Did you know that many of the competing products you find at the grocery store are made by the same manufacturer? Take shampoo for instance. There are only a couple of major manufacturing facilities that make shampoo, so there’s very little difference between Vidal Sassoon and Suave (except the positioning and the price).

This common practice came into the public eye recently due to the contaminated pet food scare of 2007. More than 60 million cans of pet food sold under more than 100 brand names had to be recalled due to contamination. People wondered how 100 separate brands could all become contaminated at the same time, until they learned that the actual pet food comes from a single Chinese manufacturer.

These brands have private label arrangements with the manufacturer. Everyone who contracts with that manufacturer starts with the same raw materials, adds in a special fragrance or additional ingredient, and then positions, brands, and markets the product as their own.

The wine market is one of the most recent and literal examples of private labeling. Unsophisticated consumers will generally choose a bottle of wine based solely on the attractiveness of the label, so savvy wine marketers have started striking deals with vineyards and then they simply dress up the bottle.

The private label concept also applies to the world of online content and membership sites. In this case, the “manufacturers” of the content are writers (or more likely, a business person who hires writers), and the content is licensed to others for their use. The terms of the individual licenses control how the content may be used and/or modified, and can include resell rights, private label rights, master resell rights, and turn-key multimedia feeds.

Resell Rights

Resell rights allow you to resell the product as is, in conjunction with the terms and conditions set forth in your license. This means that you cannot alter or edit the product in any way, and you cannot put your name on it as the author. Generally, the author will be blatantly promoting something else within the content, and you’re stuck with that.

Private Label Rights

Private label rights allow you to edit and alter the product as you see fit, and even put your own name, or your company’s name, on the product as the author. You can change words, chapters, and graphics. You can add to the product, break the product down into several different articles, remix several products together, transform the content into audio or video—whatever you choose to do. Because you have more freedom with private label rights, these types of products generally cost more to purchase.

Master Resell Rights

Master resell rights are a more expansive set of resell rights. Resell rights simply give you the right to resell the product, while master resell rights allow you to resell the product and the resell rights to others.

Turnkey Multimedia Feeds

As the broadband Internet grows, so has the demand for video content. In the world of membership sites, we’ll start seeing large content producers providing licensed use of elearning content for individual training entrepreneurs. This concept has been around for a long time in the adult online industry, and it’s now going mainstream. We are scheduled to view a demo of this type of turnkey content solution in the near future, and we will let you know what we think about it as soon as possible.

How to Effectively Use Private Label Rights Content

If you’re going to license content, your best bet is to go with private label rights (PLR). Just as with shampoo, it’s important that you be able to claim the content as your own, modify it as you wish, and smartly position it in the marketplace. Unlike shampoo, you can substantially alter the entire nature of PLR content by rewriting it, remixing it with other content, and more importantly, changing the format from text to audio or video.

That’s not to say that other forms of licensed content can’t be used. But the nature of PLR content makes it much more desirable to use as your core content, while other licensed content can be supplemental.

In the early days of resell rights content, especially in the Internet marketing niche, many resale ebooks were grouped together as bonuses to make the thin main offer irresistible to the business opportunity crowd. Who can say no to 75 ebooks for only $49?

Well, people did start to say no. The next phase had savvy marketers using PLR content to add heft and basic information to their ebooks. For example, you have a new marketing technique that you want to sell as an ebook, but only certain aspects of the strategy are new. Because a lot of purchasers might not be familiar with the fundamentals behind the technique (such as pay per click, or email marketing) chapters on those topics were taken from PLR ebooks and remixed into something unique.

These days, the smart use of PLR content is to reformat it into something with higher perceived value. In addition to articles, ebook content can be transformed into audio files, and even form the basis of video content. While this can be done with other content sources, you never worry about issues related to infringement or plagiarism with PLR content. You do, however, need to make sure you understand exactly what your license allows you to do.

Legal and Business Issues

The rights, terms and conditions for licensed content vary from one product to the next, and are completely dictated by the license itself. In fact, some products that are contained in a resell rights package are not for resell at all, but are instead for personal use only.

If you purchase a resell rights package containing more than one product, the package will typically contain a license agreement for each product. Never assume anything. Read every word of each license before you resell or modify a product, and keep that license in a safe place for future reference.

If you are ever unsure about the rights conveyed by a license, contact the author of the product before doing anything else. Make sure you contact the author of the product directly, and not just another reseller.

Keep your licenses in a safe place, and consider both print and electronic backups. You’ll also want to include any email exchanges with the product author in your backup files, just in case an issue ever arises.

The Teaching Sells Content Library

This is the perfect opportunity to introduce the Teaching Sells Content Library. We currently have over 300 niche pieces of licensed content, and the library comes included with your membership to Teaching Sells. That’s right… there’s no additional charge for access to tons of downloadable content across a wide range of profitable niches.

We’ll be adding content on a regular basis (including huge amounts of ebook content), and we will also be building an online marketing reference library. The reference content will not be PLR, but you can use it to become familiar with online marketing concepts that you’re hazy on, and you can certainly synthesize the ideas contained in these ebooks for your own projects. All at no extra charge.

Join Teaching Sells today and you’ll get instant access to all five of the original courses on building profitable membership sites, plus advanced training, access to the content download library, joint venture network and forum interaction with instructors.

Check out Teaching Sells risk free thanks to our no-hassle money-back guarantee. Jump in with both feet and get started today.