Are authors allowed to host giveaways?

I saw that a guy hosted a giveaway for one of my items and I figured it should be a proper way of promoting and I should try it myself. But – as an exclusive author, am I allowed to do it? Would I be required to buy a license from myself for doing that?

Cheers!

AFAIK you are not allowed to do that at all.

And what about promotions like this? Buy 4 get 1 free?

The resume is: being an exclusive author you are not allowed to sell or distribute your own products.

Theoretically, if you create another account and deposit money there, then buy your own items, you can redistribute the item that you’ve bought(only once), along with it’s license certificate

If you are an exclusive author, You cannot give away or distribute the same items which are for sale here. You can give other items for free, but you cannot add links to your free items from here.

I checked the rules for exclusive authors again, and it says only that you cannot sell you items elsewhere. Completely reasonable, since you will be getting the high commision at the marketplaces and you won’t pay any commision from sales elsewhere and technically Envato is losing money that way.

On the other side, if we consider for example a giveaway for an item once a week or whatever, you will not be getting any money from it, Envato will not be losing any money, and you will only get more traffic to the marketplace, which is good for everyone.

Or am I wrong somewhere?

RubenBristian said
Theoretically, if you create another account and deposit money there, then buy your own items, you can redistribute the item that you’ve bought(only once), along with it’s license certificate

Every law has a loophole.

nickys said
I checked the rules for exclusive authors again, and it says only that you cannot sell you items elsewhere. Completely reasonable, since you will be getting the high commision at the marketplaces and you won’t pay any commision from sales elsewhere and technically Envato is losing money that way.

On the other side, if we consider for example a giveaway for an item once a week or whatever, you will not be getting any money from it, Envato will not be losing any money, and you will only get more traffic to the marketplace, which is good for everyone.

Or am I wrong somewhere?

Can you think of repercussions?

If everyone starts doing that then we will not be selling our files instead we will be giving them away for free in order to compete with the fellow authors.

This practice was started by some of the authors in the past and that’s when Envato changed the policy that authors cannot give their files for free which they sell here on marketplaces as well as authors cannot promote their give away sites through forums/profiles etc. but I see that rule is not being strictly applied to some of the top authors which has started a new trend

^^ I totally agree with the above.

I understand why giving away some of your files for free would be great advertising. Everyone wants the greatest exposure for their work and maximum leverage.

Step 1. Give away your file for free

Step 2. Require an automatic sign up so you get their email address.

Step 3. Create a more premium theme at a $$$ with support.

Step 4. Original user likes new theme and opts to purchase.

But that being said… I totally agree it WILL start a new trend where everyone is giving away premium stuff for free. Which is great for the end user, but not so great for the guy wanting to make a living from this. I do also agree, that some top authors, the rule doesn’t apply to them… Maybe because they have a significant weight in terms of sales behind them may skew Envato staff opinion.