Learning from our mistakes ...

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Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby MemoryMagic » Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:11 am

Well, it has been a hard couple of days for me, but I guess it`s been a growing experience too. For those of you that don`t know, I recently opened an online store. Before I started the process, I read and reread the license agreements involved. I know all about the music copyright rules (I preach them myself) and for years now I have refused to use music in any of my slideshows without it being properly licensed first! When I look back at this all now, I totally get that it is the same thing - but it all boiled down to the obscured wording on those complicated extended licenses.

I thought that I was following all of the rules. In hindsight, I truly wish I would have just contacted Envato directly before I started this - it would have saved me a lot of time (and all of that money!) There are lots and lots of requirements, but the main requirements say that if you want to sell the item, you need to buy an extended license (which I did) and make only one final product (which I did) and you had to put work and effort and create a new product (which I did! hours and hours to separate and adjust the parts etc and recreate it , shrink them and then make it all "work" on Proshow ) Anyways, in the end, I thought that I had jumped through all of the hoops and I thought I was following the rules. :( It turns out that I was not.

Envato considers ProShow to be a "tool" and so no, we are not allowed to use any of those products to create slides. They also have strict terms on Author Exclusivity - which means that you can't sell that product anywhere else - or in any other format. I did misinterpret those rules, and I feel really bad about it; but it was a mistake - an honest, unintentional mistake. All of the items have been removed from my store (in fact my doors are closed for now, until I can restock the "shelves" with new items that I'm making from scratch). I have spoken with the artists, and have given my apologies. It was not my intention to try to cheat them.

After all of this is said and done, I do thank the two people who brought this issue to my attention (both publicly and privately). It would have been a much bigger problem months down the road.

I am posting this today so that more people might learn from the mistake that I made. And hopefully, if any of us ever run into this type of situation again, we will be able to share this lesson learned and help that person to fix the problem.

PS - Please keep checking my new store, I am still super-excited about using graphic animation in ProShow, and I hope to have it back online soon!

Kindest regards,
Lori Bossert
http://www.memorymagic.ca
http://memorymagicproshowstyles.com
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them FEEL" M. Angelou"

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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby gpsmikey » Fri Mar 15, 2013 10:06 am

Many of those licenses are a whole lot less than comprehensible (to mortals anyway). Like the insurance commercials on TV - it sounds like they cover you for everything ... unless something happens, in which case, paragraph 23, sub section 17 covers the exclusion. Anyway, glad you seem to have solved the problem.

mikey
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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby anitaemile » Fri Mar 15, 2013 10:37 am

Lori

I am very well aware I came on too strong , posting the "violation" on the forum. I should have corresponded with you to where I understood you had no bad intentions, so for that I sincerely apologize. :(

There have been many discussions on this forum about music copy rights, and I think everyone understands that purchasing a song in .wav. or .mp3 format doesn't allow you to create a vinyl record and sell it. For graphic design no one on this form seems to worry much about rules I guess, as there has not been a discussion about it. I get it where the music industry is more powerful and aggressive in prosecuting those who violate the rules, as where graphic designers are on their own when it comes to making rules. I think , wherever the rules are kind of "vague" , the original designer could tell what is and what isn't allowed. It is sad to have spent all the money and all that work on something that can not be sold.

Anita

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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby MemoryMagic » Fri Mar 15, 2013 11:36 am

Thanks, Anita and Mikey .. I appreciate your comments.

But it's not so bad .. I now have scads of lovely new licenses to wallpaper my bathroom with! :lol:
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them FEEL" M. Angelou"

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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby tdew » Fri Mar 15, 2013 12:12 pm

So what could you legally do with your $100 extended license? There has to be some benefit to the expensive license that you can make use of. I hope you can figure out something.

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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby MemoryMagic » Fri Mar 15, 2013 1:05 pm

Legally, these licenses allow me to make a single end product for one client. And then I can sell him 2000 copies of that item. (Or however many I want.)

PS... $100 was only for THAT item. All of the items have different price tags. Prices of the items that I purchased range from $60 - $300.


Here is a link to the license terms if you want to read them further. Trust me, it's a fun read!! :roll:
http://videohive.net/licenses/extended
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them FEEL" M. Angelou"

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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby MemoryMagic » Fri Mar 15, 2013 1:37 pm

This is a comparison of their two licenses from their website:

Regular License
Our most popular license, the Regular License allows use of the item in one single end product which end users are not charged to access or use. You can do this directly or, if you're a freelancer, you can create the end product for one client to distribute free to its end users. You can charge your client to produce the single end product. Distribution of source files is not permitted.

****** So, for our purposes, you can buy the item, put it in a movie you are making and then charge a fee to your client for making the movie for them. (You can sell it to one client and they can give free copies to their family and friends.)

Extended License
Our Extended License allows use of the item in one single end product, which you or one client may sell to end users (charge end users to access or use the end product). Distribution of source files is not permitted.

***** This is the part that I had problems with. Apparently you CAN'T use the item in a single end product to sell to end users. You need to first make it a completely different product and it can't LOOK the same anymore. It doesn't matter if its completely different in components or format etc, you can't sell something that looks the same as the original item. See, their explanation is as clear as mud!! :P
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them FEEL" M. Angelou"

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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby BarbaraC » Fri Mar 15, 2013 1:54 pm

Lori, when it all hit the fan, I went out to the site to look at those licenses and came away wondering what kind of rat's nest was in their heads. A few very clear examples of use and misuse were certainly in order. My final analysis was that their extended licenses weren't worth squat, and that's precisely what you ended up discovering.

