As I've developed develop digital products and teach at an educational organization, I've become increasingly interested in studying the details of the law that effect the modern generations of new business. One of the defining characteristics of modern business is selling digital products online, but obviously there are problems with legal protection on that front as it is newer legal territory. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not looking to hire a lawyer or get some kind of formal legal advice, but rather to find the right direction and a proper precedent for people facing this situation. Specifically, what is the best license agreement that allows any random person off the street to be legally protected when licensing purely digital content over the internet?
What I mean is, say a business owner or sole proprietor wants to license a digital file, like a picture or audio file so that the buyer can use it to make and sell their own games, videos, commercials and freelance work, educational purposes, presentations, or really anything else that uses multimedia. But, the creator of the original digital product obviously doesn't want a buyer to simply start selling or distributing the individual files themselves or as a collection of files, they original creator or organization wants to retain their rights while preventing the buyers from selling specifically the files or modified versions of the files while allowing the buyers the utility to make commercial end-products with it. What kind of terms of use, in a simple text document, can be provided to ensure this with a product download? And does such a text document actually create any binding agreement in the first place?
I would hope someone who has studied this or has experience with this matter could point me in the right direction so that I can convey it to designers and students alike. You can use microsoft word, but you can't sell microsoft word or any of its components or reverse engineer it. What kind of agreement is the equivalent of that but for digital media files?