Envato Licensing and Bully Authors backed by Envato

stop-bully

Update: After many emails and conversation all authors agreed to our case. Thank you for your support meanwhile.

This is our formal and public rejection of DMCA notices we have recently received form several Envato authors who were led by WP Bakery. I never thought we would be in a license drama but it happened.

I am sorry to post such a long article however I am fed up as for the last month I have been bullied by WPBakery with Envato backing them. Please take your time and read it carefully until the end and share it on any medium you can so that others can read about this.

It Begins

On 27th of July 2015 we have received an email from Raitis Ševelis of WPBakery. If you do not know who WPBakery is they are the team behind Visual Composer. I won’t try to explain what was written; here is the email.

Hello,

my name is Raitis Sevelis and I represent WPBakery – Visual Composer Developer along with BrainstormForce, Kreatura Media and GranthWeb Team.

It has come to our notice that you are using our WordPress plugins in your products without having proper license as none of the license types offered by Envato Market allows using plugins in such way. In attachment please find DMCA notices and approval letter from Envato stating that your actions are not according to licensing rules in order to avoid any possible speculations.

Taking into account that such license usage from your side could be misunderstanding we are open to discuss alternative terms of finding solution that will bring benefits to all parties – please keep in mind that different plugin developers may have different positions in terms of their product usage. If no, you will be required to remove our plugins from your products.

Thank You,
Raitis Sevelis
WPBakery

The email also had attachments; the DMCA notice and a letter from Envato. As they mentioned here is the letter:
Envato’s Letter

Let’s examine this letter.

  1. It is clearly written to us and marked as Private and Confidential. Did they send this letter to us? No. They sent it to Raitis S. of WPBakery which is directly infirniges the privacy and confidentiality of the letter. This is unethical, and illegal in many countries.
  2. They direct attention to the Extended license Clause 9. This does not apply to Ultimatum as Ultimatum is not such a tool. However, the funny part is that Envato licensing states that you are bound by terms of license when you purchased, which means any subsequent changes to that license is not binding to the buyer.
    See : http://themeforest.net/licenses/faq#license-changed-a

    Your license has changed. Which version of the license applies to the item I purchased?

    The one that applied when you purchased the item. See your license certificate or ask us for details.

    As Envato never contacted us to see which version of their license we were bound by, they used the latest copy. Well, the license that binds us can be seen here and there is no such clause! In my opinion with such a clause Envato should keep a database of revisions of licenses publicly reachable when needed.

  3. Also, kudos to the biggest theme selling marketplace around the globe for not knowing what a theme is.
  4. While ThemePunch did not file anything against us Envato added Rev. Slider as bonus
  5. They told us there will willing to give us a refund of the purchase price. Well it has been 2 years (28 months to be exact) what are you refunding? It’s like they sold us some land and we built a factory over it and now they are asking us to give our land back in return for the purchase price. What about the factory?

All can I say is, “Well done Envato. Are you serious? Great business ethics – not! Bravo!”

Now Let’s go in to the DMCA letters. They all swear information is accurate and they solemnly swear! Is false testimony not a legal crime? Well apparently it is not for those people.

  1. GranthWeb (Go Portfolio) their last email to us : 29th December 2013
    Hi Onur,

    Yes, maybe we misunderstood something.
    We read the licensing terms again and according to them there’s no problem with that.

    We confirm our permission:
    You can use our “Go – Responsive Portfolio for WP” and “Go – Responsive Pricing & Compare Tables for WP” wordpress plugins in your theme sold on Themeforest or other marketplace (including your website) if you purchase one extended license for that purpose.
    Meaning One Extended License per plugin for every Theme.

    Thanks, good luck with sales!

    Best,
    Attila

    This guy now files a DMCA! I do not have any words to explain their good faith and will.

  2. BrainStormForce (Ultimate addons for VC) : 22 Feb 2014

    Thanks for the touchbase.

    Please go ahead – purchase extended license and include our plugin in your theme. Wish you all the best with your theme and hope hope you will sell million copies 😉

    Regards,
    Sujay

    Well we have not (yet) sold a million copies, but you seem to be turned by 180 degrees!

