[pyrrhotech]

Kickstarter backers are not investors. They don't own any part of the business they are funding. They are essentially buying pre-orders. I would assume that genuine attempts to use the money to produce the pre-sold product should be protected from litigation, but if the Kickstarter owner goes out and parties with it instead, that is fraud. Not saying that happened in this case, but it's up to the plaintiff and defense to prove whether they used the funds appropriately or not.

[lotharbot]

kickstarter is neither "investment" not "pre-sales".

It's patronage [0], as explained on a KS blog post the day before the site went live [1]. This means backers are funding a good-faith effort by the team to deliver the described result. They don't have any recourse if the team's good-faith effort fails (meaning, genuine attempts are protected from litigation), but they do have recourse if that effort is not made.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/defining-patronage

[meddlepal]

I think the fact nobody understands this means their objective has failed and they are by default relegated to being investment or pre-sales regardless of whether they claim to be or not.

[Guvante]

No effort was made in this case (from the stories) so it seems to line up well with their original goal.

[rue]

The language around ‘good faith’ and ‘best effort’ seems really dicey. Leaves a lot of room for legal trouble if someone wants to cause it.

[lotharbot]

https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/1/1-201#Goodfaith

The term appears about 3000 times in the US Code overall.