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December 20, 2011
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First off, sorry for the long read, it means a lot to you and me if you pay attention and purchase my work.

I sell my device PSD's at two price points. $10 for the non-profit, no-commercial artists who just want a platform to showcase their themes and concepts on and the $50 price point for commercial, profit making purposes so people and companies can advertise and showcase their apps and accessories on. The $10 being static with on screen edit ability and the $50 with full PSD edit ability.

Here's my problem:

The vast majority of the time, buyers just want access to the screen element of the PSD to showcase their content on screen. I recently did an audit of the $10 price point purchasers and found several commercial, profit making businesses using the $10 non-profit PSD for their profit making purposes. Things like posting images of the device on their website, selling product. Using them in ad campaigns for profit. Making presentations to their clients using the non-profit PSD and the clients openly thanking them for professional development and presentations.

I've brought it up to these businesses and the responders have been saying they didn't know and/or it was a former employee who purchased the PSD or the License Agreement was too long and didn't clearly outline the usage of the Purchase Agreement. Most of whom have either taken the content using the PSD device, down or paid the difference and apologized. Two had told me that the License Agreement has no baring or law enforcement in their country. i.e. "Fuck off, your lucky we paid $10 for it."

As you can see, I haven't been putting out many PSD's lately. Some of it's life, but a lot of it has to do with income. I'm making more money working my other job right now because at $10 a head is not enough to justify putting more time into making PSD devices. Which brings me to a choice I have to make. Either drop the $10 PSD price point and make everyone pay $50, essentially screwing over the artists on DA purchasing them or only put out a select number of devices a year, justifying the limited amount of PSD's to select from.

Believe me, I'm not making much on these PSD's and I'm booked with other design gig's for awhile. I love making these devices and want to continue but just can't justify it if purchasers aren't being honest about their intent on using the PSD's. Anyone have a better suggestion or opinion?

  • Mood: Hurt
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:iconadriantnt:
I would recommend to sell them in more stock sites and get more profit from them (at any item price).
In this case my only worry as an author is that other stock sellers will buy it and sell modified versions of your file, but for this, you can place some kind of invisible watermark that you can check for. So you can proof that it is your work.
If your items sell really well on stock sites you can get to a point where rips have little or no effect on your earnings.
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:iconchrisringeisen:
Mood: Anguish ~chrisringeisen Dec 21, 2011  Student Interface Designer
A lot of what's needed by companies is still just the screen editabilty, I'd suggest having two models, one flateened or minimal layers for the average consumer personal or commercial and raise the price of some if you have to. The second is more expensive but has every layer available to you should someone want to do something crazy.

I honestly hate it when companies screw over designers like this - especially when all they do is stop sending correspondence back. nothing short of a law suit will change these guys and often that costs more then what money you've lost anyway. I always enjoy giving free or limited copyright content out to the public and I love seeing it appear in mashups for best icons/wallpapers etc but when I find it being hosted by other sites without a link or attribution it makes me question how i can remarket my content.
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:iconhsigmond:
Go for the $50, sell the $10 for members only! your work is the best Alexander!
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:icon1stladyquick:
I agree with Paper...you know I love your PSD's and I don't do any kind of editing to them unless YOU tell me it's ok too...I have too much respect for the time and energy you put into them to do something shady with them :hug: :smooch:
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:iconnatsum-i:
=Natsum-i Dec 20, 2011  Hobbyist
sometimes companies suck... (oh wait... its all the time)
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:iconcoreybyas:
=CoreyByas Dec 20, 2011  Professional General Artist
Well I would offer one type of file (flattened version), just make it for commercial use & personal use and bump up the price ($20...whatever). You could even start off saying commercial license and something about the layered PSD can be purchased for something like an extra $20 or something because it seems the flattened version is only needed anyways. You could put a link to purchase the layered version were once you pay then you get access to the PSD. You know... how some sell eBooks, theres a description a small image of the book, you pay and its then downloadable.

I think to the psd to could be limited, like what to they need to do it, maybe change color and be able to put something in the screen.... maybe I'm wrong..

What sucks even more is the fact they could afford $50 to begin with, if your in business you can afford that...

thats my 2 cents, even tho it maybe only worth that much
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