  3. Kreatura Media (Layer Slider) : 27 Dec 2013

    It is enough to tell the reviewer that you have permission to include the plugin in your theme. You don’t need a written permission, but you can show the relevant FAQ entry from our support site if needed.

    http://support.kreaturamedia.com/faq/4/layerslider-for-wordpress/#group-3&entry-18


    Kind Regards,
    John – Kreatura Media Support

    Kreatura were did not appear to see any issue, so did not push the issue further

At the same time of those emails we have asked our lawyers and they said:

“You do not need such consent as the license itself is a consent”

Pointing the license clause:
The author of the Item retains ownership of the Item but grants you the license on these terms. This license is between the author of the Item and you. Envato Pty Ltd is not a party to this license or the one giving you the license.

Well let’s see Envato is filing a letter to us where they are not a party… Hold tight please this is just the beginning.

After the email arrived I directly contacted Envato and said:

Ultimatum is not such a tool you mentioned in the clause it is just a very customisable WordPress theme.

The Envato Support team member Patrisha replied:

Hello Onur,

Thank you for contacting Envato Help. I am passing your ticket to the appropriate staff to thoroughly research your issue.

Please be patient while this is being addressed. You will hear back shortly.

Warm regards,

Patrisha

Envato Market Help
Phoenix, AZ USA
Sun – Thurs MST

and Raitis S. ( I will mention him later in detail with more funny facts)

Hello,

thank you for getting back to me ASAP. I have reviewed your e-mail copies.

As seen from Kreatura Media FAQ – they clearly allow including their product in themes which are sold on ThemeForest exclusively which is not your case.

BrainstormForce was not informed about the fact that your product is not located on ThemeForest exclusively.

GranthWeb here misunderstood the terms itself, but as they are not license issuer you still need to align with Envato licensing terms.

As for Visual Composer – we clearly state that we allow including Visual Composer into themes which are sold on ThemeForest exclusively – this does not mean that you should just create profile on Envato – you need to sell products only on Envato which has plugins included. So here you also did not followed licensing terms.

Also you should once again check the letter from Envato Market with clear explanation from their legal department stating that your product is not following Envato Market licensing terms. Once again mention – that licenses are issued by Envato in cooperation with authors so you need to follow written terms of their site – please see letter with exact section stating that it is not allowed to include plugins into themes and sell them in-stock.

As you already received DMCA we are asking you to take proper actions in order to resolve this situation.

Thank you,
Raitis Sevelis
WPBakery

This guy is awesome pay special attention to his wording :

That licenses are issued by Envato in cooperation with authors so you need to follow written terms of their site.

Raitis, read the license again Envato is not the issuer but you are! Also from Envato’s Author terms

8.a : When you ‘sell’ an item, you’re making your item available to buyers to use that item under certain conditions; you’re not actually selling the item itself. What you’re selling includes a license directly to the buyer to use that item under the various types of license terms that we set that are applicable to your items.

… and the Author Licensing FAQ:

Can I add special requirements to the license terms for my file?

No. The Envato Market Licenses apply to all items, for consistency.

Which means my dear friend, the terms on your site are not valid and you are breaching the Legal agreement that you have with Envato.

I have replied to those emails but let’s skip them. Christian B. from Envato Market help team replied as he is the appropriate staff to thoroughly research my issue according to Patrisha.

His reply:

Hi Onur,

My name’s Christian, I’m one of the Help Team Leaders here at Envato.

Thanks for getting in touch. Just a heads up to let you know that we need to make a clarification with our legal team before we can confirm whether you’re complaint with our licensing terms.

Although we’ll try to be as quick as we can, it could take up to 24-48 hours to get back to you.

Sit tight 🙂

Christian

Envato Market Help Team Leader (UK)
Mon-Fri 0900-1700 (UTC +1)

Christian Replied on 2nd of August:

Hi again Onur,

Many thanks for your patience whilst we’ve been looking into this for you.

I’ve spoken to our legal team who have clarified the license terms around exclusive Envato Market items used in stock items sold externally.

Regrettably, any agreements between the author of exclusive elements [in this case: WP Bakery] and the author of the stock item [you] therefore are limited to Envato Market use.

