IP Rails

EASY WAY FOR ETSY SELLERS TO LICENSE BIG BRANDS AND GROW YOUR SALES

DISCOVER LICENSING AND GROW YOUR SALES!

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BRAND NEW OPPORTUNITY

Thousands of trustworthy brands are waiting to partner with you.
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Higher Revenue after Licensing
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Higher Pricing after Licensing
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Royalty Fee
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Downpayment

Experienced Etsy sellers know that offering a special version of a their product crafted for the fans of a popular universe or character can quadruple the sales for the item. Even a simple mentioning of a popular movie of book in the product title attracts new buyer as a magnet.

From another hand, Brands and trademark owners are constantly looking for new ways to monetize their IP (intellectual property). But handmade manufacturers still have few challenges.

THE CHALLENGES

Finding licensors is hard. Managing them is harder.

DISCOVER

Finding a Brand who is ready to work with crafters is hard. Even if there is one, Brands want to make sure they engage in a relationship with a reliable and trustworthy licensee.

EXECUTE

Drafting a separate licensing agreement for each Brand, discussing and agreeing all the terms, limits, payments and reporting requirements takes weeks.

SETTLE

Checking the sales figures for every license you have, reporting your sales, calculating and paying the royalty fees can require a large dedicated team.

These issues kept licensing unavailable for the smaller manufacturers and a huge new market had yet to be discovered by the brands.

IP RAILS IS THE KEY

Join the thriving collaboration between the brands and handmade manufacturers.

Our mission is to replace the expensive and slow trademark licensing and permissioning legal workflows with an elegant and swift solution. IP Rails provides makers and IP owners with a place and a toolset required to simplify the execution, approval, reporting and billing processes. Here handmade sellers can get a legal permission to use trademarks and copyrighted content and grow their sales. And IP owners can now access a new market, cut their legal protection costs and turn those into profits.

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THE SOLUTION

We addressed all main challenges and invite you to discover licensing.

SECURITY

We know that every Etsy seller goes through a standard KYC (know your customer) process and cherishes their business. In order to build even higher trust and credibility, IP Rails has additional level of protection in place. We call it Know Your Crafter and our process includes the following checks:

  • how long is the store operating
  • store rating
  • number of refunds
  • products and product categories review
  • geography

From another hand, IP Rails also checks that the Licensors on the platform are legal IP owners.

MARKETPLACE

We have built a place for Brands and Artists to showcase their Licensing Offers and for potential licensees to obtain the desired license in few clicks. Using our convenient filters you can easily find the offer suiting your audience, scale, geography, thematics and type of the product you produce.

AUTOMATION

You choose the Licensing Offer, we do the rest. Our official Etsy App allows us to connect to your Etsy store and check your sales almost in real time. We calculate the total monthly sales for each executed agreement, generate the invoices, so you could pay your Royalty fees and provide Brands with a detailed report. Our system can also notify all parties or even delist the licensed products upon reaching the agreed sales limits.

INSIGHTS

We provide a convenient dashboard and reports to track your licensing pipeline at a glance. Check how many licensors and active agreements you have. Approve your product designs with your licensor. Review your connected Etsy stores list and product links. Understand your sales and growth better. And if that is not enough, you can Export the whole Sales report to Excel spreadsheet and filter it as you like.

HOW IT WORKS

Almost like Netflix or Spotify. Companies and artists provide access to their IP to thousands of people and get a revenue share.

SELLERS REQUEST THE PERMISSION OR LICENSE

Etsy sellers choose the Offers they like in our Marketplace, review the terms, answer the additional questions if IP Owner defined those and request the license or permission. The Licensing Agreement with all the terms of the Offer is created in Pending status.

IP OWNERS EXECUTE THE AGREEMENT

IP Owners review the requests and the provided answers to their questions and approve the Licensing Agreement execution. This step is optional and the Offers can be setup to execute all Agreements automatically.

ETSY SELLERS GROW THEIR SALES

Handmade sellers map their Etsy listings to the Agreements they have. IP Rails automatically adds the unique license certificate code to the item description. Etsy sellers can now use the trademark or copyrighted content to grow their sales.

IP OWNERS REVIEW THE RESULTS

IP Rails provides transparent reports for all the Sales related to the products mapped to IP Owners’ Agreements along with the estimated Royalties Amount for each Sale and for the month. The Invoices are automatically created at the month end and can be reviewed if required.

ETSY SELLERS PAY THE ROYALTY

Handmade sellers review the reports and automatically created Invoices and pay the Royalty fees.

