License activation limits policy of Envato?

I’ve been on Envato a long time and purchased many things and never heard this or saw it in any written policy: an author told me their theme was limited to 5 activations? So for example, I use staging to do changes. To load the site to stage, I need to deactivate production, activate stage and once my changes are done, bring the changes and the license back to production and reactivate there. If I do this 2 twice that means I have no more activations. They said this is Envato policy? Or is this author specific, and if so, shouldn’t that be listed on the sales page so people can be informed of (something that is “hidden” and makes the theme useless to me at least the way I do this). Oh, and shouldn’t every license include the ability to run the theme on any “localhost” or “staging” subdomain? thanks

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It’s understandable at some point you need activation on “staging” website and some of themes are being automatically activated on staging subdomains… If you activate the staging website and ready for live, you can request for domain changes and most of the authors are offering it for free.

But when the website is ready ( live ) and if you still need a staging website, you may need to purchase another copy according to the Envato license terms - you can only use the item once on one active website. If the author is refusing or limiting the use of the activation, there’s nothing you can do.

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yeah, “nothing you can do” - except for never buy from that author (ThemeRex). I agree it’s up to each company to decide their terms of doing business, but Envanto should have a policy to make these kinds of specifics prominent on the listing, since I’d never buy a theme that only allows for 5 activations and demands this kind of activation/deactivation routine for using local host. Thanks for your comment.

This is all wrong.

There is nothing in the license terms that restricts the number of activations or simultaneous installations. Rather, usage is restricted to “a single end product.”

A live website, and the staging website for it, are both the same end product. You are within your rights to install the theme on both. Without limitation. Even if you want to reinstall 1000 times.

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oh my bad, I said, it was ThemeRex, but I was wrong, it’s Ancora themes, the Anesta theme. this (5 activation) limit is on their website and was sent by their tech support when I opened a ticket with them. Like I said, how people do business is up to them as long as it is within the Envato policy, but I think this is a material fact that shouldn’t be hidden or buried in fine print, because, since I use staging I’d never buy a theme with 5 activations. So if anyone from Envato reads this, please standardize the policy or if it’s up to the theme dev, then please at least require this kind of thing to be stated clearly. Thanks for your comment.

I guess Ancora themes is ThemeRex or is supported by ThemeRex? the support link from:

goes to:

There’s nothing to standardize. As I mentioned, this is a nonexistent restriction. The license terms do not limit the number of activations. There is no “fine print” which imposes any sort of restriction like this.

ThemeForest authors are not allowed to consider “localhost” or clear staging/development/testing websites (e.g. staging.example.com) as “activations” and hold your license hostage like this.

You’re encouraged to contact Envato Support for potential mediation but unfortunately I question whether they’ll show the will to enforce their license terms. Still, you have the full legal ground here.

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thanks Bailey, appreciate your ideas.

@wendellbaker Did you get anywhere with this? I am facing the same issue with one of the ThemeREX themes that I bought. It is annoying that they let you know about this 5 times limit of activations only after you purchase the theme.

According to the Envato rules, you are entitled to purchase a new license when you change the domain. @ThemeREX is offering something as extra and you’re complaining that there’s a limitation. They have rights to ask you to purchase a new copy and/or ignore your request per “Envato License conditions”

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Envato rules say that regular theme licence can be used only on single domain. ThemeRex is adding an extra limitation on that allowing only 5 number of times to deactivate and activate your theme on your WordPress instance. Despite the fact you are always on a single domain. So definitely ThemeRex is restricting even further the Envato rules.
As it has been mentioned in this thread someone that buys a theme should have the freedom to work on their website in a staging environment (potentially destroying and recreating their WordPress instance until they reach the desired stability) without taffecting his rights on the theme. ThemeRex is not allowing that. Any dev activity that will end up recreating WordPress instance will end up consuming these limited number of activations making the theme unusable for further use. Even if only a single domain. It’s been used.

This limitation on the number of activations should be included in the Envato themeisting page to allow potential customers make the right decision. On the other hand ThemeRex is disclosing this information only after you buy the theme which is unethical.

There’s no definition of single-domain, it’s mentioned as “end-product”
Once you install the theme on a single domain, it becomes an end-product and you’re not able to change the domain.

