

Colourlovers (YC W10) launches Creative Market - whalesalad
https://creativemarket.com/

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KeliNorth
I like the idea, really, in terms of goals, presentation, and spirit.
Unfortunately the second thing my mind goes to with this is the practical
stuff: What are the limits and licenses?

The licensing is required, but the limits on it make me wonder about how much
use I'd get out of it. I see links to the license on the FAQ:
<https://creativemarket.com/license> \- but there's only one type of license
offered. It's very artist-friendly, I'll admit, but... that's the only
license. The FAQ says that if that's a deal-breaker, to use the contact form.
But there's more about that license that's, well, confusing.

It seems about what you'd expect (by which I mean good for a seller, and not
as much as I'd hope for as a buyer, but buying IP is always going to be hard
to balance, so it's understandable/expected), though there's one that worries
me: "All other items may only be used in a single commercial project." This is
referencing items that aren't add-ons.

Does this mean, for example, a purchased WP theme could only be used on one
client's site, ever? That's how I'm reading this plus the other terms.

And those packs of between 25 and 500 or so icons, can they only be used in a
single client application? It looks like some are add-ons to Photoshop, while
others are apparently a non-program specific package, doesn't that mean they
have to be used differently per this license since one set of icons is an add-
on, the other isn't? I know it's called "SimpleLicense", but licenses are
never simple.

And then there's another licensing aspect. The true ownership of the items.
The FAQ says that each item won't be checked when uploaded to the market, so
the developer can update listings as they please, and to use a contact form
for copyright issues.

I'd hope that'd be enough, but I already see one person who looks like they
are probably infringing copyright, from what this lay person can see:
<https://creativemarket.com/Adrien/activity> \- does this individual has
licenses from Braun for his UI product and individual licenses with each car
manufacturer listed for the car designs that allows him to create products
based off those and resell them with a restrictive license?

A place to report copyright violations in excess of just a contact form is
going to be required, sooner or later. But a check to begin with to make sure
someone isn't offering an item that already exists... I can see how that'd be
an impediment. The texture packs make me wonder for both site and seller, as I
wouldn't want to be the person that has to make sure one particular version of
the texture "crumpled paper" isn't the same as the other 1000 versions of it.

That all said, it does feel like something that has great potential to
succeed. I do some design work, and even with all I noticed, I'd still be
tempted to use this site for selling sets of graphics.

~~~
dariusmonsef
We're trying to simplify licensing. That means having to make some calls as to
what can fit in a single license and what falls outside. We will add an
additional license that allows for resale soon. But if somebody is buying a
template from any marketplace and reselling it to clients, they should have
purchased an extended license that allows for resale. It is more expensive
than the base license.

So our simple license is not meant to be the all encompassing, but as a start
and base license, the most open license. ie, you can actually use it
commercially.

As for the rights and infringement stuff, we take this seriously and are
gating sellers right now while we work on this stuff before letting anybody
open a shop. It will always be a moving target, but we'll keep working on our
aim.

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nlh
Beautiful site. Looks (and works) really well on an iPad. And it looks like
you've got some great content on there already.

A question, because I'm curious: Seems like there are several marketplaces
online for stuff like this (mostly the Envato universe of stuff - themeforest,
etc.)

What's the motivation for building this? Not knocking the project - I dig it.
But I'm curious what specifically you guys feel is missing from existing
offerings and what advantage you guys offer. Would love to hear the pitch and
what's driving and motivating your team. Thanks!

~~~
dariusmonsef
First, we've been in the design space for several years. COLOURlovers.com is
our property and we've been building apps & services for creatives for a
while. In the process of being designers, hackers and builders of web
things... We've been customers of other design good marketplaces. So what
we're doing is trying to address problems with those marketplaces & do
something big and new.

But first, the genesis for the idea to do CreativeMarket.com actually came out
of COLOURlovers. It's been a passionate thriving company, and the one we took
through YC. In the process of trying to understand the busines of CL we'd
explored a few ideas (Real Time Color Forecasting, Selling Design Software,
etc.), but those were all bolt-on business models and they didn't feel like
they really meshed with our users and mission. "To make design simple and
accessible to everyone." Then we realized there was an opportunity to help our
users sell the beautiful vector patterns and shapes they were designing with
our tools. To be able to help COLOURlovers make a living and participating in
our community was very compelling.

But as we built the marketplace into CL we realized two things. 1. That a
marketplace inside of CL was going to be confusing. CL is already a beast of a
community with lots of stuff going on. We didn't feel like putting the
marketplace in CL would do the best job for it to tell it's story. 2. We
realized that there were more kinds of content that we could help people sell.

So, with the bigger vision for CreativeMarket we wanted to address problems
with the existing marketplaces and do something more, bigger and really game
changing.

As far as existing problems... Our royalty split better than almost all other
marketplaces. +70% cut to sellers regardless of sales volume. +No exclusivity
clauses. +Anybody can be a seller. (we let the market decide what is good)
+Our content license is super simple. +Our pricing is 1/1 with a dollar. No
hiding real prices behind credits. +It's beautiful. :)

The biggest thing I think we're doing differently is we're not a media company
trying to do a tech thing. Tech is in our DNA and we're bringing that to the
way we build and iterate on CM, continually working to make it better for
sellers & buyers.

