[jrochkind1]

Neat. The license terms make it difficult/impossible to use for something created by a business, or other kind of team, rather than a single individual:

> The maximum number of users of this sound effects library is limited to ONE. It is unlawful to distribute any of the audio files to ANY ADDITIONAL USERS. This license allows ONE individual...

So... if a company (or university department, or non-profit entity, or small volunteer team) wants to use it, they need a license for... every employee that has access to the source code repo? And another one for every new hire? Or...?

[iambrakes]

The license is designed to work like a font or stock photo license. It's allows for a specific user individual or within a company to use the sounds for as many projects as they'd like.

From my experience this is typical for most licenses on most royalty free items. The same type of license can be found at sites like Shutterstock at the Boom Library that another user mentioned in the comments.

It's just the nature of the business. I believe the prices are fair for the quantity and unlimited project use. But it wouldn't be fair to just then share all of them with as many people as you had in an organization.

[jrochkind1]

I guess i haven't worked with this kind of stuff before, but i'm having trouble figuring out how it would work with these sounds.

These sounds are meant for web apps, right? I would imagine they will wind up in a source control repository for a web app.

So there's only one individual that's allowed to add them to the source control repo?

The license says "It is unlawful to distribute any of the audio files to ANY ADDITIONAL USERS", does that mean it's unlawful if other individuals have access to that repo and check it out? Or they can check out the repo, but they can't... write code that uses the sounds added to the repo, only that one guy can write code? Can another individual fix bugs in his code? Can another individual deploy the code? Or to the other extreme, as long as you have one individual committing all the sound files to the source repo, the entire rest of the company can then write code using them?

None of those make much sense, I can't think of anything else that does.

But if Boom Library has the same sort of license and has been succesful, then either it makes sense in a way I don't understand... or nobody uses Boom Library for projects from companies or team entities, just one-man operations... or everyone's just ignoring the license and doing what they think probably makes sense.

Looking up the Boom license, it does say "If you want to purchase a multiuser license, please contact us directly." So I'd guess some are doing that, and others are probably ignoring and violating the license.

[iambrakes]

I appreciate your concerns. Let me see if I can ease them. The intention is to make this product as useful as possible at a good price. The license is in place to try and keep a few basic things from happening.

1.) Purchaser buys SoundKit then adds the sounds to a commercial product like a toolkit that they want to sell. Or they add the sounds to a website template that they sell to others. Anything where another user would come along and use those sounds commercially for their own projects.

2.) Purchaser buys SoundKit then gives it to their friends for free.

3.) Purchaser buys SoundKit then places it on a server at an office for everyone to use.

4.) Someone accesses a repo who doesn't have a license for SoundKit, they pull the sounds and use them on another project.

On the other hand, if you buy the license and then you work on a project like a web or mobile app and you want to add the sounds, go for it. If someone else adds to the project or makes changes, that's not a problem. As long as a license owner is involved with the project and added them.

I really don't want to limit the use of the product, I just have to try and keep from everyone giving it to everyone for every use. And regarding the company issue, I should add a multiuser license. It is common in these situations.

At the end of the day, most people are probably not using their licenses correctly for all sorts of design elements, but this gives us some sort of protection in a worst case scenario.

I'll try and update the wording of the license to be as clear as possible for future buyers. If you have already purchased, feat not, the usage will become more flexible, not less.

[BHSPitMonkey]

> On the other hand, if you buy the license and then you work on a project like a web or mobile app and you want to add the sounds, go for it.

Those scenarios involve redistributing the audio files to a public audience, which the license loudly forbids in its current form.

[iambrakes]

The license works the same as any other license you probably have for fonts, images, sounds, etc. For example, if you load a web font in an app, you most likely have a single use license, but thousands of users may use the font when they use the app. They don't however have a right to use that font in other applications.

This is similar. However, I'm going to work on wording that makes the concerned users more comfortable. I understand that this is a tricky situation. And I'm much more interested design then legal matters. I hope I can ease the concerns.

[drewcrawford]

I mean it's true that your terms are standard for the likes of Getty Images. But I think what this conversation reveals is that the userbase of Getty Images and software developers don't have a lot of overlap.

I think if you want to target a software developer audience you will need a single-project, multiple-user model. The majority of projects where we would use this are a revolving door of contractors, and nobody is going to do the accounting to figure out how many licenses that is.

[iambrakes]

In the spirit of open conversation, I'd welcome feedback from the group on this from CreativeMarket.

https://creativemarket.com/licenses/simple

Perhaps something along these lines will make everyone feel good about it.

[drewcrawford]

It's better. I still think that "contributes to the core value" is vague.

[iambrakes]

I do too a little. So I left that wording out of our rewritten license. Like the beginning of ours says "We're all adults here." The point is, don't steal by giving it away and otherwise use it like crazy.

[iambrakes]

A question for the group here, would a per project license be preferred over a per user license?

[rileyjshaw]

I'd strongly prefer per-user, but maybe you could allow the choice at time of purchase?

[iLoch]

Per project licensing seems pretty fair to me.