hey what's up guys welcome back to my
amazon merch series for beginners and
today we are talking about the content
policy the ever important content policy
because this is all about keeping our
accounts safe
as we build a long-term recurring
source of passive income and if we lose
sight of the long-term value of our
business
and ignore the content policy we know
that there will be consequences in some
cases that could mean losing our seller
account and we do not want that so today
we are going to get real familiar with
the amazon merch content policy let's
get started
[Music]
all right we are back in the merch by
amazon resource section and here we are
at the content policy i will leave a
link to this in the description if you
want to follow along again i'm going to
read through it and i'll give my
commentary as we go also just so you
know there's really now three content
policies if you ask me so i would call
this content policy one and shortly you
will see content policy number two and
number three so that's why hopefully you
guys subscribe to my channel so that you
know you you find these things because
even the team over at merch
has split this up in a way that's kind
of confusing
all right content policy all designs
submitted through the merch program must
adhere to our content policies to help
you get started with these policies
please watch the following video just
watch my video we do not allow the
following content this list is not
exhaustive and the content policies may
change over time merch reserves the
right to determine the appropriateness
of listings on its site and may remove
any listing at any time
if you supply content in violation of
these content policies we may take
corrective actions such as immediately
suspending or terminating content
creator privileges removing listings
terminating the business relationship or
permanently withholding payments
section one illegal or infringing
content
this includes content that does not
comply with federal state or local laws
in the geographies in which your
listings are available
this also includes content incorporating
intellectual property such as trademarks
copyrights or the name or likeness of
others that you do not have the right to
use
so yeah they definitely had a legal team
tighten these things up they used to be
like getting into specifics about what
was actually allowed and what was
actually not allowed and now they have
basically condensed that thing that it
used to be into two bullet points that
are a little bit more open-ended a
little bit more open to interpretation
and they really imply that like
us on the seller side are gonna do our
due diligence and use common sense all
right like
i'm not even gonna get into specifics
actually because if i start telling you
like what you can't do the youtube
algorithm is going to
not not like this video put it that way
because they listen to every single word
we say even though it's just ai um it's
the world we live in they know and then
they will flag this video and it's not
going to end well for that so i try to
keep those trigger words out of my mouth
all right you can use these resources to
check for registered trademarks here you
go you got the uspto for the united
states then you've got the equivalent of
the u.s patent trademark office for the
u.s but you have the equivalent for
united kingdom germany france italy
spain and japan
of course you know what's not listed are
the uh
local laws in the geographies
in which your listings are available so
what that's also kind of leaving the
door open for
is uh if you upload a design and you
check that you want to make it available
on a t-shirt on all international
markets well one of those international
marketplaces it could be any one of them
may have a law against whatever your
niche is and you may get a rejection in
just that marketplace like if you've
uploaded enough content guys i'm sure
you've seen what i'm talking about you
randomly get a rejection in france you
know and you're like what the heck why
is you know and that's just could it's
it's it's all regulated by merch by
amazon's
artificial intelligence like approval
rejection algorithm sometimes it gets
things wrong and sometimes there's just
things that we'll never have guessed
wouldn't be allowed all right sorry i'm
talking too much
number two offensive or controversial
content this includes content that
promotes incites or glorifies hatred
violence racial sexual or religious
intolerance or promotes organizations
with such views
content that graphically portrays
violence or victims of violence
content depicting children or characters
resembling children in a sexually
aggressive manner oh yeah youtube's
gonna love this video guys hit that like
button at least because it's gonna get
buried
youth-sized products that contain adult
content profanity and sexual and or
sexual references
content related to human tragedies and
natural disasters
content using profanity to attack a
group or individual content that
promotes illegal activity
sexually obscene content and
inflammatory content section three other
content not allowed
this is a section called other content
not allowed
solicitation for customer reviews
content giving the impression sales
proceeds will be donated to other
organizations or used for charity
content that ref references product
fulfillment or delivery attributes and
other content that might lead to a poor
customer experience notice they just
keep it broad so they reserve the right
to say oh not that either
and these are all these this whole
section is based on uh
like i don't know if i should call them
like loopholes or tricks or whatever but
like a lot of people like merch sellers
back in the day used to do you know a
lot of these things now i personally
didn't do any of them because i just
yeah i just didn't do any of them
personally but i saw you know in the
community people recommending that you
do it and i don't know i'm not judging
by the way i'm just saying like i know
that that was pretty popular
all right guide to merch product quality
and this is actually the link right here
that you know so the bottom of content
policy one kind of takes you to content
policy too
and this is more or less just additional
i call them trigger words to me a
trigger word is a word that will result
in a rejection of your submission
content published through merch is held
to the high standards customers have