What we launched to day is the foundation. It's the basic platform for a
marketplace, what's being built on top of it right now behind closed doors is
going to change the way people buy/sell content.

~~~
nlh
That's terrific - thank you! I didn't realize the restrictions and dollars-
and-cents of the other marketplaces, so that makes sense. And I also didn't
realize this was born from CL.

(You should consider posting a version of the above somewhere on the 'About'
page - it's heartfelt and reads really well.)

~~~
dariusmonsef
Yeah, thanks for the inspiration to write the answer, I think I'll put this in
a blog post on CM soon. We want to tell the story of CM AND CL, but are trying
not to confuse our story by saying too much at once.

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shuzchen
For those who don't know what we are, CreativeMarket is an online marketplace
for digital design assets. Think Etsy, but instead of vintage skirts and hand-
sewn bags we have fonts and icons. (disclosure: I'm a developer here)

~~~
netmau5
I've been a long time customer of Envato's marketplaces and this is the first
I've seen of CreativeMarket. How would you compare yourselves to them?
Browsing through your collection, I'm impressed with the level of quality.

~~~
janezhu
It seems like CreativeMarket is focusing a lot on the creators of their
content, much like how Etsy showcases their craftsmen with special blogs and
features.

I've also been using Envato's resources for the past few years but I use it
much more like I would Ebay or Amazon, searching for the right items to
purchase and compare and not really noticing the people behind the work.

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mickrobk
For me, the curation of the content, and quality of the item thumbnail
previews really make this site for me, and I really hope both continue as you
expand in content. Especially for the cheaper assets (< $10) I've never felt
the envano sites were worth it in terms of how frustrating and time intensive
it was to find quality items versus just building it myself. Compare this to
CM, where I've already found a few things to buy...

It'll be really interesting to see how the business model is going to work and
whether you'll be able to hand curate all new submissions or automate to an
effective degree. Apple has been able to do curation but obviously your
volumes will be much different, despite similar price points and margins.

A few bug reports --

I wasn't interested in the icon sets - I unchecked the Icons category but many
still remained, ex [0]. It looks like you can disable all of the categories
and still get 52 results.

Some of the items have contradictory license terms, ex [1]. The license at the
bottom of this page seems to contradict the Simple license listed in the about
table.

You cannot "Use a purchased icon set as artwork that enhances actual gameplay
in your app, such as the birds in Angry Birds" in the simple license seems
like it is an unnecessary grey area, and scares me because I don't understand
the intent, where the line is drawn, and whether you had a lawyer look over
the license.

[0] <https://creativemarket.com/Picons/617-Picons-Ultimate-icons>

[1] [https://creativemarket.com/DottedDaisy/794-Blue-Argyle-
Digit...](https://creativemarket.com/DottedDaisy/794-Blue-Argyle-Digital-
Backgrounds)

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lewisflude
Looks awesome! Thought this was an envato-owned operation for a moment or two.
I'll be on the lookout for cool icons // artthings.

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kanamekun
I'm a huge colourlovers fan, so I knew I had to check out your creative
market. Congrats... the site looks great!

I just went to buy a font for use in an iPhone app, which in part allows for
people to type messages in various fonts. All the fonts I liked had "simple"
licenses that seemed to prevent that sort of usage.

Are you guys going to have more fonts with non-simple licenses, to be a bit
more mobile-app dev friendly? If you were, I would buy hundreds of dollars
worth of fonts from you! It is not easy to find great fonts with a mobile-
friendly license.

~~~
blaines
You're saying the license didn't permit the font to be distributed in the app
right?

So you're asking that they include some sort of [re]distribution license?

Yes that would be nice to be able to purchase fonts with license add-ons.

    
    
      [ ] Usage        $10
      [✓] Distribution $100
      [ ] Resale       $1000

~~~
kanamekun
Yah, exactly: a redistribution/resell license. This is from the FAQ:

"Every product sold on Creative Market comes with our SimpleLicense. This
license allows your customers to use your product in personal or commercial
projects, but does not grant the right to redistribute or resell your product,
whether modified, unmodified, or as part of a new work."

<https://creativemarket.com/faq>

More info on the Simple license here: <https://creativemarket.com/license>

~~~
nanijoe
Ok, this is confusing. IF the license allows you to use the font in a
commercial product, how does it then not allow you to redistribute or sell the
same product? Isn't the selling / redistribution part what makes a product
commercial in the first place?

~~~
taejo
Presumably you can sell a product which _uses_ the font, but you can't
actually sell the font file.

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GotNothing
So will this always be invite only or will it be opened to the public
eventually?

~~~
dariusmonsef
The marketplace is open to the public for buyers, we're gating sellers right
now just to have a bit more control during launch and make sure all bugs are
flushed out on the payments side of things... and then yes, it will be totally
open.

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unfed
Very well made. Best of luck to you guys!

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Tiktaalik
Mousemade sounds silly to me. Is there content out there that isn't mousemade,
that isn't hand crafted?

~~~
shuzchen
Mousemade is in contrast to handmade. We're like Etsy, but of digital content.

~~~
Tycho
You could also have 'LAN-crafted'

~~~
dariusmonsef
_slow clap_

