Regular licence should not be used for profit

Envato Authors GraphicRiver
#1

Hi all,

I am new to Envato, but I have been designing magazines and brochures for clients for a while and I do have a concern about the current licence set-up regarding print templates…

Regular Licence: Use, by you or one client, in a single end product which end users are not charged for. The total price includes the item price and a buyer fee.

Extended Licence: Use, by you or one client, in a single end product which end users can be charged for. The total price includes the item price and a buyer fee.

The loop-hole in this is that the buyer can purchase a regular licence if they are not ‘selling’ the end product, but they can still use it to make a hefty profit. I have a few clients who give away their magazines for free and make their money through advertising. I have also designed a few brochures for an estate agent/realtor who gives the brochures out for free, but of course makes money in commission from the sale of the property that the brochure was designed for. In both these examples a regular licence seems to be appropriate because these end products are not being sold. Yet the buyer is making a profit from, and the author’s miss out. Other examples include product brochures and catalogues which are not sold, but again lead to a profit.

As an author I feel that I would prefer it if the licence could eliminate this loophole by stating that the regular licence cannot be used for profit. Either through advertising or any other way. If the buyer seeks to use the template to make a profit then they will need to buy the extended licence.

I may be alone in this, but I don’t fancy seeing people take advantage of my hard work, or anyone else’s.

#2

Then most uses, that I can think of, would require an extended license. A Youtube video with ads, any e-commerce website etc. And where would you draw the line? An image in a blog post might not bring you direct profit, but if the whole idea is to bring traffic to your website, so you can then profit to them in some way… would that need an extended license?

Or what if you have a website that the person makes no profit from, but they then add an affiliate link on that website… they’re not profiting from the website, but if they didn’t have that website, then they wouldn’t have made that profit.

I just think it would get too complicated, there would be too many grey areas, and the cost to buyers would treble overnight… in the case of Themeforest, up to 20 times more. I think we should stick with how things are at the moment.