Selling maps with assetts

If I purchase asserts on the marketplace and then use those to create maps, can I sell those maps? I would not be selling individual assets but a single image file of a map I create that incorporate the assets I purchased. So If I make a map of a tavern and use some assets I purchased on the marketplace with tables, chairs, barrels, mugs, and other tavern items, then I save a jpeg of that map, could I sell the map? Thanks for the clarification. 

Nope, you're purchasing the rights to those products for your own personal use. For what you want to do, you would need to purchase a commercial license from each artist, which is often much more expensive. For example, the maps that I have on here sell for less than $5 in a bundle, and those are for personal use only. When commissioned by a company or someone who is going to resell those maps, I charge upwards of $100 per map.

So If you created some Tree assets and I put those onto a battle map I was creating on my own, I couldn't sell that map. I would have to purchase a commercial license from you in order to use your trees on my maps.

Correct.

Ok. Thank you for the clarification. 

Can I share the maps I made for free?

Not without the permission or license of the original creators of those assets.

Chiming in on this thread as I’m curious just what is allowed. I make a lot of maps for my game using elements from packs I’ve bought, so the grass background from one source, the road from another, trees and rocks from a third etc.  At the moment I’m just running games for friends, which I guess is the standard ‘personal use’.  However how do things stand when it comes to open (LFG) games and particularly when it comes to paid games, as then you are making money from someone else’s art work. I’m not planning on doing open games, I’m just wondering how it all works.

IANAL, nor do I represent Roll20 on this, but the situation you describe almost certainly falls under Fair Use, if not Intended Use. No one has ever complained about someone running Curse of Strahd for a Pay for Play game., for example. You are not redistributing or publishing the assets for others to use. You were given explicit permission to use these in games you run. Nothing was ever stipulated about "only running them for friends". If any of you are curious about what you can and can't do with the Marketplace assets, this is spelled out in excruciating detail in the Marektplace End User License agreement, available here (and linked from the bottom of every item in the marketplace.) The original question is answered in section 3.8 (excerpted from here): You agree that you will not, and will not allow any third party to, copy, sell, license, distribute, transfer, modify, adapt, translate, prepare derivative works from, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Assets, unless otherwise permitted, You can of course alter them to your heart's content in your own game.

Thanks for the answer. Due to some of what I do outside of gaming, I’ve become very aware of copyright issues and some small businesses’ attitude that because they are small then the rules don’t apply to them.  Seeing someone making money by using designs they they have no right to use is particularly annoying to those of us that spend the hours doing the designs and artwork, and then struggle to get the sales because it isn’t an instantly recognisable.

The reason I brought this up is that there are mapping softwares that do allow you to sell your maps as part of their license agreement. These softwares also allow for assets to be imported in so it is not unheard of for asset designers to sell there assets under a commercial license. I can see not being able to resell the png file as that is the actual product. I just wanted the clarity on selling a finished product that includes an image of that asset. Kind of like if I bought flour from a store, I am not an authorized reseller of that flour, but if I bake a cake with it I can sell that cake even though it includes that flour. However my question was answered above so I won't use any assets I get here in maps I distribute. Thanks again for the answer. I appreciate the responses. And thank you all for the wonderful work you do!

That might not be the best analogy. Flour doesn't work on a licensed basis, and you have to purchase more flour to make more cakes. As for artists that license content for commercial use, I only know of one that actively advertises some of their work as available for certain commercial uses. <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/202/derek-ruiz" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/202/derek-ruiz</a> You just need to contact him through his website to get a copy of the license.

Thanks Brian. It is not a huge deal. I have enough assets I can use for my project, but there are some great ones out there that I would have liked to made use of. But I didn't want to do any thing that would violate copyrights. Figured its always best to check.&nbsp;