Hi all. If you sell items on Elements or Market, you should have received an email with details about upcoming changes to our T&Cs.
I’m going to repost the contents of that email here, so the details are readily available to everyone. It’s been a few years since our last terms update, and we have tried to highlight both what is changing, and what those changes mean.
There are links below to the full text of the updated terms. Once the terms come into effect, you will be able to see them in the usual places (hosted on ThemeForest and Elements).
Update to Elements Author Agreement and Market Author Terms
Effective from June 1, 2023.
We want to let you know about some important changes we’re making to the current Elements Author Agreement and Envato Market Author Terms that affect you as a creative contributor to our platform.
Envato is committed to supporting the creative industry and empowering our Authors to share their skills and talents with the world. As the industry evolves and technology transforms the way content is created and consumed, our updated terms will help in embracing this change–allowing us to continue to work closely with the creative community to unlock new opportunities for increased earnings.
What’s being updated?
The most significant change in this update is in regard to our license to your content. We’re broadening the scope of Envato’s use of your items to unlock new revenue streams. The updated terms allow us to enter into agreements with third parties to expand the distribution and usage of your content across all item categories on Market and Elements (“third party arrangements”).
Examples might include:
- Distributing your items on content platforms across the globe
- Developing generative AI models that use your content for learning
- Developing a ‘test/build’ environment with a third party to build new product offerings, features or services.
To avoid doubt, where Envato enters into a third party arrangement as described above, the respective licensing terms will not include rights for that third party to publicly perform, display broadcast or communicate your items for their own purposes, ie. for marketing and promotion or incorporation into “End Products”
Our Author Agreement now also includes the addition of ‘perpetuity’ to our licensing terms on both Market and Elements.
For example, if your content is used to train an AI model, it may not be possible to make the AI forget any learnings from your item. This means that if you decide to take your items down after the updated terms become effective, your item(s) may still be used, in some capacity, by a third party.
The Envato Market Author Terms are also updated so that the indemnity you provide to us includes indemnification against any third party claim relating to a breach of your warranties in respect of your items. This update is generally consistent with the Envato Market Terms and Elements Author Agreement. For Elements Authors, your existing indemnity already covers third party claims, and remains the same.
How will payments work?
You will be paid whenever Envato receives payment by a third party for the permitted use of your Market and/or Elements items as part of a third party arrangement.
You will see this additional usage reflected in your Earnings Statement.
Without having full details of future arrangements, we cannot provide you with details of the fee payable to you, the Author.
When will the updates take effect?
These updates will take effect 20 days from now, on 1 June, 2023 and are available to be viewed here:
- Elements Author Agreement effective 1 June, 2023
- Market Author Terms effective 1 June, 2023
There is no need to take any action to accept the updated terms. But if you do not want your content used in this broadened capacity, you will need to remove your content from Envato Market and/or Elements before the changes come into effect on 1 June, 2023. By continuing to use Envato Market and/or Elements after this time, you agree to the updated terms.
We appreciate your continued support and membership of our community and look forward to helping you thrive in this ever-changing creative landscape.
I’m going to merge other discussion threads into this one, so we can keep track of all comments about the change in one place. That may make the thread seem a little chaotic at first, as there are some long discussions from other forum areas. I’ll bring other staff members into the discussion as needed, if there are questions that our Community team can’t answer directly.
Update: Friday 12 May. Please see Hichame’s update here, and stay tuned for more detailed information next week.
Update: Tuesday 16 May: First batch of FAQs updated here:
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Certainly not sticking around to have my art used to train AI whose main purpose is to make me obsolete.