To clarify: Our licenses don’t permit the use of Envato Market exclusive items within stock items sold outside of Envato Market.

http://themeforest.net/licenses/faq#small-element-stock-a

Therefore, it would seem the Ultimatum theme is currently not complaint with our licensing terms. If you’d like to ensure compliance by selling the Theme on Envato Market, I’d be happy to put you in touch with a member of our growth team who’ll be able to assist with this.

Please let me know how you’d like to proceed, or if you have any questions.

Kind regards,

Christian

Envato Market Help Team Leader (UK)

Meanwhile Raitis a.k.a StarDust (keep this in mind) wrote on 3rd of August:

Hello,

as we haven’t received any proposed/planned actions related to DMCA we have sent you previously we will be forced to take further actions after 48 hours from this e-mail. Until now you can inform us if you are taking any steps to avoid legal issues related to your previous actions.

Thank you,
Raitis Sevelis
WPBakery

And I replied :

Raitis,

I am pretty sure you are a part in Envato ticket(Ticket ID : 267682) we have opened about the matter as well as other plugin authors. Envato has replied to our inquiry about 12 hours ago and we have informed that our legal team will inspect their statement.

If you are so eager to take action please do so as the Envato document you have sent is now defunct which they agreed and changed clause of non compliance. The only thing we are trying to resolve is another misunderstanding.

Both Envato’s and our Legal teams are working on the matter. We cannot guarantee that the issue will be concluded in 48 hours as you request as it is a legal issue that needs attention to detail.

Thanks…

Please pay attention to Christian’s wording here :

I’ve spoken to our legal team who have clarified the license terms around exclusive Envato Market items used in stock items sold externally

Their legal team… who do not even know what they wrote or they do not care… even worse I suspect said team does not exist, as I cannot believe that a legal team of a company can exist that would be be unaware of their own terms.

Also:

If you’d like to ensure compliance by selling the Theme on Envato Market, I’d be happy to put you in touch with a member of our growth team who’ll be able to assist with this.

Sorry Christian but it seems you are now trying to benefit from us… This solution is not even a solution and is unethical.

We consulted our Lawyer and he wrote a lengthy email to be sent to Envato the part made us laugh was :

There is no such clause in documents to limit the items used by Extended licenses sales medium. So the end product complying the license terms can be sold anywhere and it is only logical as Envato especially on CodeCanyon hosts mobile apps as well. Given that Envato is not the owner of Google Play or Apple App Store the buyers would be never able to sell their End-Products otherwise

Also our Lawyer’s email included:

FAQ Section

1. There aren’t any limitations for the End Product to be found neither on the legal terms or the license terms stating that the End Product should be exclusively sold on Envato Markets (such as Themeforest). Therefore, as long as Ultimatum has the extended licenses for the items in question, Ultimatum should not be subjected to any enforcements by a party of this agreement to be sold exclusively on Envato Markets.

2. The article on http://themeforest.net/licenses/faq#small-element-stock-a is a subtitle of http://themeforest.net/licenses/faq#faq-section-author and is for Envato Authors who may want to include a small item as stock in their end product. Still, the license explains how to sell an end product in Envato Markets but does not limit the product to be sold exclusively on Envato Markets.

Can I purchase an item to use as a small element within a larger project that I plan to sell as stock or a template? For example, could I purchase a button graphic for a theme I plan to sell?

Use of items in larger stock projects is not allowed as the default position under the licenses, but there are exceptions.
— This, we believe, is against the license as the license clearly gives permission to use an item in an End Product. All End Products sold are Stock projects. Extended License 3.b states “For other types of Item, an End Product is something that incorporates the Item as well as other things, so that it is larger in scope and different in nature than the Item.” even the example stated in the term -the mobile app- is a larger stock project which is sold on app stores.

