Types of Rights in PLR

Before you jump in, one of the first things you need to consider is the type of rights that you are going to be buying. This is important as getting it wrong could mean that you cannot sell the product, or you cannot edit it – the latter point may or may not be an issue depending on your intended business strategy.

There are a few different terms you need to familiarize yourself with in that case. These are:

Resale Rights / Resell Rights (RR)

Master Resale Rights (MRR)

Private Label Rights (PLR)

Personal Use Rights

Public Domain

And more.

Let us look at each.

First, Resale Rights (RR), mean that you have the right to resell the product. This is straightforward and does precisely what it says on the tin. However, this does not necessarily mean that you will be able to make edits to the product. You may be able to but, in that case, you have additional rights on top of the resale rights, and you need to check that this is explicitly stated.

In most cases, you will also gain access to some of the sales materials that the creator has been using to sell their products. In this way, you are being actively encouraged to sell! Master Resale Rights (MRR) meanwhile means that you not only have the right to resell the product, but you also have the right to resell the rights. In other words, you can resell the product to other marketers so that they can resell it as well!

This creates another avenue for you to sell through and is especially useful if you happen to be in the internet marketing niche – in which case, most of your potential customers will probably be interested in selling as well. Once again, however, you will still not necessarily have the right to edit the original documents/files.

Private Label Rights (PLR) is where the product becomes sincerely yours as you are given the rights to edit the content(s). Now, you have the ability to make edits, you can also put your name on it, your company’s brand on it, and you can even change the very topic of the product or the conclusion. Edit, Add, & Delete as you please.

This is where things get even more exciting for marketers as you now get to sell something as though it were your own product, and that in turn means that your business gets the credit. What is more, it means you can change the product to better fit the niche you are in, to be more appealing to your specific audience, or to align with your personal views and ideas.

An important note is that depending on the vendor you purchase from, you should always do your due diligence and read the license that is included. Typically, you as a private label rights holder cannot resell the same contents out of the box the same way the vendor is selling it. That would be considered “Unrestricted Private Label Rights”. (also named “Transferable PLR”)

Some vendors allow you to resell the master resell rights and/or resell rights, other restricts you to sell user licenses to prolong the shelf life of your investment when you choose to sell “AS IS” in non-editable PDF format – something you never should do in the first place. PLR enables you to make the product UNIQUE so always make it YOURS.

You will also find some vendors force a minimum price to sell the product for. (but price fixing is illegal in the eyes of the law).

It is best practice to read the license and agreement before attempting to make edits or sell the product. If you are unsure of its usage, it is a good idea to contact the vendor directly. Another type of product to investigate is ‘Public Domain Content’. This is content that gives you all the same rights as PLR content but with one key difference: you do not have to buy it! To resell or edit a book or video course that someone else has written, you first need to buy the license.

That is what you are paying for more than the product itself. But with public domain content, the license belongs to everyone. People are within their rights to sell it to you, but you are also within your rights to get it free of charge, if you can find it on your own. Public domain content is simply content that no one owns – and thus everyone owns. It includes content that was published between 1923 and 1963 and which has not been renewed or passed on.

It also includes content that belonged to authors who have since died (though it normally takes 10 years for the content to pass into the public domain). What this means, is that if you were able to get your hands on an incredibly old manual explaining a subject, then there is no reason you cannot edit it slightly and resell it! Just make sure that the content is not too badly out of date.

Finally, if content is under the creative commons license, then that means that the individual who created it is happy for you to use it. This might mean you can use it for your own creations, but it may not include commercial ventures. Conversely, it might include commercial ventures but require you to give credit to the creator (or potentially to pay them dividends). It might be free for you to use as you wish but not allow you to edit the original.

If something is available only for your own personal use, then that is described as – surprisingly enough – personal use. Likewise, you should also consider the term fair use. Fair use means that you are using snippets of the original product to make a point, or perhaps to review that product.

This is more an issue for YouTubers who want to include shots of films they are reviewing; however, this is not something that you will generally need to worry yourself with!  In short, you should be looking for private label rights in all cases when considering the products, you want to sell!

You can get everything you need to succeed with PLR here.