If you’re willing to work on a “staging” you can use domainname/staging instead of sub-domain which will be another “end-product”

Again, the author is not restricting the rules, in that matter, they are stretching the rules and allowing you additional 4-changes. You cannot blame either the author or Envato as the terms are clear.

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Help me with the following.

Let’s say I install the ThemeRex theme once in a Wordpress in a web hosting provider and I go live.
So I have my site on my domain e.g. foobar.com and I have the end product activated as you say.
In the lifetime of my website I want to be able to switch through different WebHosting providers to based on pricing and promotional offers. For that I will be using one of the backup and restore plugins of WordPress. Every time I switch a provider I will be consuming a ThemeRex activation out the 5 available despite the fact I am not changing website, I am not changing domain. I am just moving my site from one web hosting provider to another.
How is the above considered as changing end product? After 5 switches I will need to purchase a new ThemeRex licence to be able to continue using the theme of change theme completely. Do you find this reasonable? Have you seen this licence management approach anywhere else? When someone buys a software licence they should be entitled to use the software wherever they want, switching computers whenever they want as long as the licence is used by a single instance at every point in time.

This is very dissappointing and I am greatly regretting buying this licence.

Hi,

You are absolutely right. And thanks a lot for explaining it here. We are merely following Envato’s rule that tells us https://prnt.sc/EKcPsjPLrmC - Use, by you or one client, in a single end product which end users are not charged for.

Single end product = single website. Everything is pretty clear here, I think.

As for giving the customers the 5 activations opportunity, it is for these cases where you keep everything on dev. server first, just for the flexibility sake. And yes, we believe it is actually something extra than just keeping it single website, like the Envato rule clearly tells us.

*However, this is only about the themes that were created 4-5 years ago. All this was done to prevent stealing our themes by dishonest customers.

Lots of things have changed since then. All our recent themes have different system now that allows you to disconnect your current domain and switch to another domain whenever you want. You simply disconnect your current domain and use the theme on another domain. This way the Envato’s single-domain rule is not broken. You can disconnect your theme from your WP admin panel - https://prnt.sc/UgUzfqyWnlqh or here - https://deactivate.themerex.net/.

Or just contact our support - https://themerex.net/support/ and they will do it for you.

P.S.: In case of any confusion. Themerex, AncoraThemes, and AxiomThemes belong to one big corporation called Boxalo Limited.

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I think you are avoiding answering my question from my previous post or I have understood something incorrectly. Let me rephrase my question to a simple yes or no answer.

I use Dr Cloe Brooks theme from ThemeRex (this is what I purchased from ThemeRex) to build my foobar.com personal site and I install it on web hosting provider A. I believe this is my end product now right?

Every year I choose to backup my website and move it to a different web hosting provider. Not changing the domain, not changing the website content or anything else. I just want to run my wordpress instance in a different infrastructure. Tear down the old instance and move to different provider. So end product is not changing. Am I correct?

Based on the ThemeRex policy about the 5 theme activations (Envato policy has nothing to do with this) am I limited to just 5 infrastructure switches or not?

It is a simple yes or no answer.

You can move the hosting as many as you want as long as you don’t change the domain name - according to the Envato terms, it allows you unlimited time as “end-product”.

If you’re not changing the domain, you can simply get the backup and install the backup on a new hosting with the same domain.

If you change the domain name, author have rights to ask additional purchase ( new purchase code ) as it’d be considered as new “end-product”

Hi Ki-Themes

As I have said before in previous posts I am not planning to changing my domain name ever. So if by having the same domain name for the entire lifetime of my site means that I am considered a single end product as you say allowing me to move my wordpress installation between different infrastructures as many times as I want then I am happy with this.

I would like someone from ThemeRex team to confirm what you said because I my understanding so far (and from ThemeRex direct support communications) was different.
Thanks

Yes, you can change the hosting as many times as you wish.
The only issue is related to theme activation if you’re resetting the activation and re-registering again, the author may limit the “registration” process that would cause issues. To avoid these issues, it’s suggested to clone/copy the WordPress installation instead of resetting and starting from scratch