Version 1.0 — accepted at every licence purchase, alongside the Selling Terms. These terms cover buying a reuse licence: permission to use somebody else's work inside a project of your own. Buying access to read a work is a different thing, covered by the Selling Terms, and it does not include a licence. A licence, though, does include access: you can read the work here on BSVSearch from the moment you buy until your release deadline (section 6).
1. What a reuse licence is
A reuse licence lets you use a creator's work inside one project that you name when you buy it. It is permission from the creator, granted through this site, on the terms below.
It is not a sale of the work. The creator keeps the copyright and everything that comes with it, and can license the same work to as many other people as they like.
Three things a licence is not:
- It is not access. It happens to include access, because a licence to a work you cannot read would be useless — see section 6. But buying access does not get you a licence, and a subscription to a creator never includes one.
- It is not exclusive. See section 9.
- It is not permission for anything outside the project you named. See section 4.
2. You must name the project before you pay
Every licence purchase asks you for:
- the project name — required;
- the medium — required, chosen from a list: film · TV episode · book edition · magazine issue · website · podcast episode · advertising campaign · stage production · other;
- a note — optional, and required if you choose "other". This is where an episode number, an edition, or a URL goes.
What you write is frozen onto your invoice and your certificate at the moment of purchase and cannot be changed afterwards, by you or by BSVSearch. Get it right before you pay.
You are declaring something, and you warrant that the declaration is truthful. BSVSearch records what you said, and the record is what a creator would rely on if there were ever a dispute.
3. The two licences on offer
Every work that offers a licence offers exactly one of these. Which one it is, and what it costs, are shown to you before you pay.
Personal / non-commercial reuse. For a project that does not make money. The project must not be sold or charged for, must not carry advertising or sponsorship, and must not promote a business or a product. If it is free to read, watch, attend or listen to, and nobody is paying for it to exist, it is non-commercial.
Commercial, non-exclusive. For any project, including one that makes money — sold, advertised, sponsored, commissioned or otherwise. No exclusivity (section 9).
If a project that started out non-commercial later starts earning, the non-commercial licence does not stretch to cover it. Buy the commercial licence for it, if the creator offers one.
4. What "one project" means
This is the heart of the licence, so it is spelled out per medium rather than left to common sense. One licence covers one project. The next one is a new purchase.
| Medium | One project means |
|---|---|
| Film | One film. Its trailers, posters and marketing are included. A sequel, prequel, remake, or a series based on it is a new project. |
| TV episode | One episode of one series, including re-edits of that same episode for other markets or runtimes. Every other episode is a new project. |
| Book edition | One edition of one book, in every printed or electronic format issued as that edition — hardback, paperback, ebook. An audiobook is a separate product and a new project, even when it is the same text. So is a revised or expanded edition, a translation, or a different book. |
| Magazine issue | One issue of one publication, print and the online version of that same issue. The next issue is a new project. |
| Website | One page or article on one website. Publish the work there once, before your release deadline, and it may stay on that page for as long as the page exists — the page outliving your deadline changes nothing. A redesign, a new address for the same article, or a change of domain does not make it a different page. A second article on the same site, a different site, or any other page is a new project, even if you run all of them. |
| Podcast episode | One episode of one podcast. Every other episode is a new project. |
| Advertising campaign | One campaign for one advertiser, across every medium that campaign runs in. A campaign that has been off for more than twelve months and then returns is a new campaign, and so is any later campaign. |
| Stage production | One production of one work by one company, covering its whole run and any tour of that production. A revival staged later, or another company's production, is a new project. |
| Other | Whatever you describe in the note — read narrowly, and never wider than the single project you actually described. If you are not sure it fits, it does not: ask before you buy. |
A project that carries on is still one project. A website stays up, a book edition stays in print, a stage production tours. In each case the licence covers the work staying where you put it, for as long as the project lasts — you are not on a clock once the work is out. See section 5: what matters is that the work went out before your release deadline.
But that is one use, not a standing supply. Putting the work into something further — a second article on the same site, a different book by the same publisher, next year's campaign — is a new project and needs its own licence. The test is not "is this the same organisation?" but "is this the same piece of work I named when I bought it?"
Inside the project you may edit the work as you reasonably need to — for length, format or fit. What you may not do is issue the work separately from the project: republish it on its own, resell it, put it in a stock library, or hand it to somebody else to use.
Using the work outside the project you declared is not covered by this licence, and section 12 explains what follows.
