Using other people's material (with permission)

When you're scouring the Internet for material, you'll find different phrases describing how you're allowed to use that material. Here's a list of the most common:

• Public domain: The material is freely available for you to use in any way you like – including changing it and selling it.

• Free: As it says, you don't have to pay! Unlike public domain material, though, you don't automatically have permission to change it. And the copyright owner might add other restrictions (e.g. Some free e-books can only be given away, while others can only be included in paid product bundles).

  Be sure the owner does have the right to offer it free, though. I've come across some Web sites that offer, say, a collection of clip art with the notice that they “believe these are free for you to use”. That's not good enough, and could get you in legal hot water in the future!

• Royalty free: This means you only pay once for buying the licence, but don't pay each time you use it (unlike, say, a radio station that pays a royalty every time they play an artist's song). All the material we're covering in this program is royalty free.

• Reprint licence: This is just the name given to the copyright owner's wording that spells out your rights in using the material. Generally, if you've “got a reprint licence” for something, it means you've got the right to pass it on freely – but possibly under certain conditions.

  For example, if I find an e-book that I think my clients will find useful as well, I'm happy to pay money to buy it, as long as it has a reprint licence, which gives me permission to pass it on to my clients. Without that licence, I only have permission to recommend it to them, and they then have to buy it themselves.

• Resale licence: This usually means you don't have the right to copy the product, but you can re-sell it on the owner's behalf, and keep a share of the sale income. This can create a useful income stream, but it's not relevant for this program, so we won't go into this in any more detail.

• Private label rights: This usually means you have the right to take the content and re-publish it under your own brand. This most often applies to some e-books, where the author gives you the original Microsoft Word document, so you can edit it in any way you like.

• Master reprint licence: This means you've not only got permission to pass on the material, you've also got permission to pass on the licence.

  For example, if you're involved in network marketing, you might want a master reprint licence to an e-book, so you can not only pass it on to your downline, but they can pass it on to their downline in turn.

These various terms might have your head spinning. But in practice, it's just a matter of carefully reading the copyright owner's wording.