Society6 is home to an incredibly talented community of artists and surface designers from across the globe, and it's our mission to empower their pursuit of a creative living. Often times, that's by encouraging community members to inspire and elevate one another. Our Community Guidelines exist as ground rules for what is and is not allowed when using the site.
We hope you'll join us in building a community we can all be proud of because, without art, the world would just be boring.
INTEGRITY & AUTHENTICITY
When we started Society6 in 2009, it was a destination for artists to promote and upvote one another's original art. Our earliest artists then requested the ability to sell art prints because fans and customers started visiting the site in droves. That was how the ball got rolling on this once-small website we're so proud of today.
Our community has since grown in unimaginable ways. We have 60+ products available for sale across a wide variety of product categories from home decor and furniture to tech accessories, apparel and more.
We want all of our community members to thrive in our marketplace on the tenets of original artwork, great ideas and creative approaches to surface design. Whether your goal is to earn a cup of coffee a month or cover rent, we want to help get you there!
Ownership of Rights
By creating a Society6 account you retain all rights to the content you publish. You also grant Society6 the right to distribute your content. When you upload killer original pieces, we notice — and part of being in the Society6 family means that you have a dedicated Artist Community Team over at HQ. We hunt down awesome opportunities to get your work further out into the wild through brand partnerships, in-house marketing, influencer campaigns, wholesale partnerships, third party marketplaces, etc. Trust us when we say that we're your biggest fans and advocates!
COPYRIGHT & INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
If you see something say something. Report a concern here.
At Society6 we celebrate original art. Anything that infringes on another's intellectual property rights is not allowed and directly contradicts our mission to help independent artists earn money off their own artwork.
To maintain the best possible experience for everyone (customers included), we reserve the right to remove any user or design, at any time, that breaches our Terms of Service, breaks the law or negatively impacts the overall health of our community. Uck, we hate the bad cop stuff.
Our lawyers would also like us to remind you that this is simply our advice to you to help you avoid legal trouble, but if you have any specific questions or issues you should consult a legal professional.
Copyright
Copyright is a form of intellectual property law that protects the original works in a tangible medium, both published and unpublished. Quite simply, copyright is hugely important because it protects individual and original works of expression.
Trademark
Trademark law governs the use of words, phrases, logos, symbols or a combination of these elements that distinguishes the goods of one party from another. This prevents artists from using distinctive or recognizable marks, symbols, or logos in their own designs (e.g. the Nike® swoosh).
Publicity Rights / Celebrity Likeness
Publicity right means everyone has the right to allow or not allow their name, image or likeness to be used for commercial purposes. As you can probably guess, we do not allow the sale of artwork that uses someone's likeness without their prior written permission. This covers all artwork featuring a celebrity or celebrity's likeness. Unless, of course, you have the proper legal permission from that celebrity — which, if that's the case, can we be friends and hang out?
Fan Art
Fan art is artwork derived from characters or another aspect of an existing work. While these pieces can be truly incredible and may be meant to pay homage to a beloved work, if fan art infringes on others' copyrights, trademarks or rights of publicity it is not permitted here.
Stock Photography
Stock photography is an extremely tricky space. Our thought is this; original artwork is the best kind of artwork. Stock photography is not original. There's an artist behind that photo and, while it may be considered stock photography, the creative property is often theirs. As a community of artists, we hope you can respect the work that went into taking those photos.
Stock photography is also a category of art where licensing can be extremely difficult to track and therefore a dangerous place to “play”. Please carefully check the terms of service where you found the original photos prior to uploading an image to Society6. Even though a photograph might be free to use, the license may still prohibit you from using the unmodified photograph for print-on-demand products. Once a piece of art is uploaded to our site, YOU are legally responsible for any consequences that may come from selling it.
For instance, Unsplash is a website dedicated to sharing copyright-free photography. Unsplash's Terms of Service indicate that Unsplash photos cannot be sold on print on-demand services, such as Society6, unless the photos have been modified from their original use. If a modification can be automated, it is not permitted by Unsplash. Overlaying filters, simple text, and cropping can all easily be automated, and therefore are not considered modifications.
For more information, please read our Copyright and Trademark Policy.
PROHIBITED CONTENT
If you see something say something. Report a concern here.
Society6 is open platform and we encourage artists to express themselves and push boundaries. That said, out of respect for our community as a whole some subject matter is prohibited on Society6.
