and to your point about enforcement, you are correct. my bet is that only a very small percentage of buyers are going to honor these license terms. most people (who would never consider stealing a loaf of bread) won’t even think twice about reusing that scrollbar without sending another payment to FD! given that practicality, I think a more forward-thinking model would be to allow or even encourage multiple use and then look toward increasing prices as quality goes up.

just my thoughts. enjoying the conversation and the reviews.

(hey, the formatting works perfectly now)

I don`t really want to get into this here but, it is worth noting that the next site I`m reviewing has a standard single use license and Flash Components also has one (albeit not widely used).

Single use licenses are not unique to Flashden they can be found on nearly every photography stock site.

No one is actively enforcing these licenses so it really comes down to your own morality how seriously you choose to take them.

I have also updated the original review after a bit more thought. The overall rating has gone up to 4 out of 5.

cheers,
Erin

the Adobe analogy holds for quite a few other instances such as Visual Studio components and all 3rd-party Flash component vendors. they all allow unlimited use by the licensed developer. other than FD there is no other Flash stock model in use for a single-use license scheme that I am aware of. I know they want to use more of a photo stock type license but I don’t see that working long-term. too many options available.

I read the disclaimer. it just seems that because you are an exclusive author at FD and apparently do the majority of your business there that fact might be nice to mention. but it has been mentioned enough by now! :D

thanks again for your thoughtful reviews on this topic. I await the next with bait breath!

regarding the HTML breaks, after I submit my posts, every sentence and paragraph is run together. I noticed that overnight the formatting is now working on my previous post. but on this one, currently they all run together. (using FF3)

The license is an important issue. The biggest problem I have with FC is there are quite a few licenses with ambiguous names (I am looking at you “special” license) and they change from file to file. You really have to keep an eye on what you are buying. I disagree with your Adobe analogy, but that`s a whole other discussion.

Support was rated as it does vary quite a bit between all of the stock sites. While not a requirement of FC authors, there has been a lot of thought put into a support infrastructure. Its also a very important consideration to some buyers.

There is actually a declaimer at the bottom of this post. I think it would be strange if I had not used any of these sites.

Many thanks for taking the time to comment. Html breaks and paragraphs should work fine.

1) quality is a mixed bag here. there are some excellent files by well-know authors and there are some crap files that should never have been allowed in my opinion.

2) the license is huge! most stock Flash sites provide some variation of this unlimited use approach but arguably the top site has tried to buck this trend with single-use licensing for the same price! Flash components have always been sold with unlimited use. imagine having to pay Adobe over and over each time you used one of the standard components included with Flash!

3) your overall rating is not so useful since different elements will matter differently to various users. I for one really could care less about their bugly website. but the total cost of license is very important,

4) and I’m not sure support should be rated since that is not even included is it?

5) as someone else already pointed out, because you are an exclusive author at another Flash stock site your reviews could be viewed as suspect! I’d suggest a disclaimer at the top of each review so readers can evaluate your possible bias for themselves.

Thanks for doing this! I look forward to the next review. Sorry for the run-on formatting. I tried CR and it did not work. Then I tried HTML breaks and it did not work. I’m sure there is a way…I just don’t know what it is!