- Oh wow.
Look at the comments this is getting.
(upbeat music)
That's a fair question.
Hold on, that's not right.
We didn't say that.
What?
That's completely wrong.
Okay, stop, pause.
Let's set something straight.
I get it.
Content licensing terms can be overwhelming
and downright confusing.
We hear you.
Give me like 10 minutes
and I'll try and make it as clear as possible.
(upbeat music)
Hi, I'm Matt, a design school educator here at Canva.
I recently did a video all about
Canva's content licensing agreement,
and as we know, things can change quickly,
especially when you introduce AI into the mix.
This is why it's sometimes hard
to provide black and white answers to legal questions.
Ever changing legal landscapes, new laws,
individual circumstances, and location specific nuances,
well, sometimes all we can give
is a suggestion of what you can do.
But we get it, you're running a business,
you need more than a suggestion.
You want to know that you're protected
and aren't at risk of breaching Canva's terms
or infringing anyone else's copyright.
So with that in mind,
I'm gonna try and answer your question specifically
about print on demand products.
But I'll throw in some other stuff to cover off platforms
you might be using your Canva designs on.
Look, it's worth mentioning our full content
license agreement can be found here.
This has all the latest information
about what you can and can't do.
Now, there is some legal speak in there.
That unfortunately comes with the territory.
But our team is committed
to making this as easy to understand as possible.
So if there's something you don't understand,
ask a question here
and one of our customer support team will get back to you.
First, I'll explain some acronyms
for anyone who isn't familiar.
For anyone who's already making a living in this area,
feel free to skip ahead 30 or so seconds.
Print on demand, often referred to as POD or P.O.D,
depending who you talk to,
is a convenient and eco-friendly publishing method
that allows authors, artists and businesses
to print and ship their creative works
or products only when an order is placed.
Eliminating the need for large upfront print runs
and storage of inventory,
therefore reducing waste and saving resources.
By working with a print on demand service provider,
creators can focus on creating,
while providers handle the logistics of printing,
shipping and sometimes even customer service.
P.O.D empowers individuals and businesses
to bring ideas to life with minimal risk and investment,
making it an increasingly popular choice
in today's fast-paced digital world.
Now, POD often gets thrown around
with KDP, Kindle Direct Publishing.
While they're both fantastic options for authors
and creators to publish and distribute their works,
they do have some key differences.
KDP is a platform offered by Amazon
that focuses on publishing and distributing eBooks
and print books through the Kindle store
and the Amazon website.
So it's like P.O.D, but only available through Amazon.
Another associated term is printables.
These are digital files people purchase to download
and print at home or their local print shop.
These files can include anything from coloring pages,
greeting cards, invitations,
planner templates, educational worksheets, or even wall art.
In fact, I've got a few printables on my walls at home.
Printables cater to a wide range of interests and needs,
making it easy and empowering
for individuals to create unique tangible items
for personal use or as thoughtful gifts.
Hopefully that succinctly explains what the differences are.
Okay, the basic thing I'm gonna talk about
and explain it in the next part of the video is,
if you want to create a product that you can sell,
whether it's a T-shirt, ebook or a template,
it needs to be an original design.
And that's a great question.
Sometimes also called a unique design,
this means you're using a combination of design elements
to create a new creative work.
Hey, will you stick around?
I could probably use you in case I use more jargon.
Let me show you what I mean.
Say I want to create a T-shirt to print on demand.
Well, I can't use any of these pre-made templates.
These have been created
by someone in the creator's community
and if I tried to sell their creation,
well, it would be a little bit
like profiting of someone else's hard work.
I also couldn't start with a blank template,
search for a graphic or a photo from the library,
put it on the shirt by itself,
and then upload that to print.
Again, someone has created that individual graphic or photo.
So trying to sell a T-shirt with only that element on it,
again, it's not my original creation.
Now, this is where people might get confused.
If I add more graphics to this design,
maybe some text in here.
A little bit of this.
A little bit of that.
Well, suddenly, I have a design I can call my own.
Yep, this is a question that we get asked a lot
and it's a hard one to answer,
because there are so many different types
of graphics and images and photographs,
shapes, texts and other elements in the Canva Library.
But a good question to ask yourself,
is what I'm selling a unique design
that I've put creative effort into?
Or am I just reselling content that I found
on Canva with minimal changes?
If in doubt, you probably need to add
or change or remove some of the elements
to make it your own.
Get creative.
Here's another question we get asked a lot.
If I have a double-sided shirt,
can I have my original design on the back
where I've combined multiple graphics
and then on the front just have one graphic,
maybe over the heart?
Unfortunately, the answer is no,
because you have to display the front side content
in a standalone basis
in order to facilitate the production of that T-shirt.
So again, you would need to add something
to make this your own.
So just to reiterate,
you cannot sell any Canva content on a standalone basis.
