Exclussive and Non-Exclussive Rights

[Sega]

I was wondering this for a while and it's something that's not clear but needs to be cleared. The question has to do with 'exclussive' and 'non-exclussive' rights.

When we create a tailor made design for a client I presume we give them exclussive rights, as the design is theirs and owned by their company, preventing you from copy-pasting the design for another website.

Templates would go in the bracket on non-exclussive rights to the buyer. So buying a template would only mean you're allowed to use it on a single website and for more websites you'd need an extended license. I am not 100% sure, but buying the 'exclussive' rights from a template, would remove this from the template portfolio and prevent others from purchasing it.

How does this exclussive and non-exclussive business work? What's the general difference between the two?

[lonerunner]

Exclusive and non-exclusive means if you design your theme to someone if you give exclusive rights than you wont sell it to anyone else. If you give non-exclusive rights you can sell theme how many times you want.

If you are selling on websites like themeforest than exclusive means that you will sell theme only on their website and non-exclusive means that you can sell themes on other sites also but you get smaller percentage of earnings.

You need to specify directly what you wish to do to be able to answer you correctly. Exclusive and non-exclusive rights are offten mixed with theme license, license is something else that you specify on your shop or contract with customer. But even there you are limited if you design for some cms.

For example: I design and sell premium themes for WordPress. WordPress strictly prohibit developers to use any other license except GPL So anything you design for wordpress must be GPL or else they will try to close you. Except you can copyright your graphic design. Anything else is free. So when you sell wordpress theme you sell your graphic design, other coding is basically free. And you cant limit user with exclusive or non-exclusive rights. Once you sell that theme he can do whatever he want with it and use it on how many domains he wish, only he can't resell it because your graphic design is copyrighted.

Here it comes exclusive and non-exclusive sale:

For example:
I sell my theme with exclusive rights to you for $1000. This means i will only sell it 1 time to you and no one else. Rest of rights are defined in theme license.
Or i sell my theme with non-exclusive rights to you for $40. This means i will sell my theme to how many customers i want.

Maybe im not defining this clearly because english is not my native language.

[Sega]

@lonerunner ;

So when you sell wordpress theme you sell your graphic design, other coding is basically free.

Even custom coding, like PHP etc?

If you are selling on websites like themeforest than exclusive means that you will sell theme only on their website and non-exclusive means that you can sell themes on other sites also but you get smaller percentage of earnings.

Let me get this straight. Can one person have the non-exclusive rights, and another have the exclussive rights. Non-exclussive simply means that can only sell this one, right?

Rest of rights are defined in theme license.

License Theme? Is this something else, like a readme document to the theme? I've not seem on of these before. I previously purchased a theme with templatic, so there might be one included in there.


Your English is fine.

[lonerunner]

Even custom coding, like PHP etc?

License Theme? Is this something else, like a readme document to the theme? I've not seem on of these before. I previously purchased a theme with templatic, so there might be one included in there.

For wordpress is case even with custom coding like php.
Readme is something else. License is usually on website, let me use templatic for example. License is on their footer link in Terms of Use http://templatic.com/terms-of-use/
And to quote their text from beginning of license where their explain what i said.

Please take note that any content which is either in the form of PHP or XHTML uses the GNU General Public License , the remainder of the content (CSS, Javascript & Images) use the license below:

And there you can license your design, templatic have license for only 1 domain, but only on design. Again different CMS use different license. and for thml you can license whatever you wish.

Non-exclussive simply means that can only sell this one, right?

Well you got it about non-exclusive and exclusive, but it goes other way. non-exclusive means you can sell it unlimited times. Exclusive means only once.

Let me get this straight. Can one person have the non-exclusive rights, and another have the exclussive rights.

About that part it can be like this but i don't know how exactly work.Take a look at templatemonster. They sell theme with and without exclusive rights. So i guess if you sell it with both rights. Persons who bought theme with non-exclusive rights before that one who bought with exclusive rights can use template, but after exclusive purchase they remove theme from sale and you are last one who bought that theme.

[Sega]

Well you got it about non-exclusive and exclusive, but it goes other way. non-exclusive means you can sell it unlimited times. Exclusive means only once.

Hold on there a giffy. Could in theory, you sell non-exclussive rights to Theme Forrest, which sells it unlimited time and exclussive rights elsewhere? Would that work. You can be a non-exclussive author on theme forest, which still allows you to sell the themes unlimited amount of time. The only difference is that the buyer cannot buy your theme out 'exclussively', if that sounds right.

I really think this topic needs further exploring. I can't for the live of me figure this one out, and I would be suprised is somebody here had a black and white answer to it.

