Support Period legal rights?

So I have had an email saying if I bought an item before September 2015 my lifetime support has been stopped and if I like I can extent my support with discount. If I am unhappy I am to contact the developer???

Envato implemented this change to help sellers so is this not envato issue not the developer? and due to the change in terms and conditions we should be entitled to a choice of a full refund on pre September 2015 items or honoured on what we were originally bought? What are my missing, how can they do this?

Envato is the shop which sold the item, its there job to honour there own policy even if they changed it, you cant sell an item with lifetime support then decide to change it.

Are you sure the email actually says “your lifetime support has been stopped”? Does it actually say “if you are unhappy”?

As envato mentioned in the email they shared a few days ago Item Support Extensions and Renewals your ‘lifetime support’ that refers to files purchased before 01.09.15 has not changed at all and still stands.

Envato never sold an item with ‘lifetime support’ - that was just a claim made by authors which envato had no control over (it was in the original T&Cs that author support was voluntary).

The email linked above says:

  1. You can buy support for 6 months… - this is fundamentally different from your ‘lifetime support’ as it is now officially protected by envato.

An official guarantee = chargeable

  1. Contct the author directly to request support… - this is your ‘lifetime support’ that you had before. As was always the case before if the author decides not to support the file then that is unfortunate but nothing that you nor envato can do about it.

No official guarantee hence no charge (exactly as it always was before).

They have not changed anything they have merely added the option to pay for something different or stick with the free version you had before.

I imagine that the fact that envato could never enforce support and the ‘lifetime support’ claims could be abandoned by authors at any time is a major reason why they introduced the new (and better) policy.

Hopefully that clears it up

What do you mean Envato had no control over it, its there Market place as it is now and they impended this new support system, which they could have done back in the day.

They did not offer this support system back then so this is not a seller dispute or should the buyer need to contact them as they did not have the option back then, they probably love it now.

The sales through Envato did not offer this option back then so the item had to be sold with lifetime and it was sold as if it was, which borderline sits on mis-selling, it makes sense to implement a timeline on support, but as the seller did not have the option back then it was lifetime support and sold like that no time frame.

Buyers who purchased a supported item before September 1, 2015 have the option to:
purchase 6 months of Item Support before March 31st and receive a one-off, special introductory price of 30% of the item’s list price* (saving 40%); or
contact the author directly to request support in line with the original terms of purchase.

It does not say if your unhappy but same statement is still the same, Envato seem to have forgotten they are the Marketplace and they sold the item, this is not between the seller and the buyer, its Envato to changed the terms and policies.

As a big buyer I do sympathize but the key thing is that they have not changed anything.

The only exception to this is that now authors are obligated to provide updates and bug fixes for free, to everyone forever. (again to buyers benefit).

Beyond that nothing is different except that they now have the option to pay for a greater peace of mind.

If the original terms had said that authors had no choice but to provide whatever level of support they mentioned on their descriptions then that would be completely different, but unfortunately it didn’t.

For what it’s worth the new policy really is to buyers benefit

  • it gives buyers 6 months peace of mind for free
  • the majority of authors who were previously offering lifetime support will continue to do so.
  • Envato are not preventing them doing this - what they are preventing is authors advertising this as they may have done previously when envato themselves cannot guard it.

Previous confusion was not helped with authors mentioning lifetime support on their items, nor by the fact that no one ever reads the T&Cs. I am convinced that this was a major contributing factor behind the new policy and that it is a positive move by envato to better protect buyers and authors by improving clarity and guidelines.

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