One practical warning, and it bites hardest on a website. Your access to the work on BSVSearch ends on your release deadline (section 6), while your right to keep it published can run for years afterwards. Take your own copy while your access period is still open. BSVSearch is not a place your project can rely on to keep serving the work.
5. The project must be released by your deadline — and then the rights are permanent
Two dates matter in this licence, and they are the same date.
- Your release deadline is the day by which your project must be out. That is what this section is about.
- Your access period is how long you can read the work here on BSVSearch. That is section 6.
They end together, on the day shown on your certificate. They are separate things all the same: one is a limit on you, the other is a service we stop providing. Your access ending takes nothing away from what you may do with the work — see section 6.
When you buy, you choose nothing about timing: the creator has already set how long you get — six months, one year or two years, one year being the usual choice. Your certificate shows the exact release deadline.
The rule is simple: release the project by that date.
- If you do, your right to use the work inside that project is permanent. It does not end when your access does, and nothing the creator does afterwards takes it away.
- If you do not, the licence does not cover the project. Whatever you release later, you release without permission, and the creator can act on that.
There is nothing to come back and confirm. BSVSearch does not ask you to register the release and does not check whether it happened. Your certificate is the record: it shows what you bought, for what, and by when it had to be out.
If the work is taken down temporarily — archived by the creator, or quarantined while a rights claim is examined — your access period pauses and your release deadline moves back by however long it was down. Your release deadline is always the one currently shown on your certificate, not the one you first saw. Check the certificate, not your memory.
6. Access to the work, and when it ends
A licence includes access to the work on this site — the same access an access buyer gets, including the transaction ID for works inscribed on the blockchain — for your access period. That period runs from the moment you buy until your release deadline, and ends on the same day (section 5).
When your access period ends, so does your access to the work on this site, whether or not you released the project. That is deliberate, and it is only about what this site serves you: the period is over, so we stop serving the work. It says nothing about your rights. If you released in time, section 5 still stands, permanently, and you carry on using the work in your project with no access to this site at all.
Your certificate never disappears. Not when your access period ends, not if the creator withdraws the work, not if the work is archived. It is your record and it is permanent.
Take your own copy of the work while your access period is open. To date, everything sold here is text. Copy and paste the work to make your own backup copy — a file download for licensees is not offered yet.
7. You licensed the work, updates included
Your licence covers this work — the version you bought, whose fingerprint is recorded on your certificate, and any later version the creator publishes in its place. This is the same rule an access buyer gets: the work is what the creator says it is, updates included.
When a creator edits a work rather than publishing a new one, that is the creator saying this is what the work should be, and everyone who holds a licence to it holds a licence to the new version too. A creator who wants a new version to be a separate product publishes it as a separate work, and a licence to that is a new purchase.
Nothing obliges you to update. If your project already went out with an earlier version, that use was licensed and stays licensed. The choice of which version your project carries is yours.
One practical limit: you can only collect a later version from BSVSearch while your access period is open (section 6). After it ends the update is still yours by right, but not from here — so if you expect to want updates, take them while you can.
8. AI training
A licence includes using the work to train AI models only if the work says so, and your certificate states the answer in as many words: AI-training use included: yes/no.
The default is no. Every work carries its creator's answer, and you see it before you pay.
Where the answer is no, "no" means no: not for training, not for fine-tuning, not for retrieval, and not by feeding it to somebody else's system on your behalf.
9. Non-exclusive — always
Every licence sold here is non-exclusive. The creator may sell the same work, and the same licence, to anybody else, before or after you, and may go on selling access to it as normal.
BSVSearch does not offer exclusivity and will not. It could not enforce it: enforcing it would mean stopping a creator from selling their own work, which is not something this site does.
10. Credit
Credit the creator where it is practicable to do so — in the way your medium normally credits people, using the name shown on the work.
This is a real obligation and not a decoration, but it is qualified honestly: some media have nowhere to put a credit, and BSVSearch cannot police it either way. Where a credit is possible, give it.
11. Passing the licence on
Your licence is for you and for the project you named.
You may let the people who make and distribute that project use the work as part of it — your printer, your publisher, your broadcaster, your streaming platform, your cinema, your client if the project was commissioned. That is not passing the licence on; it is the project being made and shown, which is the whole point.
You may not licence the work to anyone for anything else, and you may not sell, transfer or lend the licence on its own.
If the project as a whole is sold or assigned to somebody else, the licence goes with it. The work is embedded in the project, and a sale of the project is a sale of everything embedded in it. A production that changes hands does not have to be cleared again. What cannot happen is the licence being separated from the project and sold on by itself — the two travel together or not at all.
