Understanding Digital Product Licenses
Giveaway, Rebranding, Resale, Private Label, & Reprint Rights
Most downloadable products (e-books, software, audio files, etc.) come with a digital product license. This license may range from personal use to resale rights to the permission to change the product (private label rights).
The most basic digital product license is purchase of a downloadable product for personal use only. Some product developers protect their products by requiring a code for activation (for example, registration number, username and password, or serial number).
Giveaway rights grant the right to give away a product for free but not to sell the product. Usually, no changes can be made to the product. The exception is if the product includes rebranding rights. Rebranding rights let the purchaser replace the affiliate links in the product with his own affiliate links.
Resale Rights and Master Resale Rights
Basic resale rights (sometimes called resell rights) mean that after a person buys a product, she has the right to sell it (unchanged unless specified otherwise in the license) to another buyer but cannot sell the resale rights. A resale rights license may or may not permit giving the product away free or as part of a membership site.
Master resale rights grant permission to sell the product and sell the rights to sell the product. A product with a transferable master resale rights license also permits selling the master resale rights, while non-transferable master resale rights permit sale of only the product and the resale rights.
Private Label Rights
Generally, to change a product in any way requires private label rights (PLR). PLR lets the buyer customize the product or the content of the product and use it in a variety of ways. Private label rights do not automatically include resale rights, unless specified as part of the license.
Terms of PLR licenses vary. For example, a buyer obtains a PLR package of articles. The license may grant the right to change the articles in any way and publish them on a Web site, in a newsletter, in article directories, or as part of an e-book created to either give away or sell, but the license doesn't include the right to resell or give away the articles in the same format as they were purchased.
Another scenario is purchase of a PLR e-book. The license may give the buyer the right to put his name on the e-book as the author and sell the e-book either as is or in a modified form. Often, a PLR e-book license includes the rights to break up the e-book into articles and publish them on Web sites or in newsletters.
Reprint Rights and Public Domain
Reprint rights most often apply to articles at free article sites. Most of these sites grant the right to reprint the article exactly as is, including the author's byline and bio box. Exact terms do vary from site to site, so be sure to read the Terms of Use.
While not the same as other rights, public domain is worth mentioning. A product is in the public domain if it is not protected by copyright, meaning that anyone can use it in any way desired. If a work is not specifically noted as being in the public domain, determining if it is can sometimes be tricky and require legal advice.
Read the License!
To summarize, just a few questions for the buyer to ask when looking at a digital product license: "Can I resell the product? If so, can I resell the resale rights? Can I create a new product? Can I use the content individually or as part of a membership site? Can I package the product with other products or give it away as a bonus? Does the license only permit using the product as Web content or breaking the product into articles?"
Basically, a product's creator can put any restrictions desired on the use of the product in the digital product license, so it's important to understand the license before purchasing anything. Digital rights management is an on-going issue. A well-written license is specific, but since that's often not the case, if something isn't addressed in the license, ask before buying.
Understand Digital Product Licenses
|
What do you think about this article?
More in Technology
Latest Articles