come to expect from amazon if we
discover a problem with your listing we
may remove it from sale the information
listed here will help you understand the
types of quality issues we see most
frequently and will give you an idea of
what you should be paying close
attention to when creating your listing
please follow the guidelines below to
ensure your listing's content including
artwork metadata and design description
do not result in accurate and inaccurate
sorry inaccurate or overwhelming search
results or impair customers ability to
make good buying decisions
all right artwork issues
design quality may have an impact on a
customer's decision to purchase a
product we do not allow low quality
designs that create a poor shopping
experience including but not limited to
artwork with typos
images that are blurry or contain low
resolution designs with blurred lines
unclean backgrounds or watermarks
and fully transparent artwork metadata
issues
make sure your listing's metadata
doesn't result in inaccurate search
results or impair customers ability to
make good buying decisions we do not
allow metadata containing information
unrelated to the design such as
suggested use for example gift
perfect for birthday etc promotional
phrases for instance free shipping
bestseller or other unrelated metadata
such as 100 quality guarantee or new
product please ensure the title feature
bullets or description
match the design so they're saying like
keep the keywords you do include uh
relevant to the design the niche et
cetera and then also you know avoid
these phrases basically
last section here disappointing content
we do not allow content that disappoints
our customers or creates a poor shopping
experience including but not limited to
see the lawyers they always leave the
door open including but not limited to
so we can still change our mind
metadata that does not relate to the
image or is used to manipulate search
results are prohibited
content that implies by the way metadata
guys is just like the keywords that we
include with our title our brand our
bullets and our description
content that implies the product
contains a textured material including
wood by the way so these are all words
you should avoid wood metal marble
sequin glitter leather rubber fuzzy or
furry
glass diamond and gem
and again it may not be limited to just
that okay
content that implies a special printing
effect is used are prohibited examples
include neon so these are more words
guys write this list down neon metallic
foil rose gold gold sparkling glows
glows in the black light and glow in the
dark
by the way quick plug for the productor
chrome extension while i don't really
use it like i've used it at times um i'm
pretty sure they have like a really
extensive list of trigger words so shout
out to producter okay productor
p-r-o-d-u-c-t-o-r chrome extension
check that out if you're worried about
um getting rejections of course it's not
a perfect solution but all of these
words that are pretty much 100 percent
uh guaranteed to result in a rejection
i'm pretty sure
they will help i
notify you that you're about to hit
submit and it's going to get rejected
and help you avoid the rejections
all right here we go content including
sorry content intending to direct
customers to external services including
physical addresses phone numbers and
email addresses
content obscured and or illegible due to
the design color matching the selected
product color so if you guys missed
yesterday's video uh go check that one
out because we went through the best
practices and basically talked through
how
um if you like you know there were
examples basically provided by the merch
team how like it may look good on screen
but the actual product that we get when
it's the physical product is printed and
it's done may not look like how it
looked on screen so always use good
color selection good color contrast
examples include of what not to do blue
text on a blue shirt
and last designs where a single color is
applied to a product's full print area
so yeah not just like a full rectangle
of a solid color
all right and then the third content
policy kind of a new one i'm not sure if
it's new actually but it's new to me
so in the frequently asked questions
section which it looks like it got an
overhaul
right at the top there's a section for
intellectual property so this goes right
in line in my mind
with the content policy because it's
kind of the do's and don'ts of
submitting new products so let's go
through this real real quick as well
all right so uh what restrictions apply
to
my use of a third party's intellectual
property
in accordance with the content policy
amazon cannot make sell distribute or
promote items that infringe the
intellectual property rights including
copyright trademark and pub publicity
rights
of a third party this means that you
should either have obtained a license or
otherwise receive permission from any
third party whose intellectual property
you wish to use with merch by amazon
this applies to not only your design for
a product but also the product name
product description and the brand that
you use so it's not only the design that
we submit
which i don't think their ai really
looks at the designs like i know it does
to some extent but it's not to the same
extent of like the way it looks at our
keywords or metadata as it was calling
it uh when we do a submission
you must have clear documented
permission to use a person's name
likeness or image in a merged by amazon
design this permission is important if
the person is a celebrity but is
necessary for anyone so don't use taylor
swift's name picture or likeness on a
merch by amazon design product name
brand name keyword or product
description unless you have the express
documented permission from taytay so
someone had fun writing that one
taylor swift or tate
similarly you must have clear documented
rights to use any intellectual property
with merch by amazon the seattle
seahawks might be great and then it says
parentheses they are but you can't use
their name logo or trademark on a merch
by amazon design product name brand
keyword or other product description
without express
document permission from the seahawks
so i'm guessing they're in seattle uh
when they wrote that
shout out to the seahawks uh you're
ultimately responsible for ensuring that
you hold all necessary intellectual
property rights to submit a design
through merch by amazon you should not
