Question regarding sale of templates

[naif]

Hi guys. I have a few questions I need answers for. I hope to find them here :) I am a part time web designer. And I have sold a few templates in the past. After selling a template to a person, I just get rid of it. i.e. I dont sell it anyone else again. Now, here comes my question. Would be it legal or fair for me to sell one template to many people? My second question is. Sites which sell templates, after someone buys one from them, do they take off that template from their shelves?

Note: I posted this thread over here as I dont have permissions to post on the 'Buy, Sell or Trade' forum yet

[the_pm]

If you sold your templates with unique status, exclusive rights, etc., then you cannot sell those templates again, as they no longer belong to you in any way. But if you didn't specify or convey any sort of rights, you're free to sell them as much as you'd like. In this case, unless rights are explicitly given, you're still the originator, the copyright holder, and you're simply issuing a license for someone else to use your work.

If anyone has better information, please share it, but this is how I believe it works. Frankly, I would consider it a bit underhanded if someone sold me a template, didn't specify rights one way or another and then proceeded to sell it multiple times. It wouldn't be illegal, and it wouldn't be "wrong" persay, but I would feel like you'd taken advantage of a certain degree of naivety on my part, and I wouldn't be happy.

Best thing to do is always to be specific with your rights :)

[sketch]

Like the_pm said, if you don't declare this and sell it to someone, they're going to think they're the only owner and will cause trouble when they see "their" template on someone else's site. Depending on how much your charging or how the client is, your reputation can be tarnished, or even worse, the client can sue you for what they believe is breach of contract (the sale being the contract).

[naif]

Thanks for the reply the_pm and sketch. Most sites I have sold till now ranged from 25 to 50 USD. Assuming the design is unique and good, do you reckon that would be a fair price to give away all the rights? And how about these big companies who sell templates for 15 or so dollars? I doubt if whether they would give away all the rights to the person they are selling it to. Apart from this, is there any coined word which describes the type of license the template is being sold with?

[Colbyt]

Most sites I have sold till now ranged from 25 to 50 USD. Assuming the design is unique and good, do you reckon that would be a fair price to give away all the rights? ?

IMO, No. To be fair you may want to change a few of the images. But a "custom design" for that price is a little low unless it is a one page template.



Apart from this, is there any coined word which describes the type of license the template is being sold with?

Not a single word. Some phrases for you to consider:
copyright assigned to buyer
exclusive rights to use, copyright retained
non-exclusive right to use
limited use for one site, non assignable rights
unlimited usage non exclusive

Show me some samples before you read this post. I may want to buy one of your designs.

[sketch]

If you want to sell your templates outright, you should figure out what your time is worth (i.e. $ per hour) and multiply by how long it took you to make your templates and use that as a base price, modify as you like. There's no reason why you shouldn't get what you're worth. Of course my formula only works if you actually know what you were doing and weren't re-doing things over and over :)

Big companies can usually get away with charging small amounts because they make it up in volume.

As for the license, I dunno. Make up a name :D

[the_pm]

Thanks for the reply the_pm and sketch. Most sites I have sold till now ranged from 25 to 50 USD. Assuming the design is unique and good, do you reckon that would be a fair price to give away all the rights? And how about these big companies who sell templates for 15 or so dollars? I doubt if whether they would give away all the rights to the person they are selling it to. Apart from this, is there any coined word which describes the type of license the template is being sold with?
I wouldn't even consider selling a good, unique coded template for less than 10x your price range. Assuming the quality is there, you're probably charging way too little.

[naif]

Well, the_pm. The reason I am asking all this is because I have come up with a few designs... Specially one last night which I feel is well enough to be considered Web 2.0 design. I am not sure what price would be reasonable for it. I dont want to be ripped nor do I want anyone else to be ripped off :) Can I show it here if you guys can help me get an idea?

[the_pm]

Fine by me, if DP allows it. But there's a lot more to a template than its look. Good v. bad engineering can make a template worth a great deal more or less, as can template options (hidden in layers for extra looks, accents, etc.). Looking at a picture of a Web page doesn't really tell you a whole lot about its worth. But it's a start, I suppose :)

[naif]

Looking at a picture of a Web page doesn't really tell you a whole lot about its worth. But it's a start, I suppose


Ya, I guess :) But it wouldnt be wise to put the design for display in HTML format. I'll tell you a bit about how I have coded it. Here is the layout.

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/8196/w20hi7.jpg

Its simple and unique. No fancy graphics used none the less if wished, they can easily be incorporated. What it uses is a few gradients and a reflected title/(logo?), all which seems to be a necessity for sites to qualify as Web 2.0. The code is 100% CSS (no tables) and HTML 4.01. The design can be easily customised by editing the CSS part of the page.

[the_pm]

I think it's missing an element of contrast that would make it "Web 2.0" style. Gradients, yes. Spacious text treatments, yes. But there is almost always some sort of contrast, and/or a theme consisting of some sort of visual accent/color that provides a break in the style of the page, draws attention.

Do this, and in my opinion, you'll increase the value of this particular work :)

[Kirtan]

All the templates selling sites have two options.
1. Unique Price.
2. Template Price.
First option let customers to buy a template with all rights. So the creator won't be resell it. But with second option, template sold to you to use in one site. They keep all copyrights. So they can sell it to other customer to use. Depends on this whether you sold your templates with rights or not. you can resell it to another customer.