Listed below are examples of the types of content that are not permitted on the site and the posting of such content is grounds for account suspension. You are not permitted to post artwork, titles, tags, descriptions, or other content that is:
Graphic or violent
Hateful
Racist
Sexually violent
Obscene
Pornographic
Child Exploitation
Abusive
Discriminatory
Derogatory
Religiously offensive
Illegal Activity
Deceptive
In instances where a design features subject matter that may not be suitable for some audiences, during the upload process, artists can and should mark this content as mature if it could be considered inappropriate. Mature content that is not flagged appropriately may be subject to removal.
If you come across a design or Artist Shop that features content that is in violation of these guidelines, you may report this to our team for review.
SITE ETIQUETTE
Don't worry, we're not going over where the soup spoon goes in relation to the dessert fork. Can't we all just eat with whatever? In this section, rather, we want to dive into what we expect from everyone as we interact with each other on the site.
Generally speaking, treat others as you wish to be treated. We hope that most of what is outlined below strikes you as obvious and probably could've been left unsaid, but we're going to say it anyway.
Age Requirement
To set up a Society6 account you must be at least 18 years old.
Account Information
When creating an account you must provide accurate, complete and updated information.
Multiple Accounts
We believe there are acceptable and unacceptable cases for multiple accounts.
Acceptable cases are when someone would like to delineate between different mediums, for instance, an illustrator who is also a photographer.
Unacceptable cases are when someone creates multiple accounts to gain an unfair advantage over other community members. We want to keep the playing field level for everyone.
Harassment
We’re a community of artists and their customers and creative self-expression is at the core of what we do. Harassment can be, but is not limited to the following and is absolutely not tolerated.
Making negative, abusive and/or threatening comments.
Impersonating other artists online by sending an inflammatory, controversial or enticing message which causes others to respond negatively to the victim.
Spamming other community members with unsolicited or offensive content.
If you feel yourself or someone else on the receiving end of harassment, please contact us to report your concern.
Bots & Fake Accounts
Some robots are cool (Roombas). These bots are not. If we identify that an artist is using a bot, or multiple accounts, to gain an unfair advantage over other community members, we may suspend that account and all other associated accounts immediately. We reserve the right to freeze payments and lock account access. If you believe you've identified one of these accounts, please contact us so our Artist Community Team can review.
Spam & Unsolicited Self-Promotion
Artists may self-promote in their own parts of the site (i.e. Artist Shop about section), but should refrain from uninvited self-promotion outside of these areas. For example, members should not self-promote in the comments under another member’s work. Please let us know if you see anything out of line.
Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is the act of intentionally adding irrelevant keywords to a design. Relevant titles and keywords (tags) rule the land. Be advised, our site's algorithm penalizes keyword stuffing, so be intentional in your titles, tags and descriptions. Less relevant tags means it will be less likely you'll appear in search results.
Promoting Artwork
Show your favs some love! In the upper right corner of every product page, there's a little heart icon. Clicking that heart is an excellent way to let another artist know you like their work. The other great thing about promoted artwork is it creates a permanent log of all your favorite pieces, which are accessible in the future by hovering over your avatar in the header of the site.
Repeat Infringement
Users who are found to have multiple works that infringe on the intellectual property rights of a third party are subject to suspension at the sole discretion of the Society6 team. All accounts associated with a user may also be suspended.
Social Media & Using the Society6 Brand
The Society6 logo and brand name are trademarks of Society6 and cannot be used without express written permission. Use of the Society6 name in personal email addresses, social media usernames, Society6 account usernames, etc. is not permitted. That said, we encourage our artists to share their work on their own channels and we love being in tagged in your posts.
REPORTING A CONCERN
Society6 is proud to be an open platform that celebrates creative expression from artists of all levels and from around the world. If you see content or behavior that you feel is unacceptable per our Community Standards and/or Terms of Service, you may contact our team.
Reporting Intellectual Property Infringement
As mentioned above, we ask all our users to respect the rights of their fellow creatives, not only because they’re bound by law, but the success of a creative community relies on the integrity of those who are a part of it. When uploading artwork, Society6 users acknowledge and agree that they own all rights to the contents of their artwork or have have secured all necessary permissions to all elements appearing in their artwork.
We do not tolerate infringement of intellectual property rights. For any questions or for information on how to report an infringement please review our full Copyright and Trademark Policy or contact us here.
Reporting A Bug
We don’t like bugs either. If you can help us squash them, you’re helping everyone benefit from a site running at 100%. Report a bug here.
We are always around to support you! If anything is unclear or you want to discuss our Community Standards in further detail, contact us.
For answers to frequently asked questions, please visit our Artist FAQs.
