I am an aspiring production/set designer for films/tv. Can I use Sketchup Make 2017 for designing sets to be used for filmmaking. Terms of use said something about commercial use, and I don’t know how this applies to me.
If you are a volunteer and just giving away your work, it wouldn’t be considered commercial use. Clearly if this is your work and you are getting paid for it, your use would be considered commercial. If you really can’t determine whether your use of SketchUp would be considered commercial or not, you should get some legal counsel.
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In simple terms (I am not a lawyer) if you are paid for your work in any way, you need a paid version of SketchUp, either Shop or Pro. The terms of use in Make 17 and Free prohibit commercial work, which means getting paid for your work.
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What about for educational purposes? For example a film made in university but later down the line one that could be potentially submitted for festivals
As I said, I’m not a lawyer, nor do I work for SketchUp. If you get paid for the work you are doing right now, the work should be done on a pro version.
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Educational licenses also have the restriction (no commercial activities)
As for getting paid or not, that actually doesn’t matter, it’s more the intention, which evidently, is spoken out right now…
Regardless of how many examples may be given, non of the answers here(Official Sketchup members or not) won’t stand in court.
That said, I have never seen Trimble go to trial for misusage of SketchUp, though.
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If this is the case, I would recommend looking at rolling the price of sketchup into the overall equipment costs for making a film (cameras, computers, sound etc). If the intention is to submit to film festivals, it is basically a commercial endeavor. But like others, I’m not a lawyer and can’t say for sure.
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SketchUp staff will not give legal advice. If you are worried, let your lawyer read the TOS. I understand that any use of SketchUp commercially constitutes commercial use, not just selling models. Quite a lot of people use SketchUp to design things they then manufacture and sell, with models used only internally.
But legal advice from a public computer software user forum is perhaps worth less than you pay for it.