IP OWNERS COLLECT THE ROYALTY

IP Rails collects the Royalty fees from the sellers based on the confirmed Invoices and transfers the cumulative payment from all certified handmade sellers to
the respective IP owners.

SCHEDULE A MEETING WITH US TO START YOUR JOURNEY!

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FLEXIBLE PERMISSION TYPES

IP Rails allows to choose from 3 standard permission types for you to have a smooth take-off and effective scaling.
  • Permission to mention a trademark name in the product description – the most limited and the most highly requested permission type (Etsy only)
  • Permission to use a visual trademark or a copyrighted image in product design (Etsy only)
  • Other – custom licensing agreement with flexible terms

Example

MENTION TRADEMARK IN PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

The most anticipated permission for Etsy sellers and the safest permission possible for the trademark owners.

Product Title

Licensee may mention the trademark in the listing title to reach more customers.

Listing Keywords and Tags

Licensee may use the trademark as one of the listing tags or search terms.

Listing Description

Licensee may have the trademark mentioned in the listing description.

Copying Licensed Products

Licensee cannot copy any products manufactured by licensed manufacturers.

Using IP outside Etsy

Licensees permission to use a trademark is limited only to Etsy platform.

Placing Trademarks on Etsy Product

Licensee cannot do that as your permission is limited and allows only a specific types of trademark usage.

EXAMPLES IN PRACTICE

See how the licenses are used in the real world.

A ring in the form of an orc’s head from World of Warcraft. The crafter does not need permission to use any visuals because it’s not a copy of the character.  However, this product is designed for fans of the Warcraft Universe. The crafter seeks permission to mention Warcraft in the product title, description, and tags to make it associated with Warcraft.

The crafter uses a Warcraft Universe symbol and needs permission to use a trademark in the product title and description. As well as permission to use this symbol. This allows to use names and images, however, the licensor may require an explicit notice that the product is not licensed, if needed.

An outlet cover stylized in a Star Wars theme. The crafter does not need permission to use any visuals because it’s not a direct copy of the characters or protected images. However, this product is designed for fans of Star Wars. The crafter is seeking permission to mention Star Wars in the product title, description, and tags to clearly associate it with the franchise.

A candle holder in the form of a spacecraft with the emblem of the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars. The crafter needs a permission to use Star Wars protected visuals even if the product is not a direct copy of other licensed products. The crafter is also seeking a permission to mention Star Wars in the product title, description, and tags to clearly associate it with the franchise.

PRICE PLANS

Still keeping it simple and transparent.

SMALL CRAFTER

with total sales below $5,000/mon
FREE you pay only royalty fees
  • Licensing Offers Marketplace
  • Designs Approval
  • Reports
  • Automatic Royalty Calculation
  • Automatic Invoicing
  • Automatic Limits Monitoring

PRO CRAFTER

with verified badge
$19.99 plus royalty fees
  • Licensing Offers Marketplace
  • Designs Approval
  • Reports
  • Automatic Royalty Calculation
  • Automatic Invoicing
  • Automatic Limits Monitoring
  • Access more Licensing Offers
  • Early Notice about upcoming Offers

SOCIAL IMPACT AND BRAND IMAGE

Crafters are self-made, beautiful and independent. Supporting them is a good thing.
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Etsy Stores Closed Due to IP Infringements (+71% YoY)
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K
Households left without their only income
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Takedown Reports Sent by IP Owners (+129% YoY)
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Paid by Brands for legal protection services

300 million people are working in Creative Manufacturing and Handmade (CMH) Market, this is the second in size market after agriculture. And we know this market: 

  • 76% CMH leaders are women
  • 64% – under 35 y.o.
  • 62% live in rural area
  • 95% of market is self-financed

 

Every family shop has a huge social impact. Crafters create work places, finance themselves and their families and support diversity. We can support all these people, together. But instead, thousands of online stores are taken down every year, often due to miscommunication or a mistake, without a chance to recover their account.

We believe the problem is in the current licensing and prosecution approach. With IP Rails, brands could offer crafters a legal way to resolve legal issues and grow together.

Big brands like Mojang (Microsoft subsidiary, Minecraft IP owner) already recognize crafters as a separate niche and offer a free limited license for handmade manufacturers staying within agreed limits.

We invite you to join us building a community of educated crafters committed to recognize, support and respect the IP rights.

WE HAVE MORE TO OFFER

Support for Amazon, Shopify and WooCommerce is coming soon.

We plan to grow IP Rails into a multi-purpose  licensing console which would cover both Licensee and Licensor needs regardless of their size.

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We will be delighted to have you on our platform.