Update to Elements Author Agreement and Market Author Terms

yesir. “their” visual content… :clown_face:
its not even June 1st yet,
but they already claiming it.

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I’m not really agreeing to let you explore new revenue opportunities.
Me and everyone else are forced to do so because you changed the Tos overnight and expect us to flip our lives in less than one month, that’s why.
450+ posts later and I haven’t seen one single author that firmly believes in what Envato says.
That says it all.

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They don’t seem to bother that much whether you agree or not as long as you keep your portfolio to them.

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According to ChatGPT, an authors will remain ownership of the items.
Envato will be able sell item at any price. Expect about 1 cents income per sale. Better find a new job. The photo/video market will never be like before. Eventually the same will happen with music.

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@BenLeong You are forcing us to be the exclusive contributor in order to get a higher percentage of sales, but you yourself will distribute our exclusive content to third parties. Am I understanding everything correctly?

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Reversals are absolutely crazy. I just received 13 reversals yesterday for about $325 and regularly get about the same amount of them every other month, because some super smart buyers learned to create their fake accounts and pay with fake payment methods, and Envato said they will do something about it and they haven’t for long time as if they just don’t care. This is pathetic handling of such a huge misuse of their system.

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  1. How long will the new “Seller Terms of Service” contract last?

  2. How can people selling stock media plan for their future strategy if the terms of the deal can change at any given time?

  3. Can we assume that there will be a separate contract for Music Producers that define these new terms of service to sell licenses on the audio jungle market? If that has been drafted can you share a link so we can all copy these terms of service to our hard drives and share it with our Attorneys so any risks can be explained to us.

  4. Can anyone from Envato or anyone reading this explain how music producers could ever benefit from their sound recordings getting ingested into AI Learning Models to teach and Train AI from our copywrited works? What would be in it for music sellers?

How do visual artists selling Video, Graphic, Photo, 3D benefit from this ingestion?

I personally conclude that there is no benefit to music producers whatsoever, only future financial harm, but correct me if I am wrong…

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Thats it. The content isn’t yours, everyone. It’s theirs and theres nothing you can do about it.
Other than delete.
So, clear those libraries.

btw, I’ll answer the real reason here thats not being said…
Why does audio get a pass while art gets the shaft?
Because audio has HUGE muscle when it comes to protecting rights and a history of aggressive lawsuits and protections. Thats why- even though music models have been made by a lot of companies, all of them are terrified to release them publicly. And thats why Envato decided to change their tune here.

But visual arts? Nothing. Which is why artists were the first on the chopping block, and continue to be.
Thats the reason.

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You right. Composers just wont release youtube copyright claims to music sold on 3rd parties platforms or if content ID detect similar pattern generated by AI. Visual artists have no such protection.

I’ve just deleted all my items. This was a purely rational decision.

The new terms, despite the e-mail update don’t meet my expectations at this point.
Also, the period in which all of this took place was very short. I would need much more
time to anticipate changes like this (three months at least).

Furthermore I think that the opt-out option should be available for all authors, not just creators of audio. The fact that this separation is now made divides the community more. I don’t agree with that.

Another reason for this decision is the current state of the market. Sales have been very low so at this point I came to the conclusion that it is better to move on.

There is a chance that I’ll return in the future and re-upload items but I need more time to analyse the current state of things and see if that can work out for me.
I’m grateful for having been able to sell my music here. I’ve learned a lot. I also met great people and I’ll keep following the discussions.

Good luck to all!

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What this reads like is: “We’re walking back our stance on music and audio for now, not because we heard you, but because there actually might be something artists can do about it, and record companies scare us. But we’re standing firm when it comes to video and graphics because there is nothing artists can do about it.”

Then there’s the part when they said…

In the case of visual content like photos, stock videos, and design, those changes are already being felt today in varying degrees.

Which basically reads like: “Everybody else is getting away with it, so…”

And the most telling statement of all…

On that basis, we need the ability to innovate with our visual content in order for the business to succeed in those rapidly evolving content areas, and we want to use the scale of our library to secure meaningful distribution opportunities and revenue streams for authors of these content types.

…bit of a slip there, eh? It’s not really your content… do you want to know why? Because we artists can delete our content any time we like, and you don’t get to-opt out of that decision either.

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I don’t really understand why some authors are so excited about Envato’s latest response.

For me, it only raises even more questions:

  1. Why are these changes not reflected in the T&C? Did they really write that they will refer to the text written in the email? I hope everyone understands that only what is written in the T&C matters, and nothing more. The agreement should spell out all the details, if you don’t plan to use our products in AI training, why should the authors transfer the rights to you from June 1 for that? Why not amend the agreement that the music will not be used until further notice with an option to opt out of this experiment? Without these changes in the T&C, these are all empty words, and many empty words have already been said here in the last week. These responses genuinely begin to feel like trolling…

  2. Why don’t these changes apply to all marketplaces? It’s not fair. Every author must have an option to opt out, it can’t be available just to some. The fact that in other areas of AI (like visuals) there is already more significant progress in stealing other people’s rights does not mean that it can be neglected and played with if it is in the hand of the company… and it only says that this is waiting for all other marketplaces later, including music.

  3. Envato can distribute our products to third parties without giving us any details on how we will be compensated for this, but we authors can’t without losing exclusivity and a higher profit percentage. Don’t you think it becomes a little unfair now?

  4. Will opting out be available for the entire portfolio or for individual items as well? Why wasn’t this made clear in the email even though many people asked for it?