[lonerunner]

Hold on there a giffy. Could in theory, you sell non-exclussive rights to Theme Forrest, which sells it unlimited time and exclussive rights elsewhere? Would that work. You can be a non-exclussive author on theme forest, which still allows you to sell the themes unlimited amount of time. The only difference is that the buyer cannot buy your theme out 'exclussively', if that sounds right.

I really think this topic needs further exploring. I can't for the live of me figure this one out, and I would be suprised is somebody here had a black and white answer to it.

Ok now you will get more confused. You can't sell non-exclusive on one place, and exclusive on another, you can but it's "illegal".

For terms of exclusive and non-exclusive on theme forest it goes like this

Themeforest has 2 contracts, one between you(designer) and them (sellers), and other with them (sellers) and customers (buyers)

For them (sellers) and customers (buyers) they always sell products as non-exclusive.

For you(designer) and them (sellers) you can sell products on exclusive license or non-exclusive.

What that means is if you choose to sell it exclusively on their website you CAN'T sell it anywhere else and you get paid 50%-70%

If you wish to sell your theme on few different websites than you sell your theme on themeforest as non-exclusive and get paid 33% of sales. This gives you rights to sell your theme on other website but also as non-exclusive.

You got that? i think not because it's reaaaaaallyy confusing. Can you explain me what you have in mind and ill explain it how you can sell it and with what rights. This way you may understand it better maybe.

[Sega]

Ok now you will get more confused.

Yep!

If you wish to sell your theme on few different websites than you sell your theme on themeforest as non-exclusive and get paid 33% of sales. This gives you rights to sell your theme on other website but also as non-exclusive.

I think I've got it! Only one person can hold the 'exclussive' license, and that person should be me, this would allow me to sell the non-exclussive license to more than one website over and over again. Considering Theme Forest sells the theme over and over again, do they not hold an 'exclussive' license? Could this still be achieved with the non-exclussive license. I checked Templatic's license agreement, and it states:

Please take note that any content which is either in the form of PHP or XHTML uses the GNU General Public License , the remainder of the content (CSS, Javascript & Images) use the license below:

Just like you stated. It allows you to change the design of the theme if you wish however after purchasing the theme however on your purchased theme. Is there are reason for somebody, apart from myself, to hold a 'non-exclussive' license, and why do places like Theme Forest prefer them.

You got that? i think not because it's reaaaaaallyy confusing.

I am not 100% sure, but I think I got it. This is seriously confusing, and I am suprizes nobody else in this forum brought up this licensing stuff before. Another question is the 'exclussive' scripts on theme forest. If I wish to have some super-script from there on a template, I would probably need to do buy the 'exclussive' theme.

I wish to sell themes to Theme Forest and another website. Both sites will sell the theme over and over again. Using the logic I would hold the exclussive license, for what it's worth, and hand the non-exclussive lincese off. This sound right?

[lonerunner]

Ok, one more try.

Terms:

You -> Designer, seller, developer, author, someone who made that product.

Themeforest -> sellers of your products.

Freemarket(freelance marketplace) -> same as themeforest, sellers of your product.

License -> How your product is protected by copyrights. you can license it by your own meanings, but must be compatible to CMS license of cms for which you make if theme is case. Also sellers protect products by their own license. Check their website for terms how they protect it.

Exclusive rights of product - this means that product will be sold only once to buyer.

Non-exclusive rights of product - this means that product will be sold unlimited times to multiple buyers.

Exclusive author - this means that YOU will sell products only on themeforest and no where else

Non-exclusive author - this means that YOU will sell products on themeforest and on freemarket, and/or on another website, but all website must grant you to sell products as non-exclusive author to be able to sell on multiple websites.

places like themeforest prefer to sell products as non-exclusive because they are not designers of that product so they can't guarantee that this product is not sold somewhere else before it's sold on themeforest.

[Sega]

Okay I got it now.

You know your stuff fairly well. Thanks. That's a hurdle and a half to understand and you've really helped me understand the concepts.

[couponsitescript]

I was wondering this for a while and it's something that's not clear but needs to be cleared. The question has to do with 'exclussive' and 'non-exclussive' rights.

When we create a tailor made design for a client I presume we give them exclussive rights, as the design is theirs and owned by their company, preventing you from copy-pasting the design for another website.

Templates would go in the bracket on non-exclussive rights to the buyer. So buying a template would only mean you're allowed to use it on a single website and for more websites you'd need an extended license. I am not 100% sure, but buying the 'exclussive' rights from a template, would remove this from the template portfolio and prevent others from purchasing it.

How does this exclussive and non-exclussive business work? What's the general difference between the two?

The best way to resolve the problem: take a look at templatemonster.
Each template is around 65$. But at this price you can find the template on other sites as well. For ( from 1000$ up ) you will only use that template as when you pay that sum the template is removed.
So difference is in the type of contract you offer to the client. For a smaller price you get to re-use the template for a bigger sum only the client has the right to use it.