In Print on Demand, it’s not so easy to realize that the product you’re selling could get you into legal trouble. It’s more of a blurred line because it’s so easy to create designs in Print on Demand. It’s important to know up front which products might get you into legal trouble, or aren’t worth selling because they won’t bring you any sales. So let’s discuss which five print-on-demand items you need to avoid.
1. Products with logos. Selling trademarked items is a big no-no. For those of you who don’t know, in layman’s terms, a trademark is the legal protection of the thing that identifies a brand or company. The most classic identifier of a brand or company is their logo. The tricky thing about trademarks is that they are not generic and they must be filed in every country. You may see Chinese suppliers using famous logos. Sometimes they violate the rules, but sometimes they don’t because there is no application to protect their trademark in China. However, if it is filed in any other country/region where you are going to sell, such as the US, even if it is legal to buy and sell in China, it is still illegal to ship and sell it directly in the US. You should also be careful and double check if a phrase is unregistered before you use it, because sometimes, you would not expect a phrase to be registered.
2. Non-original design. In fact, I’m pretty confident that you’ve seen this “I love New York” design at least once in your life. Outdated designs like this are a death blow to print-on-demand. So unless you have a super unique, special design, it’s not a smart idea to sell a popular shirt design that everyone knows they can buy cheaper elsewhere.
- copyrighted images. This is probably the most obvious one. Most people know it’s wrong to use copyrighted characters. Someone always asks: ”Is it okay to create a design that looks super similar to the character , even if it’s not the real character? The answer is no. It’s not okay to use fan art. At least, not legally. Let’s be blunt: fan art without the express permission of the copyright holder is illegal. Believe it or not, this includes free artwork that you post on the Internet but don’t even sell.