We believe this section in FAQ was added on 2013 after Themeforest Theme submission rules changed, to create a loophole/opportunity for Themeforest authors to include the items with stock license (re-distribute as-is) in their created themes. see: http://themeforest.net/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&term=visual+composer

All themes sold on Themeforest that include Visual Composer, include it as-is (re-distributing source files, sending as stock item). Which makes it possible for users to disable the theme while continuing the use of the plugin itself, or even extracting the plugin from the theme and install it on another site of theirs, which is against the rules of the license. However; the theme submission rules set by Envato in 2013, forced theme authors on Themeforest to include the plugins as stock items (non-altered files which are re-distributed by Themeforest authors). A simple search on Envato’s own market shows that there are 791 items that include Visual Composer. Weirdly enough, if all of them were in compliance with your theme submission rules, it seems you have made them violate the license terms as there is no such written license to justify the action.

As stated before we believe the FAQ section of Envato on matter is intended to give Themeforest authors the proper rights beyond the Envato’s extended license. In which case it cannot be applied to Ultimatum or any product which is sold outside Envato Markets.

Again the FAQ Section states that the buyer needs a written permission from author :
When you purchase an Extended License and get written permission from the author. Keep a copy of the email giving you permission.
— Which is irrelevant as Extended license clause 19
19. The author of the Item retains ownership of the Item but grants you the license on these terms. This license is between the author of the Item and you. Envato Pty Ltd is not a party to this license or the one giving you the license.
— In other words the license itself is already the written permission from the author of the item.

We do understand Envato’s aim of protecting the authors and their items and respect that. However, the accusations made to Ultimatum basically are insubstantial.

Please pay attention : Weirdly enough, if all of them were in compliance with your theme submission rules, it seems you have made them violate the license terms as there is no such written license to justify the action.

After a wait Christian replied back:

Hi again Onur,

Thanks again for your patience whilst we’ve been looking into this for you.

Further to your reply below, I can confirm that an element purchased from Envato Market with an extended license can be sold in an end product externally from Envato Market, on the condition that permission from the original element owner has been granted. This is outlined in our license FAQ which forms part of the license:

http://themeforest.net/licenses/faq#small-element-stock-a

In this case, if you don’t have permission from WP Bakery to use to implement VisualComposer in the Ultimatum Theme, you are infringing our license terms even though you have purchased an extended license. If you’re unable to reach an amicable conclusion with WP Bakery, they are within their right to submit a DMCA takedown notice, and you will need to remove Visual Composer from the Ultimatum Theme.

Kind regards,

Christian

So they now agree their previous email was wrong. However instead of saying yes there was a misunderstanding and all is OK, they show the clause we mentioned from FAQ and tried bind us with that so to say we are infringing the license. As you might have read in our reply we stated that part is for Envato Authors. For God’s sake its title is Author Licensing FAQ. We are not what Envato call authors (Envato authors are those who sell their products on Envato)!

Please enlighten me. Is Envato a global authority who can determine our terms of services etc? As there are terms listed under same section as:

Do I need to pay to use my own items within the applicable license terms?

No. You can use your own items for free in your freelance work for clients. If you’re exclusive, remember you can’t distribute your own items elsewhere.

Thanks! Envato allowed us to use our product freely!
OR

Can I add special requirements to the license terms for my file?

No. The Envato Market Licenses apply to all items, for consistency.

OK Envato please tell this to Microsoft, Google, Apple, Adobe etc so they should follow your terms they are creating inconsistency in the universe!

Jokes aside the section title is very clear and it binds only authors selling their work on Envato market. However Envato cannot see it.

After I got this email I quoted the section above again from previous email and sent to Christian his reply was:

Hi again Onur,

We’ve read the response from your lawyer, however, as the license FAQ’s form part of the extended license, you are bound by the terms that are in the FAQ also. This is clearly stated in the first paragraph of the Extended License:

http://codecanyon.net/licenses/terms/extended

The Extended License grants you, the purchaser, an ongoing, non-exclusive, worldwide license to make use of the digital work (Item) you have selected. Read the rest of this license for the details that apply to your use of the Item, as well as the FAQs (which form part of this license).

As per the following FAQ, in addition to the purchase of an extended license, the license requires written permission from the asset Author before the item can be included in a larger item that’s going to be sold:

http://codecanyon.net/licenses/faq#small-element-stock-a

Kind regards,

Christian

Christian, if you had read the email at the outset and understood your own terms better you would know that you cannot bind people outside Envato with Envato’s own terms. Sorry, but being a Neutral party means being neutral not being a naysayer to one of the parties.

