> In my opinion, Kickstarter projects should not be legally obligated to deliver hardware rewards.
There's an easy way around that for projects, don't offer the output of the project as a reward for backing it.
> I want to fund projects where the creators don't need to be 100% sure their idea will work before having the means to try it out.
Okay, back projects where the creators don't offer the output of the project as the reward for backing it. (Or, projects where the development is already done, and the Kickstarter is just being done for initial production costs, so the product isn't speculative.)
> And I certainly don't want people to be able to sue those creators if it doesn't work out.
The only reason people could sue the creators is if the creators offered something in exchange for money, received the money, and didn't deliver as promised.
The creators are in full control of what they offer as rewards. It seems to me that the problem is that some people want creators to be able to use the promise of a product they don't know that they can produce as inducement for people to give money, but not be obligated to actually follow through.
This project advertised itself as having all the development finished and only needing pre-order cash to kick off the manufacturing, so that's not really a good guide:
The "Designs" are complete, patents filed, component suppliers selected, the manufacturing process is defined, the CM [contract manufacturer] chosen so all we need is your support in this project as we size the first myIDkey production run and ship product in September 2013. Please make a pledge and receive your myIDkey!
There's an easy way around that for projects, don't offer the output of the project as a reward for backing it.
> I want to fund projects where the creators don't need to be 100% sure their idea will work before having the means to try it out.
Okay, back projects where the creators don't offer the output of the project as the reward for backing it. (Or, projects where the development is already done, and the Kickstarter is just being done for initial production costs, so the product isn't speculative.)
> And I certainly don't want people to be able to sue those creators if it doesn't work out.
The only reason people could sue the creators is if the creators offered something in exchange for money, received the money, and didn't deliver as promised.
The creators are in full control of what they offer as rewards. It seems to me that the problem is that some people want creators to be able to use the promise of a product they don't know that they can produce as inducement for people to give money, but not be obligated to actually follow through.