Standalone means that the content stays in the substantially
same form as it exists in Canva's library.
Whether you're creating the T-shirt yourself
or using a third party print service,
you need to do more than just add a filter
or just change the color
or just resize it
or just crop it.
This is not making it original.
Likewise, just outlining the content.
Or just adding minimal additional design elements
like such as a border,
this would still be classed as standalone use.
Another area we see standalone use a lot is stickers.
Unmodified elements on sheets
of individual stickers are not allowed
under our content license agreement,
as it's a standalone use of each individual element.
Now, if this person, let's call them AJ,
were to add some inspirational quotes
that he'd come up with to these stickers using Canva fonts
and maybe some additional elements,
this would follow our content license agreement.
How are we going?
I really hope this is making sense.
If it's not or if I've missed something, you know the drill.
Leave a comment below
and I promise we'll answer your question,
not just send you to another video.
Okay, what about Blake?
He's created a children's book using one of our templates.
If he was to sell it like this, straight from the template,
he wouldn't be complying with our content license agreement.
But if he uses the template as a starting point,
and then fills it in with his own words
and adds in additional elements and his own creative effort,
I would say this book is now unique to Blake,
and therefore allowed under our content license agreement.
Okay, there are extra examples on the FAQ sheet.
Everything from printable greeting cards,
poster designs, eBooks, and even working for clients.
If there is a use case we haven't covered, let us know.
Now, I know we're running out of time,
but I did want to mention special conditions
for using Canva Pro content
in templates or products for sale.
If you want to create
and sell templates that include pro content,
well, these templates can only be Canva links.
Oh, hello.
You're still here.
And that's a good point.
A template is a design with a set layout
and style with the intention to be edited or customized.
So this wedding invitation is a template
because your customer will need to add in their details
in order to use it to make it finished.
And this ebook is not a template
because it's a finished product,
even though there are sections
where people can add their own notes and drawings.
If you are using pro content in electronic publications,
including eBooks, you need to design it in Canva.
In other words, you can't download pro content from Canva
and then use it to design your e-book
in another software application.
And yes, you can use pro content in an unedited format
in your Canva designed electronic publication,
which means a photo by itself
on a page with no elements overlaid on the top.
But you need to stick to the maximum of 480,000 pixel limit.
Okay, that's a nice segue to talk about copyright.
Generally speaking, if you're the creator
of an original design, you're also the copyright holder.
But if you use a third party content,
like photos or elements from our library in your design,
you don't own those pieces, but you have a license to them.
So if you use Canva to design an ebook
that you want to sell on Amazon KDP,
you will own all of the original text
you have written in your book,
but you won't own the photos from Canva
that you use to illustrate the book.
And this is quite common.
A lot of authors are amazing storytellers
and they'll work with visual artists
to bring their story to life with illustrations.
And some people have been asking how this all works
if you don't own every part of your design,
but you want to upload it and sell it somewhere.
If the service you're using
says you have to be the copyright owner
of everything in your design,
then unfortunately you wouldn't be able to use
Canva content in that design.
But if they're just asking you
if you have the right to use the content in your design,
well this is A-okay,
as we've given you a license to use it.
The final thing I'll say about this
is it's your responsibility to check the terms
of your print services or third party websites.
It's impossible for us to advise
on all the different options out there across the world.
Okay, last thing I promised to explain,
artificial intelligence, in particular, text to image.
If you haven't played around with Canva's text to image tool
you're missing out.
It's incredibly fun.
Additionally, images generated with text to image
are not covered by Canva's content license agreement,
meaning you can use these images
for any lawful purpose, including selling them.
As long as you comply with our AI product terms,
check out this page to find out more.
I may need to have to do a whole video about it, actually.
Because it's so new and in many countries,
the legal ownership of AI generated works is still unclear.
This means in your country where you're watching from,
you may not be the copyright owner of the images you make.
So if you plan on selling your AI generated works,
I'd suggest you get some local legal advice,
just so you know what your rights are.
And with that, we're at the end of the video.
I really hope this helps.
As you can see, it's a pretty complex area
and the best advice I can give is try to be a good human
and do your due diligence
and don't take credit for someone else's work.
If you're not sure about something,
please reach out to our support team
and ask your specific question.
We love that you're using Canva to make an income.
It's really so exciting to us.
But we also want to make sure
that you feel comfortable and safe doing so.
So if we haven't answered your question here
or in the FAQs, drop us a line.
Oh, hello.
You're still here.
I'm just replying to a few comments.
What?
You think we don't read the comments?
We do, trust me, every single one.
We actually really appreciate
that people take their time to like comment, ask questions
or just tell us how they're using Canva.
Anyway, if you want to know more
about how you can use Canva for a whole range of things,
check out the playlist.
And you know, this one might go really well
with what you just watched.
We're updating and adding new ones every week.
See you soon.