As you can see in all of this, Envato did not accuse Ultimatum of breaching the Extended license but decided to force us with their internal rules set for their marketplace authors. Sorry guys, we are not one of your authors and will never be as we value our words given to our paying clients.

If we were the ones reading terms wrong what about WPBakery?

See :https://wpbakery.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=524333

On 22nd of January, 2013 Envato updated their licenses and it is no longer possible to use items from marketplaces within your own items that will be for sale on Envato marketplaces, without a partnership agreement between two authors. In this case between me (Michael M) and you (Envato author).

Which means the FAQ section titled as Author Licensing is for the Envato Authors as we also say…

I have contacted Raitis with the email below:

Raitis,

To give an update on the issue.
Envato agreed there is no such limitation about exclusive items to be on Themeforest or any Envato markets only.

Christian B (Envato Market Help)
Aug 11, 21:02

Hi again Onur,

Thanks again for your patience whilst we’ve been looking into this for you.

Further to your reply below, I can confirm that an element purchased from Envato Market with an extended license can be sold in an end product externally from Envato Market, on the condition that permission from the original element owner has been granted.

Our lawyer is against that as the rule pointed by Envato is under Author Licensing FAQ. We are waiting for our lawyer’s official reply to Envato on the matter. However as WP Bakery is the only party in the case without written permission – We have supplied others emails- We would like to know how can we proceed and get your permission to close the case quicker. Otherwise our lawyer is pretty sure we have nothing to worry about but the issue will be troublesome and take a long time to be resolved.

Warm Regards
Onur Demir

Silly me! What was I thinking? Them to come to their senses? Well this fused the bomb and Raitis emailed back:

Hello Onur,

we have been informed about this from Envato side as well and they also stated that it is up to us to decide – if and under what conditions we are willing to allow including Visual Composer into end products which are sold outside Envato.

Our policy regarding such cases has been clear from the very first day and we have always stated that we allow incorporate Visual Composer only into items sold on Envato exclusively. I believe we are not going to change our mind and policy any time soon so everyone who is willing to use Visual Composer in their products will need to follow these rules.

Nevertheless taking into account that this is not an ordinary case with long history and many parties involved – we are considering to come to agreement under special terms which in my opinion gives you benefits in comparison to your competitors. Taking into account that Visual Composer is surely one of the key points of your product, and I am sure you will agree with it, we are considering offering following conditions for cooperation – of course under written agreement:

1) One year approval with option to extend it each year and review terms
2) Commission based payment depending on sales amount of items with Visual Composer. A clear and transparent mechanism for tracking sales will be required there
3) One time fee based on previous sales amount generated by items with Visual Composer included. Again – clear and transparent mechanism is necessary here as well.

I believe that both parties are interested in closing this issue and coming to agreement as soon as possible.

Thank you,
Raitis Sevelis
WPBakery

First I do not know why Raitis is not using Capital letters when he starts to emails. However honestly they did not ask enough in my opinion they should also have asked for my first born son!

As their product is one of the key points of our product. Sorry but I need to rest from laughing to that. Raitis your product is a nice complimentary tool for our users not a key item!

Also the line :
Our policy regarding such cases has been clear from the very first day and we have always stated that we allow incorporate Visual Composer only into items sold on Envato exclusively. I believe we are not going to change our mind and policy any time soon so everyone who is willing to use Visual Composer in their products will need to follow these rules.

Please visit : https://wpbakery.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=524323

If you browse history (simply click on the date of the article) you will see Themeforest section is newly added. Raitis you are a rockstar! I cannot express my feelings against your actions as each time you say something I see its not true. Thats not the end of it I am keeping your best act for the later.

Dear reader I am sorry to take your time with such a lengthy post but please read on – I promise it will end soon.

