Sea of Thieves - Limited Commercial Usage Guidelines

The Microsoft Services Agreement, Microsoft Trademark and Brand Guidelines and the Xbox Game Content Usage Rules (the “Policies”) generally restrict the commercial use of the Sea of Thieves Name, Brand and Assets.

That being said, we love the enthusiasm that our players and fans show by making things based on Sea of Thieves and sharing them with the community, so we’d like to explain what we (currently) consider to be “commercial use”. The purpose of these Guidelines is to help the Sea of Thieves community understand what you can and can’t do with Sea of Thieves-related things, with the intent of being more lenient towards limited commercial activity (as more fully described below) in order to help our fans be creative and to express that creativity with some limited commercial activity, while at the same time preventing larger-scale commercial exploitation of our Brand.

Please note that we reserve the right to change our mind at any time (such as if people start to take advantage of our good intentions) and to update these Guidelines. So please don't count on these Guidelines always being here or in the specific form they are right now.

At the end of the day, our primary goal here is to let our brilliant fans do great things for each other without others coming along and spoiling it for everyone.

ON THAT BASIS, THEREFORE:

In General

YOU MAY:

Do things that are specifically covered by “fair dealing” or “fair use” exceptions to copyright and trademark laws.

YOU MAY NOT:

Do things that are not specifically permitted by these Guidelines or expressly allowed by applicable laws.

Definitions

These Guidelines cover the use of our Brands and our Assets. For these purposes of these Guidelines, when we refer to:

a “Name”, what we mean is the name of any one of our games, taglines, features, events or company identity, as well as any names which are confusingly similar to the names of any of our games, taglines, features, events or company identity;
our “Brands”, what we mean is any Names and/or the related logos and distinctive characteristics of any of our Names and games;
our “Assets”, what we mean is the code, software, graphics, textures, images, models, sound and audio from any of our games and any videos or screenshots taken from or our games.

These Guidelines apply in addition to, not in place of, the Policies listed above. Please check back here from time to time because we may update these Guidelines and provide further guidance.

Essential Requirements

Here are the absolute ground rules that apply to any use of our Names, Brands and Assets. If you are using any part of any Name, any of our Brands or any of our Assets, then what you are doing MUST:

NOT make people think that you or what you are doing is official; approved or endorsed by us; or associated or connected with us;
NOT be unlawful, deceptive, obscene, harmful or disparaging;
NOT take action that would harm or damage any of our Brands or any of our Assets;
NOT include anything else around it that makes people think that you or what you are doing is official; approved or endorsed by us; or associated or connected with us;
comply with the relevant Account Terms/EULA; and
sufficiently differentiate the use of any Name you are using from any other branding.

All Uses

In relation to all uses (permitted or otherwise):

all rights (including copyright, trademark rights and related rights) in the Name, Brand, Assets, and any derivatives are and will remain owned by Rare Ltd. and Microsoft;
all and any permissions and consents are given by Rare Ltd. and Microsoft in our discretion and may be revoked at any time; and
all rights are expressly reserved.

If something isn't covered by these Guidelines, there’s a good chance that means we don't want you to do it. In any case, if something you’re considering isn’t explicitly covered in these Guidelines, please don't do it without getting permission from us first.

You can contact our Support team at https://support.seaofthieves.com/hc/en-gb/requests/new

Select ‘General Enquiry’ and include ‘Commercial Usage Guidelines’ in the subject of your query. Please note that you must have a Sea of Thieves account and be logged in to the Support site to submit a message.

If something is already specifically covered and permitted by these Guidelines and our Sea of Thieves Policies, then you don't need to contact us.

Naming Guidelines

If you comply with and follow the Essential Requirements YOU MAY use our Names in connection with a product or service title or listing (including on websites or platforms like YouTube) if:

the Name is in a secondary name or title (or secondary part of it);
you do so because it is necessary to honestly and fairly describe those things or the purpose of them;
you ensure that the Name (which includes any confusingly similar name) is not the dominant element or the distinctive part of your complete name or title;
you don't use any other aspect of the Brands or Assets as part of any related branding, including as or as part of any logo.
in particular, you don’t use the Sea of Thieves Reaper’s Mark skull logo, either on its own or incorporated into another logo.

For example:

Naming a podcast “Pirate Talk – a Sea of Thieves podcast” would be okay, but “Sea of Thieves: The Podcast” would not be okay, because the name might confuse people and make them think the podcast is an official Rare/Microsoft production.

These are the “Naming Guidelines”, and they apply to everything you might do under these Guidelines.

Hand-Crafted Products

If you follow the Essential Requirements and Naming Guidelines, you may make and sell certain individual (as in, not mass-produced) handcrafted products that are inspired by Sea of Thieves as long as you conform with all of the following:

any product or design is otherwise entirely original and unique (a “Unique Design”);
no part of the Brand and/or Assets forms a dominant element or substantial part of the product or its design;
you make no use of any software, sound or audio from Sea of Thieves;
you mark clearly and prominently on each such product and all related materials and product listings/descriptions that it is “NOT AN OFFICIAL SEA OF THIEVES PRODUCT. NOT APPROVED BY OR ASSOCIATED WITH RARE LTD. OR MICROSOFT”;
you are explicit about who to contact about the product and/or purchase, who the seller and manufacturer are, and that the seller and manufacturer are NOT Rare Ltd. and Microsoft, NOT associated with Rare Ltd. and Microsoft, and NOT supported by Rare Ltd. and Microsoft;
Rare Ltd. and Microsoft have no liability for the products or purchase;
you don’t make and sell more than 20 product items using the same (or substantially similar) “Unique Design” (further described below). For example, you could make 20 T-shirts using Design A and 20 T-shirts using Design B, but you cannot make 21 T-shirts using Design A; nor can you make 20 T-shirts using Design A plus three mugs using Design A;
you sell those products only through a website or service/channel that independently records the quantities of the product sold and enables us to independently verify that information;
you comply with all other laws and requirements; and
make no more than $5,000 USD for any calendar year from selling products under these Guidelines.

As used above, a “Unique Design” is something that adds enough personal creativity to make the work distinctive and original, rather than just pulling assets directly from the game (or making only minor changes). For example, you can’t just put Sea of Thieves key art or a screenshot from the game on a product, but you could create original fan art or cosplay props inspired by your adventures on the Sea of Thieves and sell limited quantities of it (as long as it complies with all the other requirements).

For example, making cosplay props and replica/models of things found in the game are great, and we love to see it. What we don’t want, however, is people pulling 3D models and other assets directly from the game files to sell or otherwise distribute, or to make 3D prints and sell those, as that would violate the Policies and these Guidelines.

The purpose of the product number and sales amount limits are to allow our fans to create and share the products of their hobbies and creative pursuits with the rest of the Sea of Thieves community, without allowing people to extensively commercialise our Name, Brand or Assets, or run businesses selling products featuring our Name, Brands or Assets. If a business tries to commercialise Sea of Thieves beyond the Guidelines we’ve established here, we’ll do something about it.

Thanks,

Rare Ltd. and Microsoft