Hello everyone! Im a small time seller on Audiojungle and very happy with it so far. Thinking about adding a lot more content soon. I saw the ad at the top of the page regarding Unlimited downloads and was wondering what it means for us artists. If someone pays 17 dollars montlhly and get an artists complete portfolio how does Audiojungle compensate the artist? Its a bit worrying i think and i cant seem to find an anwser. Thank you! 
/Max Anderberg
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Unlimited download-this means total losses for the company and the authors.
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For us authors, it means death down the line. With the subscription, you are getting fractions of cents instead of whatever your price is on AJ. Luckily, Elements is invite only, so it doesn’t concern you directly. Though the migration of buyers from AJ to Elements certainly does.
Not for the company. Envato keeps 50% no matter what. They will make a lot of money with Elements. Only authors will suffer tremendously.
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the lack of unit sales of this is a loss for everyone because the company gets a percentage.
The subscription fee does not compensate for these losses.
I don’t understand the authors who agree to participate. they are making things worse for yourself.
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And this percentage is much better for Envato on Elements. They get 50% no matter how many authors participate. Authors, will get an ever decreasing rate.
I don’t either. Foolishness? Selfishness? Sheer stupidity? They are definitely traitors to this community, as this monstrosity only exists because they accepted to be part of it. Their poor and selfish decision will impact all of us. So a big thank you to all these authors! Cheers, guys… cheers.
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Maybe Envato just does buyouts from composers? That would explain relatively large number of elite authors. Dunno, just guessing here.
No they don’t. There are articles that explain how it works. Basically, it’s a score based system where items are awarded points whenever they are downloaded. Your score determines your cut of the authors share. So the more items are downloaded overall, the smaller the cut for individual authors.
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So, correct me if I’m wrong in my calculations. I can sell on Aj two licenses for $20 each, and with the 20 bucks I’ve made I can then get Elements and download 6000+ tracks!
That’s an insane ratio.
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In theory yes. But the catch is you have to use (publish) while you’re still subscribed. So, you’d have to publish 6000 videos in a month, for this scenario to be possible.
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And in Theory everyone would use this system exactly as you described, but in the real world is Joe Youtube really gonna remember 3 months down the line when they want to use that tune they downloaded but then cancelled their subscription?
Also, as if it weren’t easy enough for pirates to get the tunes watermark free, now 17 bucks and they can grab the whole catalog and throw it up somewhere… this subscription stuff is total crap.
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It literally is shocking that the folks who willingly signed up for this can actually show any enthusiasm for this business model. I do not have a crystal ball as to how customers will now behave but it does not take a rocket scientist to realize that when faced with 2 choices:
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Pay $20 to $50 for one sync license or
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pay $16.50 and download all you want,
I’d say 99 times out of 100 they will take option 2 and that 1 time will be a situation where they just are not finding what they need.
I also encourage everyone to resist this model. Maybe if it stays limited the regular market will not be impacted that much. The participants seemingly embrace this massive devaluation of already inexpensive sync fees. I just don’t get it? I’d love to hear their philosophy for accepting this business if they are brave enough to jump into this forum.
I also have to believe that they were all privately promised an estimated guaranteed monthly income stream as early adopters. If they were not, why would they just devalue their works? It makes no business sense to wake up one day and say “I am going to deal a huge portion of my catalog for only $16.50 a month all you can download.”
We will certainly feel the impact by end of month. What these folks have done lacks conscience. But again, Musicians always have been terrible with basic business and have always allowed themselves to be exploited.
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I really don’t think it’s any of those things. If Envato is switching things towards working on a subscription basis with a more limited number of authors and you are invited to participate, it seems to me obvious that you’d want to give it a go and see how things work out. I notice that some of the big sellers are only making a selection of their portfolio available on Elements so they are obviously hedging their bets. If the income doesn’t come in I imagine that they will reconsider their participation.
I bet when AJ was first set up people were saying authors were being traitors to the community of music makers by participating in a market which sold licences at a much lower price than the existing music libraries.
I think we have to accept that most authors are always going to act in accordance with what seems to be their own individual interests.
Whether Elements will actually work as hoped is another question - I personally struggle to make the maths work with low subscription charges unless this attracts a LOT of new customers. Shifting the existing customer base from AJ to Elements on the face of things simply reduces the income for both Envato and the authors.
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My thoughts exactly. There must have been some behind the scenes individual deals as no one in their right mind would devalue their work like this. Or, like @PaulGraves said above, it’s more of a test for them. Or, simply a matter of “I am gonna lose this game anyway so I might just give it a try because If I don’t someone else will.”
In any case, the rest of us will most likely be sc***d.
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Yes Paul they are giving it a “go” and they will make money. BUT, then the big unknown comes into the mix. Did their elements offering negatively impact their market revenue? They too are taking a risk. What should be comforting to everyone though is that with all the sub models that have surfaced in 2018, I still have seen unit sales growth and royalty earnings growth.
Envato is also preying on peoples fears in a manipulative way too. The concept of “if you don’t get on board someone else will and you may just miss out” is on the minds of all these authors. I offer praise to the top seller for resisting.
