Private-label stationery: who owns what

Putting your shop's name on someone else's design raises a fair question: what exactly do you own afterwards? The short answer is that both sides keep their own contribution, and neither side may take the other's and go elsewhere with it. This guide sets out where the line falls.

The three-line version

• The shop keeps the rights to its own template or base design.
• You keep the rights to the content you upload — your names, text, photos, logos, artwork.
• Neither party may resell or redistribute the other's contribution outside your order.

Everything below is detail on those three lines. The binding version is the IP & DMCA policy.

What you get when you order

A wholesale order buys you the printed pieces. It does not buy the artwork.

That distinction matters most on reorders and adaptations. You can reorder the same design. You cannot take the maker's pattern to a different printer, put it on a product they didn't list, or license it onward — that artwork is still theirs, exactly as it was before you ordered.

What is yours stays yours. If you upload your logo, your photograph, or your own copy, uploading it doesn't hand it over. You grant the shop making your order a limited licence to use your content only to produce and fulfil that order. They may not reuse or resell it beyond your order.

So a finished private-label pad is genuinely two contributions sitting on one sheet, each still owned by whoever brought it.

What you're promising when you upload

When you upload artwork, a logo, a photo or text, you confirm you own it or have permission to use it, and that printing it doesn't infringe anyone's rights. That confirmation is part of checkout, not fine print you can skip.

Two cases catch people out:

Fonts. A typeface you licensed for on-screen use may not be licensed for commercial print or for redistribution in a print file. Check the licence before uploading a logo built on one.

Photographs of people. If your upload includes a photograph or the likeness of an identifiable person, you're confirming you have that person's permission — including publicity, privacy and model-release rights — and where the person is a minor, permission from a parent or legal guardian. An order whose content appears to use someone's image without permission can be declined or removed. Don't put a face on a product without asking the face first.

What the maker is promising you

The obligation runs both ways. Before a shop can publish a listing it must complete an acknowledgment certifying that it owns or has licensed all artwork, fonts and other content in that listing and has the right to sell it.

That's what stands behind a design you buy: a specific, recorded claim by the seller, not a general assumption. If it turns out to be false, the DMCA notice-and-takedown process is how it gets addressed.

Provenance labels

Every listing marks how its artwork was made — hand-drawn or painted, photographic or digital, or AI-generated — and that marking is shown to you before you buy.

The label is enforced, not decorative. Misrepresenting how artwork was created — passing AI-generated work off as hand-drawn, for instance — violates the IP policy and the prohibited-content policy.

For a private-label buyer this is worth reading rather than skimming. If you intend to market the product as hand-made or artist-drawn to your own customers, the provenance label is what tells you whether that claim is true. Repeating a claim the listing doesn't support is your exposure, not the maker's.

What the platform can do with your designs

Why Stationery holds a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, display, render and generate print-ready files from what you upload or create — strictly so the service can function. Rendering a live preview and producing a press-ready PDF are both technically "using" your file, and the licence is what makes that lawful.

Two limits worth knowing. Your content is used in marketing or promotional thumbnails only with your consent. And the licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies that must be retained to complete an order, meet a legal obligation, or resolve a dispute.

Practical guidance

• Buying to resell? You're licensed to sell the pieces you ordered, not the design. Plan reorders through the same maker.
• Uploading a logo? Check its font licence covers commercial print.
• Marketing the product to your customers? Match your claims to the listing's provenance label.
• Want exclusivity on a design? Nothing here grants it. If you need a design nobody else can order, that's a private arrangement to raise with the maker directly.
• Think a listing copies your work? The IP & DMCA policy sets out notice-and-takedown, counter-notification, and the repeat-infringer rules.