What we can and can't print: intellectual property for designers

Every print-on-demand platform has an IP policy, and almost nobody reads it, because it is written by lawyers for other lawyers. This one is written by us, for you, and it exists for a practical reason: a design that infringes somebody's rights doesn't just get removed. It can pull the whole catalogue out of Google Shopping — including your other designs, which did nothing wrong.

We know this because it happened to us.

The short version

You keep the copyright on everything you upload. We print it, sell it, and pay you 10% of every paid order, for as long as it sells. In exchange, you confirm that the artwork is yours to license — that you drew it, generated it from your own prompts and references, or otherwise hold the rights.

What you may not upload:

• Logos, wordmarks and brand names. Nike, Adidas, Supreme, Disney, NASA — all of it, whether drawn accurately or "in the style of".
• Characters owned by someone else. Mickey Mouse, Pikachu, Marvel and DC characters, film and game characters, anime characters from licensed series.
• Real people's faces and names without their permission — actors, musicians, athletes, politicians.
• Sports and event marks. Club crests, league logos, tournament names and trophies. The FIFA World Cup is a specific and current example: you can print flags, footballs, the year and the spirit of the game; you cannot print the words "World Cup", FIFA marks, the trophy, or national federation crests.
• Other people's photographs and stock images that you have not licensed for commercial print.
• Text lifted from someone else's design, including slogans that are registered trademarks.

The part people get wrong: names

The most common problem we see is not the artwork. It is the title.

A design of a rocket and some stars is yours. The same design called "NASA Space Explorer" is a trademark problem, and Google will treat it as one — their systems read product titles, and a brand name in a title is a claim of association whether or not you meant it that way. In July 2026 we had to clean brand names out of dozens of product titles across seven languages for exactly this reason.

So: name your design after what it is, not after what it reminds you of. "Retro Space Program" instead of "NASA Retro". "Wizard School Stripes" instead of the school's actual name. This is not pedantry — the title is also what customers search for, so a descriptive name works harder for you than a borrowed one.

We do not rewrite your design names. That is a deliberate rule: your work, your title. Which means the responsibility for getting the title clean sits with you, and a title that creates a legal risk is a reason for us to reject the design rather than quietly rename it.

A note on generative tools

We don't ask how a design was made. That is your studio and your business.

But if you use them, one of the rules above bites harder than you'd expect: a model will happily produce a character, a logo or a face that belongs to someone else, and it will do it from an innocent-sounding prompt. "Cute cartoon mouse in red shorts" is Mickey Mouse whether you named him or not. Check the output, not the prompt.

Why we are strict about this

In July 2026 our entire Merchant Center account was blocked from showing products in the United States, Canada and Australia under Google's Misrepresentation policy. Fixing it took weeks of work — cleaning the catalogue, rewriting policies, verifying our legal identity — and during that time nothing in the shop could be advertised or listed for free on Google. Every designer's work was invisible, not only the designs that caused it.

That is the honest reason for the strictness. It is not that we are afraid of a takedown letter. It is that in a shared catalogue, one infringing design taxes everybody.

If you are unsure

Send it to us before you publish, at [email protected], and ask. A question costs you five minutes. A rejection after your design has already been promoted costs a great deal more.