Commercial Rights - Question?

[ivosantos546]

Hello. 
I've worked with an VoiceActor, and since beginning I had paid commercial rights for every gig!
Until last 2 gigs, where he told me, that for youtube videos, commercial rights are not necessary! (PS: I'm monetized)
I talked to my partner and he told we must have commercial rights , otherwise, channel can get strikes!
My question is, since he told me via message in chat on fiverr, that I would not need them, will I have an issue in future?

Thanks

[moikchap]

Him telling you via message would help your case should it go to court.
If a gig doesn't say anything about commercial rights, according to ToS, you get the "full rights". The seller needs to opt out of giving commercial rights, and you'll see it listed with a grey checkmark.
However, Voice Acting is a different beast, because the "full rights" of Commercial Use has a shorter scope. There's a separate Full Broadcast Rights for stuff like use in TV or Internet shows. I'm not sure the same "if gig is silent" rules apply to these rights. Look around the gig for references to that and ask the seller about that. Check back on this thread for an actual Voice Acting seller to come in with clarifications/corrections about the Broadcast Rights stuff.

[ivosantos546]

18 minutes ago, moikchap said:

If a gig doesn't say anything about commercial rights, according to ToS, you get the "full rights". The seller needs to opt out of giving commercial rights, and you'll see it listed with a grey checkmark.

How do I prove that at the time of my buy, there where no commercial rights offered on the gig?

[moikchap]

9 minutes ago, ivosantos546 said:

How do I prove that at the time of my buy, there were no commercial rights offered on the gig?

That's a fun question that I've tried to get Customer Support to answer myself when I first learned about this, and their final response was basically that they have the info but can't share it for privacy reasons. So basically, as a result, when I search for sellers, I'm toggling on the "Offers Commercial Rights" setting and all the people with it not expressly enabled are being skipped.

[easymedia]

33 minutes ago, ivosantos546 said:

How do I prove that at the time of my buy, there where no commercial rights offered on the gig?

Ooof, that is a tough question. Other than taking screenshots of order numbers and dates, I don't know! But I would assume, that in a legal dispute, a lawyer can get information from Fiverr that a seller or buyer cannot, especially if there is a legitimate lawsuit. 

Edited March 29, 2023 by easymedia

[uk1000]

55 minutes ago, ivosantos546 said:

How do I prove that at the time of my buy, there where no commercial rights offered on the gig?

You could check archive.org, enter the URL of the Fiverr gig you bought, press Enter and that might show you archives of that gig page from different dates if it has any (if it made snapshots of that page).

Though if there was a commercial rights option in the gig extras and if the extra was not shown on the normal gig page (but would be if you pressed continue, if you were going to order) then that probably won't be shown in that archive site.

43 minutes ago, moikchap said:

I've tried to get Customer Support to answer myself when I first learned about this, and their final response was basically that they have the info but can't share it for privacy reasons

Really they should answer that (if it's for a gig you bought) as it's not a privacy thing it's knowing what your rights are with what you've bought if you've bought a particular gig, which they should tell you. If they didn't tell you it might be worth asking a different CS person or explaining more to them that it's needed to prove your license/rights to the content you bought.

Edited March 29, 2023 by uk1000

[jcdoesvoiceover]

FWIW, the seller effectively gave you advice about your YouTube channel vs granting you Commercial Usage Rights, even if it's at no cost. You do need Commercial Usage Rights if you're using it commercially, such as a monetized YouTube channel. It would be in your best interest moving forward to ask that seller to setup a separate Extra option for Social Media Commercial Usage or even just YouTube Commercial Usage if he wants to offer that differently than the standard rights. It can be as low as $5 but then you've been explicitly granted the necessary rights to protect your channel.