It is your job to pass these terms on. The new owner never accepted this document, so you must make it a condition of the sale that they take the work on these terms — the named project, the tier, the AI-training answer, the credit. If you do not, you remain responsible to the creator for anything the new owner does with the work outside these terms, and it is for you to show, if asked, that your agreement with the new owner passed the terms on.
12. Using the work outside what you bought, and when a licence ends
Two different things, often confused, with different consequences.
Using the work outside what you bought is not covered by this licence at all. Your licence covers the project you named, on the tier you bought, with the AI-training answer that work carried. Anything beyond that — a second project, a commercial use on a non-commercial licence, training where the answer was no — is simply not licensed. That is between you and the creator, whose work it is, and they can act on it. It does not cancel the licence you did buy: if you named a project and released it in time, section 5 still stands for that project, permanently.
Passing the licence on separately does not work either. Under section 11 the licence travels with the project or not at all, so an attempted transfer on its own gives the other person nothing.
BSVSearch may still act on your account. Misusing works is a reason to lose access to this site, and BSVSearch can close an account for it. That is about your relationship with BSVSearch. Closing an account settles no rights and decides nothing between you and a creator.
A licence itself ends for one reason: confirmed infringement. If somebody claims the work was never the creator's to license and that claim is upheld, the licence is revoked. BSVSearch will tell you, in a message that says plainly what to do about it: stop using the work. Your recourse is against the person who sold it to you, who was paid directly, and whose account is sanctioned. This is the worst case in the whole system, and there is no way to dress it up: you may have to pull the work out of a project that has already gone out.
While such a claim is being examined the work is quarantined and everything pauses, as in Selling Terms section 11. If the claim fails, your access period is restored and your release deadline moves back by however long it was suspended.
No money comes back in any of these cases — the payment was final when you made it, and BSVSearch never held it (Selling Terms sections 2 and 3).
13. Nothing the creator does afterwards takes your licence away
Once a licence is sold, the creator cannot take it back. Not by withdrawing the work, not by deleting it, and not by selling it to somebody else.
Withdrawal. Your access runs to the end of your access period and your rights under section 5 are unaffected. All withdrawal does is stop the creator selling new licences. This is the same rule as Selling Terms section 10, and it matters more here: a project in production cannot have its licences pulled out from under it because the creator changed their mind.
If the work changes hands. The creator — the person you bought this licence from — may transfer the work itself to somebody else. Section 11 covers the other direction, your own project changing hands. If they do, your licence goes with it, whether that happens before your project is released or after. Somebody who acquires a work acquires it with the licences already sold against it.
The same rule as section 11, in the other direction: the creator must sell the work subject to the licences already granted, and must pass this document on to whoever takes it over. If they do not, the creator remains responsible to you for anything the new owner does against your licence.
The creator's moment to say no is before they sell you the licence, and it is the only one they get. That is the deal: you commit money and a production schedule on the strength of it, and it cannot be unpicked afterwards from their side.
The one exception in this document is section 12 — a licence revoked because the work was never the creator's to license in the first place. That is not the creator changing their mind; it is the licence turning out never to have been theirs to grant.
14. Enforcing a licence is between you and the creator
BSVSearch keeps the record and settles nothing.
If a creator believes a licensee used their work outside the declared project, or missed their release deadline, BSVSearch will provide the record it holds — the certificate, the declaration, the dates, the payment — to both sides. It will not decide who is right, and it is not a court, a mediator or an insurer.
The creator sees your account name against their sales. They do not see your email address. If a creator needs more than that to enforce a licence, they must ask BSVSearch, which will handle the request the way it handles a takedown: carefully, case by case, and never by handing out somebody's details on request.
15. Price, payment and the fee
A licence purchase is a purchase like any other on this site, and the Selling Terms govern the money: you pay the creator directly, in satoshis, at the exact amount shown; the platform fee comes out of the price rather than on top of it; payment is final and there is no refund. Sections 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the Selling Terms apply unchanged.
You may buy as many licences for the same work as you have projects. Each one is a separate purchase, with its own declaration, its own release deadline and its own certificate.
16. Versioning
These terms are versioned rather than amended. The version in force when you buy is recorded on your certificate and continues to govern your licence for as long as it lasts — which, if you released in time, is permanently. A new version applies only to licences bought after it takes effect.
17. This service is in its public review stage
BSVSearch's paid-content features are in a public review stage: a small-scale service, provided as-is. Features may change, be suspended, or end. You must be 18 or older and legally able to enter into a contract to buy here.