Reseller Rights Myth

[JMJ]

I've noticed more and more of these types of threads and you see them on ebay everyday so I thought I would put this out there. When buying these package deals with loads of scripts and designs they generally they say something along the lines of "You have resell rights!" or whatever. Well just like any other too good to be true deal make sure you read the fine print. In alot of cases there won't be any fine print. Here's the fine print so you all know.

[SIZE=-2]"You obtain the rights to sell the "packaged" material and information."[/SIZE]

Laymen's terms:
If you package the material on Disc or CD then you have the rights to sell the information as you are charging for the packaging and materials.

I'm no lawyer but sending someone to a link where the information can be downloaded isn't packaging or material. I guess the argument could be made that everything is bundled up and you have space and bandwidth costs but I would consider in my pricing any future legal fees to make this argument.

If you really think about it. Did that person really design all 10,000 of those designs and write every word of those 20,000 ebooks? No, so how could this person give you rights to something they have no rights to?

Feel free to post your thoughts on the matter and it would be nice if a legal expert got in on this topic.

 

[dgridley]

"packaged" is ambiguous.. and an argument can be made that a link to a zipped file constitutes a packaged item IMO.

I suspect each package would have to be taken on a case by case basis.. many specifically state the packaged elements cannot be sold or offered separately, some do not... always check the appropriate documentation before reoffering the itme for sale

 

[JMJ]

After some additional thoughts. Whats to stop the original author or copyright holder from going after a person who buys and uses the material on a website or a coffee can for that matter. Take the recent Taster's Choice lawsuit. I imagine thats exactly what happened here. A designer used what he/she thought was a public domain image or mabey even an image bought in a "packaged" deal and years later this guy sues Taster's Choice and wins millions.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

After some additional thoughts. Whats to stop the original author or copyright holder from going after a person who buys and uses the material on a website or a coffee can for that matter. Take the recent Taster's Choice lawsuit. I imagine thats exactly what happened here. A designer used what he/she thought was a public domain image or mabey even an image bought in a "packaged" deal and years later this guy sues Taster's Choice and wins millions.

From what I heard, the guy knew he modelled for Tasters Choice many years ago, and signed off for the image to be used for a limited time and or purpose. They either decided not to use it at that time or extended beyond the original usage license. I think he was paid for it's use many years ago in some other country, but never for use in the US, where he found it recently being used.

I believe some of that stuff is publilc domain, and could be open source. Others may be so bad and/or so old that selling resell rights in bulk is the only way to make money, since they can't sell them on their own.

I look at most of these schemes like a chain letter. You are trying to sell something of no value to someone else who gives you a cut of their doing the same.

 

[rondo]

Resell Rights are becoming increasingly popular beacause of the viral marketing possibilities. Most of the ebooks you see everywhere contain the authors affiliate links so he is happy that people resell his product and distribute his links.

For example I offer resell rights to my handy FTP product in my signature. Customers can resell this product and keep all the profit. They can even buy the Master Resale Rights (only from me) and resell the product with resell rights!
It's the only FTP software available for resale. So what's in it for me other than a small fee? I have an affiliate link inside the software. Simple.

There are tons of crappy ebooks and products out there but there are also some ecellent ones too. Some are so good that I've spent hundreds of $ aquiring the resale and Master resale rights to them!

 

[dgridley]

Exactly...

Resell Rights are becoming increasingly popular beacause of the viral marketing possibilities. Most of the ebooks you see everywhere contain the authors affiliate links so he is happy that people resell his product and distribute his links.

 

[zaros64]

i got some of them from a guy for free... i htink i got the thing from ebay or trademe.... well it was a guide...but I got a disc for free and it has heaps of ebooks and stuff on it

 

[Prosperous]

I dig (master) resell rights. Been looking into them a lot recently.

As a matter of fact, I just purchased the Source Codes (MS VC++ 6.0, PHP and VB 6.0) to '5 finished but never officially released' software products from its original owner (who had 'em developed for him), that I may well release in the near future -I need to find some capable coders first to help me out- and once they are for sale I will most likely I be offering resell rights 'with' them.