  5. How are authors supposed to forecast their earnings if you don’t provide any details to help with that?

  6. Why don’t you adjust your contract so that the authors don’t transfer the rights to you if they don’t plan to include their products in AI training in the future, don’t you think that doesn’t make any sense? Why do you need these rights if the author does not want to participate in this? Why not ask the author to tick a box as a sign of acceptance of this contract at the time the author decides to accept the use of his products, instead of forcing it on June 1? Not to mention your shameful message via email that the rights will be transferred even if the person did not open the email, what the heck was that… Maybe because you’re worried that a lot of authors just won’t agree to give you a lifetime right to license and resell their music without knowing how much they’ll get out of it, so you just force them all into this experiment?

These recent communications look very rushed and immature to me, honestly, and very unprofessional. Please get your act together, reflect everything in T&S in the proper manner to make authors here believe you and take you seriously. Even if they won’t remove their portfolios or best items now, they will certainly remove any remaining trust they have in your company.

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Great Points Olexandr.

I advise everyone to download/ screen shot, Copy paste and date every response Envato has given here in this “town hall” thread regarding the Autor / Seller Terms. Additionally, copy and paste and date the emails, and of course everyone should download the official Seller Terms of Service, which are sketchy and confusing at best, and frankly, hard to find.

It is so unprofessional to be drafting legal documents on a public town hall forum like this below, but again, everyone please make copies of these writings with the dates these responses came back. If Envato ingests our music intellectual property to train AI learning models, they will be in breach of their contract. Envato needs to realize that there are dozens if not hundreds of attorneys following this thread with a very keen interest. We ask that you please email all of us by Monday an official revised terms of agreement incorporating this below:

You still haven’t changed the T&Cs. Until those change, can’t Envato just say whatever it wants in emails or on the forums?

The formal email communication recently sent from Envato to our Authors was shared in order to address and clarify the arrangements covered by the updates to our T&Cs. This should be considered as incorporated into the T&Cs by reference, and we hold ourselves to the position set out in the email. For example, in the case of Audio content:

there are no immediate plans to use audio items in third party arrangements (or generative AI); and

if we start using audio items for these purposes, we will provide you with reasonable notice and an opt-out opportunity before we commence the first arrangement.

Following this:

For clarification, do you have plans to use audio items in NON third party (i.e. Envato) arrangements including/or as part of Generative AI services?

There are no immediate plans to use audio as part of Generative AI services at all, either third party or in-house.

For Audio, Code and Web items:

Will this opt-out option apply to each arrangement moving forward? Or is it just a blanket ‘yes or no’ to all future arrangements?

As detailed in our email to you, if we start working on third-party licensing arrangements for Audio, Code or Web items, we will provide a one-off notice and opt-out process that will remove your items from all future arrangements.

And the most frequently asked question from this week:

Why aren’t we providing opt-out for Video, Photos or Graphics?

New technologies will bring transformative changes to many aspects of the stock industry over time. In the case of visual content like photos, stock videos, and design, those changes are already being felt today in varying degrees. Likewise, the licensing models and commercial arrangements in these areas are typically optimised for partnerships and wider distribution of content to maximise revenue.

On that basis, we need the ability to innovate with our visual content in order for the business to succeed in those rapidly evolving content areas, and we want to use the scale of our library to secure meaningful distribution opportunities and revenue streams for authors of these content types. We may consider providing an opt-out option in the future, but as of now, continuing to sell photos, videos and graphics through Envato after the new terms come into effect on June 1 means that you are agreeing to let us explore new revenue opportunities for you.

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BTW, what’s the opt-out? Where can I find it? Is it a knob behind my monitor or is it just more of their email gibberish? Is it operational already or will we have to wait till next week, after June 1st, with the T&C already running. Also, it’s a must that ALL AUTHORS have a batch opt-out option cause it’s literally impossible for someone with more than 2k tracks to go 1 by 1.

I guess none of us will do nothing and we’ll find out what was the real weight of this move quite shortly. Sorry by my eternal pesimism.

On a plain crash, the more it shakes, the more you have to let go.

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Keep in mind that unless someone deletes it NOW, they do get to make the decision for you. Because if anyone decides to opt-out later? Too late, the AI is already trained on your work, and cannot un-learn it without more training models.

I know you deleted yours, but this is a red flag warning for anyone else:
AFTER they train it (Likely June 1st), opt out means absolutely nothing without new models.

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Basically it is a fact: NVIDIA, Microsoft, Open AI, and Google are the companies ingesting everyone’s content into their AI learning models to Train / Teach AI how to create the stock media that humans have already created.

These are just the facts people. Facts are facts. These facts are not speculations.

When I see a video where an executive at a stock media platform states “one of the companies we just announced a partnership with is NVIDIA”… I do believe that statement is a fact. As always, Big Tech execs get super rich as exploiters in chief, of individual and very cheap “artist slaves”.

I wonder what Apple has up it’s sleeve?

Here is more proof:

After inking its OpenAI deal, Shutterstock rolls out a generative AI toolkit to create images based on text prompts | TechCrunch.

Adobe launched “Firefly” a new generative AI tool.

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I don’t want to offend, it’s really interesting, but it feels like you’re distracting from the main problem. I do not claim that intentionally.

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%100. dude is spamming this thread with 5-page comments constantly. controlled op?

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Music and code were excluded from AI training, it would be nice for the authors of other markets to receive compensation, how about removing the $6 commission that each author of the videohive pays? In addition, it is quite strange that now our projects will be able to sell other sites, but at the same time we are also obliged to comply with the exclusivity rule.

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@SteelSound. Can you put these posts that were flagged up in another thread. I thought they were interesting.

Knowledge is key!

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