Many marketers, especially “newbies” don’t check the terms and conditions of their resale rights license carefully enough. In all the excitement at having some products to sell it is all too easy for them to overlook whether a particular product really can be sold where they think it can. While many products come with a “do whatever you want with it” type of license, many do not. There are restrictions. If you want to save yourself a lot of potential trouble you MUST check what those restrictions might be….
Auction Sites
Many marketers begin their career selling digital information products on eBay. That’s where I started and it makes a lot of sense. It’s very easy to set up, you don’t need to be a web site design genius because eBay supply you with some reasonable templates, and you don’t need to worry about traffic – eBay supply that for you.
However, you are NEVER going to get the optimum price for your information product on eBay. That’s just a fact of life; buyers go onto eBay in search of a bargain. What does this have to do with Resale Rights licenses?
In my experience, when the creator of a MRR and PLR product does put restrictions in the license, the most often used restriction states “not to be sold on auction sites”. Whilst there are lots of other very minor auction sites, the biggest is eBay of course. The reason this restriction is included is to maintain a sensible price; the product creator does not want to see his or her work appear on eBay at some ridiculously low price.
Be aware that Ebay have lately become very quick at spotting listings that have this restriction in the license. If you are very lucky they may only pull your listing, in most cases you will be suspended. So if you are using eBay (and you should) always check that the license allows you to sell it there. If in doubt – leave it out.
Minimum Price
This can include terms such as “not to be given away for free”. You might do this to encourage people to sign up to your newsletter or membership site. Make sure that this is NOT forbidden in the license. Sometimes, especially with software, you may find a sentence with words to the effect “NOT to be sold for LESS than $19.95”. If it says that, then DON’T sell it for less than twenty bucks – you came into internet marketing to make some real money didn’t you?
Do Not Include In Bonuses
Most information marketers package their main product together with free bonuses. It’s a standard marketing tactic which I use and it works very well. Many buyers will buy your product purely for the bonuses, I’ve done that myself. However….do check that the terms of your Resale Rights license allow you to include that product as a free bonus. Sometimes they don’t.
In other cases they may specifiy a minimum value for the overall product, eg “This product may only be included as part of a bonus if the price for the whole product is $40 or greater”. In other words if you’re selling a product for $17 then you may not include it as a bonus, if your selling price is $47 then you’re fine.
Passing On Resale Rights To Your Customers
Whilst you may have the right to sell this product for whatever price you want, wherever you want, some licenses specifically EXCLUDE you from passing on those Resale Rights to YOUR customers. In this case you can only sell that particular product to your customer for their own personal use. Your customer is NOT permitted to sell the product on, only you have that right. Obviously this affects the price of your product, an ebook with resale rights naturally has more value than an ebook with none.
There are other restrictions to watch out for, but the above are probably the most common ones. The point I’m making is check your licenses carefully. There are 2 very good reasons for this
- Breach the author’s copyright and you can get into very serious trouble. If you are selling on eBay they can and will suspend you. If you’re very unlucky you might also get a nasty letter from a lawyer…
- Apart from the legal implications it’s actually common courtesy. One day it will be you who is selling YOUR product with Resale Rights. After all the trouble you will have gone to in order to create your product would you be happy if buyers were just flouting your Resale Rights restrictions? Of course not.