Copyright Aid

Hi,

I am thinking of starting my own business of sending postcards to people from all around the world.
Postcards will be sent from the UK on the request of buyer and with text from the buyer to some of their friends.

In connection with this I have several questions:

1) Is it legal to use existing postcards which I purchased from Amazon or Etsy or elsewhere for those purposes which might have copyrighted images on them (for example images of Disney characters or someone's artwork)?

2) I want to give buyer ability to write their own text on a postcard. I guess I don't need to worry about copyrights of this text even if buyer chooses to include some copyrighted text?

3) If I end up printing postcards on my own is it legal to use stock images for front side of postcard?

Thanks.

Best regards,
antgleb

Hi antgleb,

Provided that you use the original postcards which you buy and don't make copies of them, there will be no infringement of copyright as you are not copying anything and you are not distributing the original cards other than in a way which the manufacturer intended the cards to be used.

If your users quote something protected by copyright in the text that they supply, you would not be liable as you are acting as a mere conduit for them and both UK/EU and US legislation permits this. In fact the sender will probably be so limited by the space constraints that even if they did use something in copyright, the amount would not be substantial enough to qualify as actionable infringement.

If you print your own cards, make very sure that the stock images you source permit commercial applications. Many so-called free-use images have conditions attached to them. For example if you use images issued with a Creative Commons licence, make sure these don't have the NC tag (non-commercial exploitation).

Many thanks for your answer AndyJ.

It's much appreciated.