Update to Elements Author Agreement and Market Author Terms
Effective from June 1, 2023.
We want to let you know about some important changes we’re making to the current Elements Author Agreement and Envato Market Author Terms that affect you as a creative contributor to our platform.
Envato is committed to supporting the creative industry and empowering our Authors to share their skills and talents with the world. As the industry evolves and technology transforms the way content is created and consumed, our updated terms will help in embracing this change–allowing us to continue to work closely with the creative community to unlock new opportunities for increased earnings.
What’s being updated?
The most significant change in this update is in regard to our license to your content. We’re broadening the scope of Envato’s use of your items to unlock new revenue streams. The updated terms allow us to enter into agreements with third parties to expand the distribution and usage of your content across all item categories on Market and Elements (“third party arrangements”).
The terms changes proposed are intended to allow us to explore a range of new opportunities.
Examples of these types of opportunities might include:
- Reseller arrangements
- Augmenting a partner content offering with our library
- Integrating our content into creative tools or creating ethical AI tools
To avoid doubt, where Envato enters into a third party arrangement as described above, the respective licensing terms will not include rights for that third party to publicly perform, display broadcast or communicate your items for their own purposes, ie. for marketing and promotion or incorporation into “End Products”
Our Author Agreement now also includes the addition of ‘perpetuity’ to our licensing terms on both Market and Elements.
For example, if your content is used to train an AI model, it may not be possible to make the AI forget any learnings from your item. This means that if you decide to take your items down after the updated terms become effective, your item(s) may still be used, in some capacity, by a third party.
The Envato Market Author Terms are also updated so that the indemnity you provide to us includes indemnification against any third party claim relating to a breach of your warranties in respect of your items. This update is generally consistent with the Envato Market Terms and Elements Author Agreement. For Elements Authors, your existing indemnity already covers third party claims, and remains the same.
How will payments work?
You will be paid whenever Envato receives payment by a third party for the permitted use of your Market and/or Elements items as part of a third party arrangement.
You will see this additional usage reflected in your Earnings Statement.
Without having full details of future arrangements, we cannot provide you with details of the fee payable to you, the Author.
When will the updates take effect?
These updates will take effect 20 days from now, on 1 June, 2023 and are available to be viewed here:
- Elements Author Agreement effective 1 June, 2023
- Market Author Terms effective 1 June, 2023
There is no need to take any action to accept the updated terms. But if you do not want your content used in this broadened capacity, you will need to remove your content from Envato Market and/or Elements before the changes come into effect on 1 June, 2023. By continuing to use Envato Market and/or Elements after this time, you agree to the updated terms.
We appreciate your continued support and membership of our community and look forward to helping you thrive in this ever-changing creative landscape.
Find out more about our plan to spearhead ethical AI initiatives on our blog.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you tell me some examples of what a third party arrangement might look like?
The terms changes proposed are intended to allow us to explore a range of new opportunities.
As mentioned above, examples of these types of opportunities may include:
- reseller arrangements
- integrating our content into creative tools
- augmenting a partner content offering with our library
- creating ethical AI models.
We want to have options open to ensure that our author community continues to generate revenue from their creative work.
Will you have perpetual rights even if I take my content down from the platform?
As is the case today, you will continue to have the right to take down your items at any point in time, while taking into account some unique scenarios such as AI. Here are some examples to help illustrate this.
- In the case of a third party reseller, it would be a requirement of our agreement that they remove content that has been removed from Envato. It is worth noting in such circumstances:
- There may be a period of time between the content being removed from Envato and then being removed from the third party site.
- Authors would still be eligible to receive their share of revenue during the period while the content was on the third party site
- In the case of an AI training model (which may be for purposes such as tagging, search discovery and content generation), it may not always be possible to remove (or unlearn) an item from that model until the model is retrained. Items deleted from our platform will be excluded from any future training models, however it may not be possible to remove content from a previous or current model.
- For unique opportunities where a potential partner cannot commit to removing items we would specifically seek informed consent from Authors, and only provide items where Authors have consented.
If I remove my items after Envato signs a deal with a third party, how will I be compensated?
If an item continues to generate revenue from third party arrangements, the author will still receive their share of revenue. If the concerned author is no longer a part of our platform, Envato will make reasonable attempts to contact the author and make this payment.
Can a third party claim any type of ownership over the item?
No. Neither Envato or any third party partners that we enter into agreements with can claim ownership of the item.
The new rights allow Envato to distribute content. How does this affect exclusivity on Envato Market?
Your exclusive items on Envato Market will continue to earn a bigger share of revenue compared to the non-exclusive items.
However, this may not be true when your content is distributed to third parties, and as is the case today, it does not impact your subscriber share on Elements.
What will the revenue share be for future distribution?
Royalties from third parties is a new form of incremental revenue for our Authors above and beyond the industry-leading revenue share from Envato sites. We expect that the fees for these third party partnerships will vary on a case-by-case basis.
Will I have visibility of which items are in use outside of Elements/Market? What happens if my items are already on those platforms?
Third party platforms will generally have measures in place to prevent duplication of non-exclusive content in their libraries. However, this depends on their content policies. If a customer purchases your item from a third party due to our listing, you will be compensated based on the terms agreed between Envato and that third party at the time.
You will have visibility of the overall revenue generated from third-party use/royalties, however you will not see a detailed item-level breakdown.
How can we track piracy or misuse of items?
We will take careful measures to conduct evaluations of our partnerships with third parties, with an aim to minimize the risk of intentional misuse and piracy to the best extent possible.
Does this mean I can start uploading AI-generated content to sell through Envato?
At this point, we are still not accepting AI-generated content on Elements and Market.
This choice is based on our commitment to protect the rights and copyrights of our authors and creative contributors worldwide.
Currently, as many of you would know, the proliferation of unethical external AI content generation models in the marketplace makes it difficult to verify the source of content and ensure fair compensation for creatives involved.
We are keeping a close eye on the advancements in the ethical AI space and will advise if there is a change in our AI-generated content policy for Market and Elements policy.
Will item previews be included in AI learning, or only the purchasable item files?
While previews (and the associated metadata) are included in the broadened usage rights, the analysis and learning process will not extend to any related items for which we do not hold rights for.
For instance, if an AI is used to generate tags for a video template, the preview file may be used for that purpose instead of the original asset.
However if the preview includes an audio track, and Envato does not have the rights for that track, it will not be used when generating the tags.
What are the plans for Code, Web and Audio items?
Our terms and conditions apply to Authors in all categories, however, we have no immediate plans to use Code, Web and Audio items as part of third party arrangements or as part of generative AI services.
If we plan to start using Code, Web and Audio items as part of third party arrangements, we will provide you with reasonable notice and an opportunity to opt-out before initial use of these items in third party arrangements commences.