Envato’s Extended license applies to Ultimatum

Now Lets go over Envato’s license binds us and WPBakery in detail

The low-down! The nuts and bolts of this license

1.The Extended License grants you, the purchaser, an ongoing, non-exclusive, worldwide license to make use of the digital work (Item) you have selected. Read the rest of this license for the details that apply to your use of the Item, as well as the FAQs (which form part of this license).
2.You are licensed to use the Item to create one single End Product for yourself or for one client (a “single application”), and the End Product may be Sold.
Ultimatum is an End Product to be sold
3.An End Product is one of the following things, both requiring an application of skill and effort.
(a)For an Item that is a template, the End Product is a customised implementation of the Item.
For example, the item is a magazine template and the end product is the finished magazine.
(b)For other types of Item, an End Product is something that incorporates the Item as well as other things, so that it is larger in scope and different in nature than the Item.
Ultimatum is an End Product that incorporates the item (in our case items) as well as other things, therefore Ultimatum is larger in scope and different in nature than the items in question (all items are plugins where Ultimatum is not)

Go for it! Things you can do with the Item

4.You can create the End Product for a client, and this license is then transferred from you to your client.
5.You can Sell and make any number of copies of the single End Product.
Ultimatum is a Single End Product being Sold
6.You can modify or manipulate the Item. You can combine the Item with other works and make a derivative work from it. The resulting works are subject to the terms of this license. You can do these things as long as the End Product you then create is one that’s permitted under clause 3.
For example: you can license a vector, manipulate it and add your own elements to create an illustration that’s used as a book cover.
All plugins in Ultimatum from Envato are modified and manipulated to make sure they are working well together within Ultimatum itself and with each other.
Whoa there! Things you can’t do with the Item

7.This license is a “single application” license and not a “multi-use” license, which means that you can’t use the Item to create more than one unique End Product.
Ultimatum is one application; the licenses bought for use in Ultimatum are only used for Ultimatum.
8.You can’t re-distribute the Item as stock, in a tool or template, or with source files. You can’t do this with an Item either on its own or bundled with other items, and even if you modify the Item. You can’t re-distribute or make available the Item as-is or with superficial modifications.
All plugins in Ultimatum from Envato are modified and manipulated to make sure they are working well together with Ultimatum itself and with each other. Ultimatum is not re-distributing the items as is or with superficial modifications. As told the items can only work within an active installation Ultimatum only.
For example: You can’t license a number of audio files, and re-distribute them as a package on a CD.
If you’re an Envato author you can use other items in your item’s preview without a license, under conditions. See the author licensing FAQs.
9.Although you can modify the Item and therefore delete components before creating your single End Product, you can’t extract and use a single component of an Item on a stand-alone basis.
There are no components of items being used on standalone basis as any item we use strictly requires an active installation of Ultimatum.
For example: You license a game starter kit. You can delete unwanted 3D models from the file. But you can’t extract and use a 3D model outside of the game starter kit.
10.You must not permit an end user of the End Product to extract the Item and use it separately from the End Product.
As mentioned above, the items from Envato Markets are all modified, manipulated to work solely within Ultimatum. The End user cannot use the item as stand alone without an active installation of Ultimatum.
11.You can’t use an Item in a logo, trademark, or service mark.
Looking for a logo? See our GraphicRiver logos section, which has its own license.
The nitty gritty! Other license terms

12.For some Items, a component of the Item will be sourced by the author from elsewhere and different license terms may apply to the component, such as someone else’s license or an open source or creative commons license. If so, the component will be identified by the author in the Item’s description page or in the Item’s downloaded files. The other license will apply to that component instead of this license. This license will apply to the rest of the Item.
13.Some Items are partially subject to a GNU General Public License (GPL) or another open source license even if the Item was entirely created by the author. For these Items, a ‘split license’ applies. This means that the open source license applies to an extent that’s determined by the open source license terms and the nature of the Item, and this license applies to the rest of the Item.
For more information, see this Knowledge Base article. This is most common for themes for WordPress and other open source platforms. Where split licensing applies, this is noted in the Item’s download files.
14.You can only use the Item for lawful purposes. Also, if an Item contains an image of a person, even if the Item is model-released you can’t use it in a way that creates a fake identity, implies personal endorsement of a product by the person, or in a way that is defamatory, obscene or demeaning, or in connection with sensitive subjects.
For more information on sensitive subjects, see our FAQs.
15.This license applies in conjunction with the Membership Terms for your use of the Envato marketplaces. If there is an inconsistency between this license and the Membership Terms, this license will apply to the extent necessary to resolve the inconsistency.
16.This license can be terminated if you breach it. If that happens, you must stop making copies of or distributing the End Product until you remove the Item from it.
17.The author of the Item retains ownership of the Item but grants you the license on these terms. This license is between the author of the Item and you. Envato Pty Ltd is not a party to this license or the one giving you the license.