In spite of the fact we'll end up being competitors, I'm wishing you good fortune. :D

Barbara
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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby MemoryMagic » Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:16 pm

Thanks so much Barbara .. but don't forget, I'll still be your client too!

My 1st business is still making slideshows so I'm sure you'll see me in your check-out lane often!!! :P
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them FEEL" M. Angelou"

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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby BarbaraC » Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:37 pm

Lori, that's so nice to hear! A warning is in order, however, and it's that you could end up like the rest of us 3rd-party vendors with very little time to create real slide shows. :(

Barbara
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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby cherub » Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:25 pm

Lori,
As I wrote to you before, I'm glad that you found out about the license issue on time.

Here is how I understand their license:

Since your business is making shows with ProShow Producer, your end product is a show. This show may include all kinds of effects applied to your customer's pictures. You may use Envato's effects, or you may use effects bought from ProShow vendors, or from Digital Juice, or whatever you wish. The end product is still a show, given to your customers on a DVD, as exe or any other output format you wish.

If you sell this show to one customer, and you know in advance that he's going to distribute FREE copies of this show to members of his family and friends, you need to purchase a regular license from Envato.
If you sell this show to one customer, and you know in advance that he's going to sell this show, and to make a profit from your show, then you need to buy an extended license.

Now, here is the part that I don't understand:
Your use of their product is a repeated use. By this, I mean that you may make several Memorial shows for example, for several customers of yours, and in each one of them, you'll use the same effect that you bought from Envato. (eg, the same picture album that turns the pages).
By my logic, their extended license should cover this kind of usage.
But, if I read their terms of use, I think that they expect you to purchase a regular license for every single use of their product -a license for each show that you make for a customer. I think that you should clarify this part with them.

In any case, none of their licenses (extended or not), gives you the right to sell a copy of their product, as a stand alone product, while it looks and functions exactly like their own, no matter how much effort you invest in converting it to another format than theirs.

To summarize:
The only legal usage for Envato products is to use them in shows. You cannot sell a stand alone copy of the product that you bought from them, in styles, templates or any other kind of tool.

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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby MemoryMagic » Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:19 pm

Yes, I think that's pretty much the same understanding that I hold for their licenses now. And yes, you do need to purchase a new standard license for EVERY show you make that uses that product. If you want to use the product in a second show, you need to purchase a second standard license to use it. Thankfully the standard licenses are pretty reasonable. None of my clients have ever sold one of my shows to someone else, so I've never needed to purchase any extended licenses.

But what if the end product isn't a slideshow? ...

The other business is making SLIDES. So the final product would be a ProShow slide. Now this slide is going to be sold to a client who will use it and then sell the movies that HE makes to other clients. (Which made me think that yes, the extended license would apply here and yes the use would be allowed.) So I took the AE file, separated it into layers, removed the 3d - re-rendered the layers, brought it over to ProShow, used Proshow to re-create the 3d movements and effects etc - I basically recreated the entire creation by chopping it up and using multiple slides so that it "worked in ProShow". These new creations were re-rendered, and they were totally new and different products from which the original source files couldn't be extracted. (as per the regulations) But even though they were different files, the end product LOOKED the same as the original... and that makes it against the rules.

To summarize further:
You CAN use SOME Envato products as long as you purchase the extended license AND if the end product looks nothing like what the original product looked like. An example of this would be to purchase an item that you then put into something else, and create something "that it is larger in scope and different in nature" than the original item. However, you can still only make one item for yourself or for one client. If you have more than one client who buys the product, you would need to purchase them each an individual extended license.

Basically ... I just don't see the purpose in buying or using anything with an extended license. After all of your time and all of the work involved, and you would need more than just the one item to create something "bigger and different'" so then add the price of each extended license (approx $100 each), who would ever buy your finished products??? You would need to charge an arm and a leg just to break even!
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them FEEL" M. Angelou"

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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby im42n8 » Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:40 pm

We ALL make mistakes ... even when we're trying to be very diligent: Mistakes happen. The usage terms of some of these "sources" can be very difficult to understand. It's very easy to misunderstand ... even if we don't mean too, and despite our best efforts. The terms of use can be very difficult to figure out. It's so easy to mess up.

It's something that a lot of people fail to understand ... and those people can be very judgmental of those who make the mistake (without realizing how easy it is to misinterpret the terms of use). We can only hope that examples such as this one serve as notice for those who think they would never make the same mistake. Anyone can make the same mistake ... and it's easier to make than most realize.

Dale
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Re: Learning from our mistakes ...

Postby cherub » Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:52 pm

MemoryMagic wrote:...And yes, you do need to purchase a new standard license for EVERY show you make that uses that product. If you want to use the product in a second show, you need to purchase a second standard license to use it.


That sounds quite draconian to me ! :shock:


MemoryMagic wrote:But what if the end product isn't a slideshow? ..To summarize further:
You CAN use SOME Envato products as long as you purchase the extended license AND if the end product looks nothing like what the original product looked like. An example of this would be to purchase an item that you then put into something else, and create something "that it is larger in scope and different in nature" than the original item. However, you can still only make one item for yourself or for one client. If you have more than one client who buys the product, you would need to purchase them each an individual extended license.


I wouldn't even consider using their product, or any part of it, in my slide styles. Why bother?

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