not waste our time any further.

 

[Saric]

Please dont doubt my legal IQ...You are getting all worked up while I remain completely calm. Just give me a few days and we will see how Nintendo feels about your company accepting money for their copyrighted product.

They already know about PWO and their hands are a little tied legally.
A non-profit object/game/organization can bring in money, but the whole concept is that it gets fed back into the product/organization, and the staff itself sees none of this money.

 

[MikeO37]

You cannot prove that! And please do not get mad at me for repeating myself, as everyone else arguing with me is doing the exact same thing. Go ahead and lock the thread; I know it is just because you fear what i have to say. Users are going to realize what is going on. All their money disapearing into some mysterious bank account. How is anybody to know what is happening with this money. Is it truly being saved up for a new server or......? Disclosure of information might be a good idea for an organization posing as "non profit"

 

[Bluerise]

You cannot prove that! And please do not get mad at me for repeating myself, as everyone else arguing with me is doing the exact same thing. Go ahead and lock the thread; I know it is just because you fear what i have to say. Users are going to realize what is going on. All their money disapearing into some mysterious bank account. How is anybody to know what is happening with this money. Is it truly being saved up for a new server or......? Disclosure of information might be a good idea for an organization posing as "non profit"

Where did you get new server from? Current donations cover the cost of the current two server we have. How else do you think they're up?

 

[psychosamm]

Mike you make me lol.

Here's my insight on all of this:

We all know that donations, regardless of intent of the donation, simply goes back into the game, via server upkeep. From what i'm seeing you have a few issues:

Issue 1
1) "It is wrong for people to pay for an advantage in a game" My sight on this is:
1a) Have you every played a game ever in your life? Obviously with nearly every game there are going to be benefits for those who pay extra, regardless of whether or not the game is profit or non profit. The only difference is with a nonprofit game the proceeds go to benefit the game further.

Issue 2
2) "The makers of this game could be pocketing money for all we know! They could be profiting off of something they have no legal right to profit from!"
2b) Well according to Zebs they used to keep players updated, and according to Blue the have given ideas in the past. Now let's think about this for a moment, what if they did make a thread detailing the money they have gained, along with how much it costs for upkeep? Would you be happy? I have a feeling the answer is no, you would cry "This could be made up! Show me official documentation!"
And if they showed documentation you would merely cry "But what about leftover money?! Where has this gone?!" Then if they showed the account in which leftover donations were located you would plead "How are WE supposed to know this is not simply a random account that some of the profits have gone to! This seems fishy, how can we know for sure?!!!?!!one!1"
So basically you are going to cry and complain regardless of what is done to try and make you happy. The staff has nothing to prove to you, if Nintendo decides they want to have a look, they will, just as they have done in the past. PWO is still here, isn't it?

2c) On a side note, this is just my personal feelings here, even though i know that the staff cannot legally make a profit off of the Pokemon name, if they did however, i would be perfectly happy with that because they put a lot of time and dedication into this game. They however, do not, and can not, if the game is to exist.

 

[Maideza]

Strangely enough, it fits a bit too well in this thread.

 

[Merse]

You cannot prove that! And please do not get mad at me for repeating myself, as everyone else arguing with me is doing the exact same thing. Go ahead and lock the thread; I know it is just because you fear what i have to say. Users are going to realize what is going on. All their money disapearing into some mysterious bank account. How is anybody to know what is happening with this money. Is it truly being saved up for a new server or......? Disclosure of information might be a good idea for an organization posing as "non profit"

Then again: Innocent until found guilty. You think they may get some extra money from PWO? Then YOU are the one who has to prove it. They don't have to prove their innocence
By the way, personally I wouldn't if they would take the leftovers from my DONATION and would distribute it among themselves. They worked for years on PWO in their free time, that's the less they would deserve. It's only my opinion though. I know it still would be illegal...

Strangely enough, it fits a bit too well in this thread.

Way too well...
http://forum.pokemon-world-online.net/showthread.php?tid=17496

 

[MikeO37]

WHOA!!! you find a quotation taken from this here website and posted it as evidence on my comment!!! I am truly shocked. I would refund that guys donation if I were you. Show some respect. He is likely a kid who is using his allowance..... and again, reasonable doubt" or "within probability" Therefore, it is not proof, just likelyhood....Would you please read other comments b4 you post something idiotic...I know I am repeating myself here, but this last guy likely has some sort of disability, so I am going to re-post my argument so he can understand......

 

[MikeO37]

OK! Well I am done arguing becuase people keep messaging me and its getting really annoying. If you could please just remove this account that would be great. Then I can make a new account or something. This is my only e-mail right now, and it is the only one I use because I use it for school too. Please just let me make another account using this email if you are not willing to unban this current account. Even if you just clear the account, that would work. Just remove the pokemon or whatever. Making a new account is really annoying, and I would rather just use this 1, even if I lose my crap.....So message me back or something?!?! I am tired of arguing and waiting for something to get done.....

 

[psychosamm]

WHOA!!! you find a quotation taken from this here website and posted it as evidence on my comment!!! I am truly shocked. I would refund that guys donation if I were you. Show some respect. He is likely a kid who is using his allowance..... and again, reasonable doubt" or "within probability" Therefore, it is not proof, just likelyhood....Would you please read other comments b4 you post something idiotic...I know I am repeating myself here, but this last guy likely has some sort of disability, so I am going to re-post my argument so he can understand......

I'm amazed at how butthurt you are yet you don't even properly respond to rebuttals. Now you've resorted to petty insults and calling him a little kid? Real mature debating right there. Any respect in debating I had for you is gone. I genuinely hope you don't even bother coming back to PWO.

 

[Merse]

Don't bug him. His only e-mail is for school too. He must be like 14. You would be butthurt in his situation too if you would have spent your spare money on PWO then you would have been stupid enough to use a bot, got caught and lose all your money instead of spending it on chewing gums, baseball caps and the first Playboy in your life

 

[KarasuroKun]

I needs a sandwich after reading this thread.

 

[Chocobo7]

This is just turning into both sides throwing insults at each other. Topic Locked. If you feel like this is a mistake feel free to contact another staff member about it.