Let me add some more information. 2 years ago I was asked to participate in a “membership” model which is the same as a sub model. I resisted. Recently I asked that company if there would be a benefit to getting involved and the head of music said “screw it, no you won’t make more money and we are finding that most of our customers really do not want a subscription service because they only need tracks a few times a year.” He added that more customers spoke of the importance of an intuitive search engine and high quality tracks as being more important.
Additionally, I spoke to another experienced writer yesterday who “tested” the sub model for the last 8 months and he said “My revenue is declining each month .” He was making more prior to the shift from unit sales to subscription sales.
Remember when James said, The risk to Envato is as great as the risk to you. The eternal question is Why take the risk? Why fix what is not broken? Why devalue an entire industry? it’s sickening and foolish on every level from my perspective.
But yep, be ready for the set up…soon one of these guys will jump out and say “Elements has been awesome and it has not impacted my market sales…” Then everyone is going to apply away “I want in” and then we collectively again, destroy our VERY HEALTHY business, once again. SAD!
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I wouldn’t. Sure, it’s easy to say when I was not invited, but I really think I would have refused to participate, as I am convinced it will be disastrous in the long run. There’s plenty of cash for these early birds to grab, but at the cost of destroying the market and the end of this community.
Yes indeed. Traitors, fools, insane,… you name it. Established composers were dumbfounded when they heard of AJ and their terms. (“They sell licenses for $14 for international broadcasting with no PRO!!!”) Of course, they were right. This never should have been allowed!
Elements is this ideology put to the extreme. In a subscription service, authors are always losers.
Right, so selfishness it is. I knew these authors weren’t stupid.
a lot of new customers… all the time. There needs to be a continuous massive stream of new customers to make up for the devaluating constant flow of new items. I don’t see how that’s achievable.
This is true for authors. Not for Envato. Envato keeps 50% no matter what. They don’t have to deal with the ever dwindling earnings individual authors have to. Subscription means recurring predictable earnings, that could very well surpass the marketplaces’. Envato will take care of itself, don’t worry about that.
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Elementary guys.
I rather agree with this. I think the fact that Envato does not appear to have put a big effort into seriously improving the current search functionality is a big strategic mistake. If things are actually happening with this it would be great to know what they are and when we will see the results.
50% of less overall will still be bad for Envato, even if the impact on individual authors is greater. I think they are taking a big risk with Elements and it could easily go wrong for them.
But I don’t blame people for responding positively to the invitation to participate, even though I personally have major doubts that this is going to work out well.
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It kind of bugs me that envato is marketing its elements’ music collection as “premium royalty free music”. Kind of feels like a slap to the face. All of of us audiojunglers on the outside are now just “regular” royalty free music. Despite being more expensive…
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Witnessing all the rushed changes last 3 months for sure makes me worried. I can´t come up with a single good argument why ADP-Credits Removal-Elements should be introduced so close. Would it not be smart to do 1 major change like this, wait at least 6-12 months and analyse the effect over time, then move on to next major change? Envato is obviously in a overall hurry that has higher priority than taking care of all the aspects of how the AJ market is affected in all of this.
I´m not a veteran in music licensing, but I have gotten some offers from libraries the last 2 years which I initially was kind of excited about (regular licensing). But after running the deals through my local music advisor center or whatever its called, I got clear instructions to turn down EVERY deal. Why? Because they were horrible, and for me this first became clear after having some professionals look at the deals. Which I´m thankful for now.
So the question is how many Elements participants have had external advice of the deals they have been offered with Elements? I really don´t think we should alienate or “shame” the ones who are currently participating, but try to get them a little involved in the discussion about all of this and maybe that can shed some light of what they are being told by Envato. I think some more transparency to it all would be preferable here. These changes affects us all.
Everything is negotiable. Broadcast licensing got avoided. I think it´s time that authors speak up if they are in or outside a system that they think is very unfair and destructive. Hearing storys about Elements users that have got an extra paycheck is simply not good enough in my opinion, since they are the few chosen ones in this system they should have A LOT of extra cash. I´m still shocked that Envato did not at least double the subscription fee with Audio being introduced. Not to mention different price options for companies/freelancers.
I´m curious about what you think @promosapien about the Elements, is it something that seems more convenient for you now that credit are removed? Are you considering using Elements as a replacement or supplement for your video production work?
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hi there, I am an aj author and accepted the elements invitation. created this account to avoid witch hunts
I accepted the invitation because I need the extra money, the market is going down every day, I prefer to be a part rather to be outside. pure individual interest. I can’t do anything to change envato, and I have family and kids to support, so I need every penny around. I know this is crippling the market, but it is already going down, sales are a rare thing. haven’t had a big license sale since a long time and ADP didn’t helped a bit.
if I resist the model and say no to the invitation, there are going to be 100 other authors that are going to take the “opportunity” nothing is going to change. and if you are talking moral wise, I don’t have one. the day I accepted the royalty free music market, I resigned to it. saling tracks for couple of dollars? as other stated before, old school composers where against this market, and a couple of years after had to enter neverheless. you can’t fight a big corporation. I am grown up man, I know what I am talking about. I love idealistic stuff, but this is a survival market, the market doesn’t care what you think or feel. I tried another platforms and tried to sell by my own, nothing brought money as aj did.
If you have any question, I’ll do my best to answer it.
If you attack me, I ll dissappear.
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