Author Topic: Creative Market Licensing Changes - sell 500 products via Standard License (Read 8437 times)

Jo Ann Snover · « **on:** January 21, 2016, 14:34 »

https://creativemarket.com/blog/2016/01/21/licenses-update-final-changes-and-timeline

There has been a lot of discussion about the license changes since late last year when they first proposed standardizing Extended Licenses. The new version of things has already received a lot of comments (and I participated in their contributor forum to give my feedback) but if anyone here sells there, you should read this blog post about the changes to come in February so you can decide what to to.

I think I will have to close my store there as I cannot price a standard license to cover both more typical uses and selling up to 500 products. That would normally require an EL at most stock agencies, but Creative Market will allow that with a standard license.

I can see why buyers will like this, but essentially because they'd be getting raw materials essentially for free and who wouldn't go for that. Long term I think it means they get a restricted choice of things to buy, or they go buy at another agency and then violate the license terms and hope they don't get caught.

It's all a shame as I liked the ability to sell PSDs and PNGs and all sorts of variations there that agencies don't permit, but I guess that's something I'll have to try and find a new home for

Just to keep the important links in one place, there's also some discussion at the end of an earlier thread (and the CM forums are rather unwieldy to navigate, so the link starts on the page where today's discussion picked up).

https://creativemarket.com/discussions/19042-New-licenses-are-here!-Post-all-your-questions-here-please-)?page=16

Amanda_K · « **Reply #1 on:** January 21, 2016, 14:55 »

I am disappointed too! I have had many customers request PNGs and PSD of illustrations and CM seemed like a great outlet for that, as well as the ability to set your own prices. I had planned to focus on uploading there and keeping the prices in line with my direct selling site but now I'll probably end up closing shop or just using it as a place to sell only my older illustrations keeping fresh for other venues.

It seems to be an issue mostly of them trying to shoehorn one "simple" license onto way too many product types. Resale rights make sense I guess in the case of a Photoshop filter or illustrator brush where you are literally using it as a tool but not for images/graphics/illustrations.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #2 on:** January 21, 2016, 15:36 »

I don't understand why they think they're inventing the market here. There's standard expectations that work across the industry, but they seem to be missing that. This shouldn't take months or years to develop, and it shouldn't take that long to fix it either.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #3 on:** January 21, 2016, 15:36 »

I could have lived with 5 or 10 products for sale as part of the standard license (to allow someone to try out a product idea for no extra outlay but then buy the extended license if it actually worked and started selling). But 500 is just way, way too many.

Someone suggested personal, standard and extended licenses so the no products option could be a different license, and I'd be fine with that too. Then I'd offer the first two and opt out of extended (with the unlimited products), or possibly price it ridiculously high

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #4 on:** January 21, 2016, 15:38 »

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on January 21, 2016, 15:36

I could have lived with 5 or 10 products for sale as part of the standard license (to allow someone to try out a product idea for no extra outlay but then buy the extended license if it actually worked and started selling). But 500 is just way, way too many.

Someone suggested personal, standard and extended licenses so the no products option could be a different license, and I'd be fine with that too. Then I'd offer the first two and opt out of extended (with the unlimited products), or possibly price it ridiculously high

Most of the buyers kept saying "Well, I only end up selling 2 or 3 of the things I make, so an EL wouldn't be worth the cost." I'm wondering why they even go to the effort for so little return.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #5 on:** January 21, 2016, 15:45 »

If they had to do this 10 items would be closer to the mark. If they are selling 500 they should be forking out for an EL. I don't know what to do now. I had such high hopes for CM.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #6 on:** January 21, 2016, 15:59 »

I just took a look the thread over there. They seem to have a lot of incredibly cheap buyers over there. And some not very bright ones too, nit picking over the t shirt example. Okay they make $7000 not $10000 and you make 7. what

I wish the management would grow some balls and stop reacting to every person on the boards. Of course buyers are going to try and get a free ride. I doubt anyone buying on CM will need an EL under the new terms.

EmberMike · « **Reply #7 on:** January 22, 2016, 11:39 »

I'm really bummed about this. I have been a vocal advocate for CM since their launch. I really liked the business model, the fair royalty rate, ability to customize products and pricing, etc. But this policy just goes completely against everything they seemed to stand for with treating contributors fairly. What good is a fair royalty rate if we have to accept these resale licenses under what should always be an EL?

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #8 on:** January 22, 2016, 11:55 »

I am still hoping they reverse things. I was also planning a future there!

angelawaye · « **Reply #9 on:** January 22, 2016, 12:58 »

It seems like every time I turn my back we are getting ripped off, used and abused. I'm getting so sick of this. I thought CM was going to be a good thing and very promising.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #10 on:** January 22, 2016, 13:54 »

One more slightly disturbing detail from the discussion on the blog about the revised license terms:

"For Physical goods, it will really depend on how it is people choose to sell their products. If a person sells their invites one at a time they would only be able to sell 500 invites. However, if they sell a pack of invitations and 500 invitations come in one pack, they could sell the pack 500 times (because the “pack of invites” is what they consider their product). For Digital goods, each sale of the good counts as one unit sold. "

This may be an unlikely scenario for a creative market customer, but saying that you could offer many times the number of items by bundling differently seems even worse from the contributor's point of view - more money made by the buyer of art, shortchanging the contributor even more severely.

It just seems that the meaning of a somewhat vague license is being made up as the questions come in - which was one of the things they said they wanted to fix in revising the license. Previously there was an exceedingly vague license and answered questions in the FAQ detailing what was OK and not OK.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #11 on:** March 01, 2016, 22:46 »

I told support that I had set all my photos to draft due to the new terms, and to let me know when they changed. Response was:
"We're sorry our new licenses won't be the right fit for you. Our new licensing system will not be changing from this point on. This is because after surveying the community this was the solution most sellers and buyers wanted."