assume that just because you found an
image on the internet that you can have
it for commercial use without permission
from the owner yeah guys definitely
don't assume that
works can be protected from copyright
even if they do not have a copyright
notice do not copy someone else's work
without first obtaining their permission
if you're unsure if you own all
necessary rights to use something in a
design please consult an attorney
for information about copyright law in
the united states please visit the
united states copyright copyright
office's website and frequently asked
questions for information on trademarks
in the united states visit the united
states patent and trademark office's
website so both of those are linked
right here in this article
for information about copyright law in
europe please visit the
eu ipos frequently asked questions on
copyright etc alright more links
what should i do if another item is
using my intellectual property without
my authorization
if you believe an item is available for
sale on amazon that contains content
that's infringing on your intellectual
property you can report it to amazon
using the online forms and then all the
reporting forms are up there
all right why was my design rejected i
talked to an attorney and they claim
it's not trademark infringement
amazon takes copyright design and
trademark infringement very seriously
at times our policies may appear more
conservative than your lawyer would
advise you as necessary we do this to
protect amazon customers content
creators third party brands and amazon
itself from the repercussions of
infringing content so that's their way
of kind of covering up
but let me translate that for you as a
former web developer of um you know
eight years professionally but longer
than that if you count my own time uh as
a programmer these things these
algorithms are not perfect especially
when we build them to police
the submission of millions of designs
and you know hundreds of millions of
words all right so they're just not
perfect so they're also kind of covering
for the programmers there
how do i know a design is trademarked i
checked the database you mentioned
there's no trademark for x brand on
apparel
in general you should only submit
content to which you own the rights this
means creating fresh new content if you
choose to use trademarked content your
design may be rejected so again they're
covering for the imperfections of their
algorithm because that's not really a
good answer at all but you know it's all
good i get it we get it right hopefully
you guys get it it's
amazon's at least attempting to police
their platform from descending into
becoming redbubble right where redbubble
is almost exclusively intellectual
property infringement now amazon's
trying to like actually you know not get
sued because everybody knows amazon's
got the money if you want to take amazon
to court you know they may end up like
having to pay up for real um so amazon's
trying to prevent us
the creators from you know essentially
costing them because remember the merch
by amazon products are sold by amazon so
they're the ones that are i'm just
saying i'm not a lawyer but they're
probably the ones that would end up
in court uh defending themselves if a
big brand you know was infringed upon
and merged by amazon fulfilled a bunch
of orders
so in summary obviously yeah don't
infringe guys but
can i use images from the internet in my
design
you're ultimately responsible for
ensuring that you hold all necessary
intellectual property rights to submit a
design through merch by amazon you
should not assume that because you found
an image on the internet that you can
use it for commercial use without
permission from the owner
works can be protected by copyright even
if they do not have a copyright notice
or can be protected as community designs
or under local design protection laws do
not copy someone else's work without
first obtaining their permission if
you're unsure if you own all necessary
rights to use elements of a design
please consult an attorney
can i use someone else's artwork in my
design
designs with the same idea or concept
are allowed the artwork itself however
cannot be copied without the owner's
permission
copying another creator's artwork or
original artwork without their
permission is strictly prohibited
failure to comply with this policy will
re will result in the immediate
suspension or termination of your
account
and that's pretty much true as far as
everything i've you know heard if you
guys are in the merch communities you
will see people that get suspended and
sometimes they'll even say yeah i messed
up i did this and they'll show us what
they did and you're like oh yeah that's
not allowed
what is a copycat design
copycat designs are strictly prohibited
and defined as the following
exact reproductions of the entirety or a
significant portion of original artwork
resized recolored or visually adjusted
reproductions of original artwork and
design reproductions containing distinct
design elements
alright so they're basically giving
vague examples of a copycat but anyways
hopefully you guys get the gist all
right so that was three different
content policies
and technically they only have one
content policy but i mean if you ask me
the other two should also count i hope
you guys enjoyed this video it's gone on
long enough so i'm gonna shut up but
thank you for watching before i leave i
wanted to remind you that i run a free
weekly print on demand giveaway you can
take advantage using the link in the
description two winners are randomly
selected and announced every sunday also
in the description i've got a link to my
seven day merch by amazon mini course
it's completely free all i need is your
email address and i'll send you one
lesson a day for seven days
and i've got a great merch by amazon
facebook community that i'd love to have
you in if you're not a member and you
guessed it the link is in the
description last but not least i have a
full merch by amazon course i call it
amazon merch school it shows you how i
went from tier 10 all the way to tier
200 000 and made over 750 000 in sales
to date you can learn everything i know
about merch by amazon in this course if
you want to learn more there's a link in
the description thank you guys for
watching please drop a like on the video
if it helped and subscribe if you're not
already and i will see you at the next
one
you