Standardized TOU’s – What’s Your Opinion?
By PChip | Category: News & Events | 4 commentsA fellow S4O professional recently brought up a question about standardized Terms of Use Policies (TOU’s). This is an issue that’s been under discussion in several groups I’m a member of. The problem is that because many designers have their own TOU documents it has lead to confusion in the minds of our customers. Some truly don’t know what they are and are not allowed to do with the products they purchase.
DSD-Pro has a Solution in the Works
At the DSD-Pro Business Association ~Pre Launch~ website we’re sharing a little secret with you. We have a new tool to assist with standardizing TOU’s and it will be available to all our members – at no cost! Sound interesting? Check out the features of this tool by reading the article we wrote about it in the Standardized TOU template tool article.
Along with the list of other benefits on these templates is a set of standardized icons that are guaranteed to make it easy for your customers to see at a glance, what is allowed and what is not allowed with each product you deliver.
Help with our BETA Testing!
In the very near future we will be needing a few product testers. If you are interested in helping us give this tool a test drive, please drop us a note at: member-exec [at] dsd-professionals [dot] com . We appreciate your assistance with helping us to provide a great product for our members!
So What’s Your Opinion Anyway?
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve seen this discussion about standardized TOU’s at designer communities through out the web and in every one of them the answer I’m seeing is “yes.” Most believe standardized TOU’s would be helpful to both the designer and to our customers as well. I’d like to hear your view on the issue too. Please share with us your opinion. What do you think – would standardized TOU’s be helpful in our industry or not? What do you see as the challenges in this area?
Thank you in advance for your thoughts. I look forward to seeing your comments!
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UPDATE: The Standardized Terms of Use Initiative is now Live! Visit the website today!
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I don’t believe that I’ve responded to this before but sorry for the duplication if I have.
I’m on a Yahoo group that is discussing this very thing. We are a group of people who create scrapbooks for hire and we are very concerned about remaining legal with regard to copyrights and adhering to TOUs. This, however, is very difficult because some designers and sales sites don’t have TOUs that we can read before we buy. Some of the TOUs that are available are very difficult to understand just what is allowed and what is not.
I only purchase from designers who are S4O/S4H friendly and so I don’t even consider some designers because they make it too difficult to jump through the hoops.
Most of us want to do the right thing but as a business person, I can’t afford to pay much additional for a commercial license because, in order to do a good job and be creative, I have to have a good supply of digital kits to select from. So no one kit gets much use in the long run and I will always purchase based on the fact that what I’m buying will be used for maybe 10 to 20 pages over the life of my business and, if it costs me too much, I won’t be able to justify the purchase.
Gayle, I would love to get the address to your Yahoo group if it’s still open to new members. Care to share it?
Thanks so much for commenting and providing such good information here. This is helpful to designers to know!
I sent a reply to the comment but haven’t received a reply so maybe you can’t reply to a feed of these comments.
Anyway, Cindy, if you would replay to me personally, I would like to discuss my Yahoo group a little before I made the name public. Then, I’ll give you the name and you can publish or not as you see fit.
Gayle
I’ll email you today Gayle.