The license clearly states the author of the item sold under Extended license agrees to the terms. In addition, this clause clearly states the license agreement is between the author of the item and the buyer where Envato is not a party to the license or the one giving the license. Therefore, any takedown notices or actions cannot be sent out or taken by Envato. However; we believe Envato would act as a neutral party who can clarify the licensing issues.

As there is no breach in license we formally refuse their DMCA notices.

Questions

Also we have several things we want to ask to Envato and WP Bakery

Dear Envato,

  1. What does private and confidential mean to you?
  2. Do you really have a legal team who is aware of your terms and licensing?
  3. While you are not a party to the case (according to license terms) why do you blindly and blatantly defend the accuser (WP Bakery)?
  4. How are you going to fix the issue with current themes that include Codecanyon items on ‘as is’ basis (unmodified, ‘stock’ plugins), which are breaching your license? I can easily buy a Theme from Themeforest that includes such items and, after installing the theme, I can leave it deactivated and continue using the bundled plugins on any other theme I choose. If you really have a stock license where is it and what are the terms of it?
  5. Are you aware there is a world out there where people live and is including Envato not Envato the world.

Dear WP Bakery,

  1. There are about 200 themes being sold outside of Envato that include VC. What is your arrangement with them? If it is the same arrangement that you are trying to force on us, please send us a copy of such an agreement, I would presume that you have a template we can see? Also, how will you feel with this arrangement being unlawful, breaching the terms of your agreement with Envato?
  2. When we bought this license and started using that license WPBakery had 7000 sales now they are flying in sales numbers. Doesn’t WPBakery think that themes including their product made them popular, where we are one of them? A lot of buyers of Ultimatum experienced VC for the first time through us and then went on to buy their own copy.
  3. We have been using Visual Composer for more than 2 years and WPBakery were well aware of that. Why did WPBakery wait for this long if they believed we were breaching the license? Do not say, ‘We did not know.’ As we have proof of that as well simply visit:
    Visual Composer Comments section on Code Canyon
    Where for 2 years WPBakery knew we had included VC in our theme and until a month ago WPBakery never mentioned a thing about license.
    Oh by the way Raitis aka StarDust is the commenter mainly… He knew we were there he knew what we were doing and then he decided to attack us. Until a month ago he did not say anything about licensing etc now he is a fan of it!
  4. In your previous emails you stated you only allow VC implementation for Themeforest themes since day zero where you do not have any right to. However the statement is again wrong and misleading please visit :
    your own KB the wiki history will show you have edited that recently too. Please explain your actions and why do you change terms to attack people?
  5. When you contacted other authors (we know you did to make your case stronger) what did you promise to them?

Thanks

Are all authors bad in Envato? Definitely no.

Intense Visions (Intense Shortcodes) informed us WP Bakery contacting them so that they can join them in the case and they refused.

ThemePunch : Sorry guys we promised a blog post about your great version of Revolution Slider but we had to post this one before. And thank you for being honest and honouring your words.

SiteSao : Thank you for not being in such scam action.

Guys from ThemePunch knows this!

Guys from ThemePunch knows this!

And you the reader : As you were patient enough to read this post 🙂

Conclusion

I do not know what will happen next and cannot predict future but what I know is that we will not bow down to the bullies! If those authors are not happy with license terms they should make Envato change the terms for their future clients. Or they should remove extended license option from their items like UberMenu did. I even do not know if this will be a court case which court will be looking to it as the license does not assign a proper court for the disagreements may happen. Only court name mentioned is on Envato’s legal terms which is between Envato and their members. As Envato is not a party to the issue there is no court legally assigned to the case.

What I know is that we will fight to this till the end and all Ultimatum members will be with us during that fight.

Please share this post in any place you can so that community will know those people’s actions and not to bow before their bullying.

 

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