Can I point out I’ve been using good quality PLR for many years and in fact if you’ve known me for long enough you’ll remember I ran a couple of very successful health related PLR member sites a few years ago, so PLR is something I’ve dealt with a lot over the years and not only used, but produced extensively.
Basically PLR rights let you use the work of another author as if it’s your own by making a few changes (if any), to the content you’ve bought. Those changes can be a little as adding an introductory paragraph or as complex as rewriting the entire content based on the original. It’s an awesome model especially if you’re challenged for time and/or writing ability.
If you’ve bought something classed as PLR then basically you can modify it as much as you want, a word of caution here – just because you have PLR rights doesn’t mean you have the copyright. It also doesn’t automatically mean you have other rights, as is the case with reprinting or reselling. It’s important you know exactly what rights are being given to you when you purchase PLR content. You usually receive a licence with your content explaining exactly what you can do with it and if you don’t (which is unlikely with reputable sites) then you need to inquire what they are before usage.
The PLR hype began many years ago offering strictly reprint rights. Since its inception lots of conditions have changed and now there are many different types of rights. Reprint rights are rights allowing you to re-distribute another author’s work that’s previously been published. While seen a great deal online, it’s also common in other businesses. The terms resell, reprint, and resale are commonly interchanged. If you obtained PLR material make sure you fully understand what rights are being given to you. Occasionally you will even receive master rights, which allows you to redistribute the content or product and trade the reprint rights. If you’re feeling just a tad bit confused, you’re not alone. Relax – once you understand the various terms, they can apply or they may not.
Here’s a quick list to help you out a tad.
* Give away the product
* Split the product down into articles
* Package the product with other products
* Give away a branded version with your affiliate links
* Allows the buyer to sell resale rights.
* Give it away as a bonus,
* Offer the product in a membership area
* Use it as web content
* Modify the product
While you don’t have to memorize this checklist, it’s a good idea to be very familiar with it and if the PLR content you are looking at doesn’t offer you reprint rights then these are questions you should be asking to find out just what you are allowed to do with it. As said above, you’ll usually receive a licence explaining exactly what you can do
You may buy reprint rights to some great content, only to discover after the purchase the only way you are allowed to sell the product is through the link the seller provides, where he then has people signup to a newsletter thereby siphoning off your list. You have to decide whether the content is good enough for your customers to be used this way. (Occasionally it’s worth it).
If the quality is poor, then I wouldn’t bother. Examples can include badly written articles and eBooks hopelessly out of date. You should stay clear of any badly written PLR because by the time you have rewritten it, then you may as well have written it yourself from scratch. You should never put out badly written PLR because it will ruin your reputation and outdated eBooks scream amateur.
Be really careful about where you source your PLR material. There are some unscrupulous websites out there selling PLR they aren’t entitled to. (It may even be plagiarized from other content). Make sure you use bona fida sites such as PLRMonthly where the content isn’t rehashed but written just for this membership site.
BTW just to illustrate my point about using PLR, I used a PLR article from PLR monthly to base this article on 🙂
