What is Private Label Rights (PLR) Content?
by Ruth Bowers, UsePLR.com
Over the course of The Homepreneur’s Adventure Summit you’re going to be hearing a lot about PLR and content repurposing, so I thought I’d take a moment to explain what PLR content is and how it differs from content that is created by a ghostwriter.
Both have their place in content marketing strategy because when you undertake to do content marketing as a way to drive traffic, engage with your audience, and ultimately make more money, you’ll also quickly realize that one person simply can’t generate the required amount of content on their own.
And that’s where PLR comes in.
PLR Defined
PLR is the acronym for Private Label Rights. It can also be known as “white label content” or “done for you” content. In the low-content niche (think planners and journals) it’s also interchangeable with “commercial use rights.”
Regardless of what you decide to call it, the main definition is that this is content a person creates for their customers to use as their own. It’s similar to ghostwritten content in that you are allowed to put your name on content someone else has created, but different in that the same PLR is often sold to many people, where ghostwritten content is usually exclusive to one person. This has the advantage of keeping the cost down, and you can often purchase a well-written PLR pack for about the price you’d pay for one or two pages from a ghostwriter.
The other main difference is that you don’t really own the content outright when you purchase PLR. You are licensed to use that content, but only in the ways that the original creator has set out in their PLR license.
The PLR License
PLR licenses can vary widely between content creators. A good PLR license will typically allow you to edit the content, use the content as is, and put your own name on it as the author. The one main thing you can not do with any type of PLR or commercial use content is claim copyright because the original creator holds onto the that, and you are not the only person who has purchased this content to use as your own.
If you wanted to claim copyright to a piece of PLR content, you would need to substantially rewrite and reformat the content so that it is unrecognizable when compared to the original piece.
PLR is Not a New Concept
While the concept of PLR might seem new to anyone not in the publishing business, it’s actually been around for awhile under other names. For example, community publications have long been able to order “done for you” articles that could be cut and pasted into their finished products. Sometimes these could be edited and used as their own, and other times they had to be used as is in more of a syndication style.
The basic premise is still the same; only the labels have changed. If you are allowed to edit the content and put your name on it we now call that PLR or Private Label Rights. And if you are required to use the content as it is without making any changes that is more commonly known as only “Resell Rights” (which are a concept to talk about another day).
Is PLR Plagiarism?
A common misconception for people first starting to use PLR content is that by using it unchanged, they are plagiarizing from the original author. That is not the case at all.
Because the original creator has created this with the express intention of allowing others to use the content and has sold you the license to do exactly that, you are not plagiarizing when you use the content in the way the original author intended.
Since content marketing requires you to consistently publish relevant material such as articles and blog posts, content upgrades, downloadable products, social media content, and other varieties of content to build your audience and keep them entertained and engaged, using PLR only makes sense.
It’s both a huge time and cost saver for your business, especially when you’re just starting out.
I hope this brief overview of what PLR is and how it can be used gives you some understanding of why it’s so important on the homepreneur’s journey.
Author Bio:
Ruth Bowers is a co-owner of UsePLR.com along with Jenn Brockman. They teach people how to build a business using PLR content. Through their All-Access Training Club they run monthly challenges for using PLR, offer in-depth topic guides, live masterclasses and mastermind sessions for business owners who want to use PLR to grow their audience and their bottom
