Intellectual Property Policy

Very Quick Examples

For those of you who just need to quickly check, here is a summary of our policy:

We will not:

• Reproduce any characters from TV or movies, even as your own drawn fan-art.
• Reproduce brand logos or likenesses, even as your own drawn art (eg, your favourite toast spread logo or likeness).

But we can print:

• Company logos, with written permission of the company.
• Sports team logos, with written permission from the team.
• Not for profit foundation logos, with written permission from the foundation (they are very keen if you just ask!).

Don't be afraid to ask us for guidance or assistance if you're not sure!

Overview

Most of our products are made with computer controlled machines, and in terms of the artwork - the sky is the limit in terms of what we can make and the designs we can produce! And the other side of computer controlled machines is that once setup, we press a button and get a second, identical copy of the first. And we can repeat it again and again. But with this power comes great responsibility. Our core values are to respect intellectual property - that is - the work that went into the design to create it in the first place. We respect this in others with the expectation that others will respect our intellectual property rights.

This is something we take very seriously. We love to make our own things, sometimes inspired by others, but always to make something unique.

This policy and rules also apply to products that we make for others where they supply the artwork - for example, our UV printed earrings. There are many things we will not print to protect other peoples intellectual property.

What we can not produce

We simply won't reproduce any artwork that is copyrighted without the original artwork owners explicit, written permission. We regularly get requests to reproduce common TV or movie characters, for example, and this we can not do. The companies that produce these have spent a lot of time and resources to design and market these characters and worlds, and they deserve to have their creations respected.

You might have created your own hand drawn art of your favourite TV or movie character, but these rely on the value created by the original characters, despite being your own work, and as such, we won't reproduce these either.

We also can't reproduce imagery or brand names that are trademarked, either. This means for example we can't reproduce your favourite food brand, their logo (even if stylised), or imagery that is recognizable as this.

What we can produce with permission

• Corporate logos, with permission of the company that it belongs to.
• Sporting club logos, with the permission of the club.
• Foundations and not-for-profit logos, with permission of the foundation.

You'll find if you contact the organisation, they're often all too happy to help, and will assist in sending original artwork and style guides, so we can make sure we preserve their brand. You'll find most organisations are happy to help a great cause or for their own branding!

We have printed earrings for sporting clubs and not-for-profits before with their written permission - so don't be afraid to ask!

How we would handle your designs

If you supply a design to us, we will not use that design for anything other than your products. We will not supply the artwork to anyone else nor will we use it for any other customer, or even adaptations of it. You've worked hard on this design and we respect that!

At any time, you can contact us and receive all of the artwork for your designs, including the work product we've made to that design to produce it. For example, you may supply us a basic design for an earring, and on your request, we will send you our complete work files for these - the shapes, final print artwork, jigs, and variations that we made to the design for either practical or design reasons. This allows you to continue the work with another supplier, should we not meet your expectations!

Our expectation for designs that you supply to us

We expect that any designs that you supply to us for production are:

• Your own original artwork; or
• Artwork that you've comissioned specifically to be created for this product and have permission from the creator to use in this manner; or
• Artwork that you've purchased, and the licence conditions allow it to be used in the manner that we will do so (for example, print on demand restrictions);or 
• Sketches that we turn into original artwork for you (and we consider the final form of this to be your artwork, as you would be paying for the time to create the artwork for you)

We expect that if requested, you can supply us documentation to our satisfaction that shows that you have the appropriate rights to this artwork for us to reproduce for you.

Purchasing artwork to send to us for reproduction

Several of our customers purchase images from various stock websites and send it through to us for production. However, a few things need to be kept in mind.

• If the artwork contains copyrighted items, you need to verify that the place you purchase it from has permission to do so. An example of this is a well known online arts and crafts marketplace, which lists thousands of copyrighted vector files for purchase. However, a large selection of these do not have permission from the original copyright owner to be sold via that platform. We can not accept and will not print from these purchases.
• If you purchase an image from a stock website and send it through, we can reproduce this for you. However, if another customer has already sent us the same image for production, for privacy reasons we won't disclose this to you or to the other customer. So - in short - we would produce the same item for both of you. The easiest way around this is to commission your own unique designs, or accept that several people can use commonly available stock images.

Some concrete examples

To make it clearer, here are some concrete examples that should help. These examples are based our our UV printed earrings, but can be applied to any other products that we produce.

• Image of a character from a TV show or Movie: we will not reproduce.
• Your hand drawing of a character from a TV show or Movie: we will not reproduce - if it's recognisable as the character, then reproducing it is using their work without permission.
• Logo of your favourite childhood food brand: we will not reproduce.
• Your hand drawing of your favourite childhood food brand: we will not reproduce.
• Corporate, charity, school, or sports club logo: we will reproduce, if you can supply written permission from the organisation. (Often they're more than happy to give you permission - you just need to ask!).

Any questions?

Intellectual Property is a large field with dedicated lawyers. We are risk adverse when it comes to Intellectual property matters. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions and want us to check your artwork. There may be questions we can not answer and may require getting in touch with an Intellectual Property lawyer.