Angel policies

Honestly, it all sounds like a headache. I'd need a spreadsheet to keep track of who I can use/and how many I've made to keep within their guidelines. No thanks.

Stampers Anonymous changed their Angel Policy and this is what it says-Angel Policy
At Stampers Anonymous, we want you to be able to use our products to create incredible items for your own personal use, but we do have a few restrictions to protect us and our art. Reproduction of any portion of our images, catalog or website is strictly prohibited. No Stampers Anonymous image may be mechanically reproduced or copied by any means including, but not limited to, photocopying, computer scanning and printing, using overhead or opaque projectors for enlarging or hand-copying images, or any other means for resale. Our stamps are NOT available in electronic form and not available as digital downloads.

• Each image must hand stamped and may not be reproduced using any means other than hand stamping.
• You may not photocopy, print, trace, scan, or mass produce any image.
• You may not copy or rent our products, they are for your personal use only.
• You may not use images for logos, trademarks or promotional materials.


Sizzix- A brief overview of our Angel Policy.

Your Craftwork must not be a direct copy of the Sizzix die design or product.

If you are using a Sizzix product or die design for personal sales, you must personally ensure you create this into a project i.e. a card, invite, homeware product and so on in order for it to work in compliance with our Angel Policy. The Die Images are proprietary and/or copyrighted by their respective owners, which means that they may not be copied without permission.

You must not use any Sizzix designs for the use of logos or branding and any projects you create should not be mass produced.

Whilst this a more simplified approach to our Angel Policy, particular care needs to be paid to ensure you are working in accordance with the full and legal version of our policy. This can be viewed here.

Nothing on Ranger's Website about Tim Holtz

Angel Policies change all the time, so I would always check to see if they have been updated before posting an item on Etsy. There is a lot of old information regarding Angel Policies out there. In regards to Tim Holtz, you have to go to the individual websites of where his items are manufactured. Stampers Anonymous, Sizzix, Ranger Ink, Advantus. Not sure where you got your information @breatheflea but it seems out of date.

It sounds to me as if the Stamper’s Anonymous angel policy’s “personal use” statement means no mass production, such as for an Etsy store or craft fairs, etc. Not all companies are that strict.

I assume that from what I’ve seen of the various angel policies that I’ve read, that the biggest issue for most companies is digital reproduction, which would allow someone to produce in large quantities, but without giving any compensation to the company that made the stamp, or whatever you are using. I don’t blame the companies for that. And as a customer, if I am paying for a hand made card, I would want it to be hand made, not made once and parts digitally copied and mass produced. Copied and printed materials aren’t going to be quite the same. The image will be slightly less defined, and the colors slightly off from the original.

For what it’s worth, I use one company more than any other when I make cards, and that is Queen & Co., because their Foundation dies make it so easy to make cards. I often add a stamped character from another company to embellish. I was curious as to what the Queen & Co. angel policy might be, and this is what their website says:

“ What is your angel policy?
Queen & Co encourages our customers to use our products to create handmade cards and creations for sale. We ask that you do not digitally alter or reproduce any of our products. We ask that you do not use any of our images for promotional material. None of our stamped or die cuts images can be sold. We ask that you do not swap our stamped images or die cuts.”

So if you use their products, you need to die cut and/or stamp each piece yourself, and glue the pieces to cards you have designed yourself instead of copying one of their promotional card designs; but it would be very easy to design an easily mass produced card using their products. They only sell kits, which usually include phrase stamps. Some of their die designs are really adorable critters or items (telephone, mailbox, bunny, etc.), and most of their dies have stitch lines.

If I were selling cards using an Etsy store or craft fairs, I would probably use Queen & Co. dies, and/or Silhouette designs for most of each card. I have no affiliation with either of them, but I have bought more of the Queen & Co. dies than from any other company, and I have a Silhouette subscription (which I think also allows me to buy the commercial license at a discount). I might see if any stamp companies offer a more flexible angel policy than SA, that at least lets me hand stamp and color the stamps to go on the cards, but seriously, I could probably manage to make cards for sale just with the Q&Co. dies. You’d want an electronic die cutter like the Gemini, so you wouldn’t have to hand crank everything, though, and if you use stamped images, choose designs that you can color quickly and easily, since most policies don’t allow digital reproductions. And if the stamped images don’t have matching dies, or if you would be stamping and die cutting a lot, you might want the Brother Scan N Cut to cut out stamped and colored images. If you use Silhouette and can get the commercial license for print & cut designs, that would be an easy alternative to stamping, coloring, and cutting out images to add to cards. Not all Silhouette designs have the commercial license option, though, so I’d check before using it on a card that I want to mass produce for sale.

Another company that lets you use their products is Heartfelt Creations, and like many companies, whatever you sell must be hand made, not digitally copied. Here is their angel policy:

“Heartfelt Creations is a full-fledged "Angel" Company. This entitles the owner of Heartfelt Creations products to make projects for personal use or sell as handmade one-of-a-kind creations. Each item must be hand-made. Mechanical, electronic, digital, or any form of reproduction other than hand-made is not allowed.”

The “one of a kind” phrase suggests that they might expect you to vary the design rather than just make the same cards over and over to sell, but I’m not entirely sure about the interpretation of that.

There are a lot of companies out there that let you use their stamps, dies, etc. to make and sell cards, but most of them do require the cards to be hand made rather than mass produced with digital help. Personally, I don’t think that is an unreasonable request, and it doesn’t take that long to find out what any company's angel policy is.

I hope you figure out something that will work for you, since it sounds like you want to sell cards through an Etsy store or craft fairs. I might consider doing it someday, so this thread has been helpful. I have enough stamps, dies, and supplies that I could easily do it, if I had the time and inclination.

Some of Tim Holtz's "makers" have sold items that were made for some of his product line lives.

Blame the lawyers. And copyright laws. And artists who design stamps that would be upset if someone else made more money using their artwork than they do.

We could debate the fairness or unfairness of it, but the laws about selling for profit have come about partly due to people who took advantage of designers.

I do hope to use my arsenal of stamps, dies, and papers someday to make cards to sell, but I will either create my own artwork to use, or abide by the angel policies of those who designed the stamps and dies I want to use. I’m not sure I want to spend extra time designing my own artwork, even though I do have some art ability. I’ll probably just use products made by companies that are more amenable to their products being used on products for sale.

I'm with you, Don, and I don't pay attention to "angel policies."  I've never sold stamped images, but I have sold cards that I've made.  I've never seen any other industry make such a fuss over what you can and can't do with their products once you've purchased them (except Disney, of course, lol).  These policies aren't really enforceable anyway, and I don't know of anyone who has ever been sued for making a card and selling it, regardless of the company's "policy."  In any case, the company would have to clearly indicate this on packaging so the customer is aware before purchasing their products. 

This issue has been debated for many years, and I feel the same way now as I did back when it all started.  I'm not a lawyer, and copyright law is very complicated.  This is just my opinion. 

There was one company policy I seem to remember (sorry, ages ago, I can’t remember who) that seemed to be asking people not to alter their artworks by masking or partial stamping. Maybe that wasn’t what they were really trying to protect against - I would assume they didn’t want people altering the image and then selling it as a new stamp/digital artwork - but it seemed very odd to me as a crafter.

I would hope that most crafters are not taking advantage of the designers they use since it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. But the people who knock off designs for resale are not going to care about any angel policies anyway. I’ve never heard of anyone being flagged on Etsy or anywhere for selling the kinds of handmade cards most of us make.

Hi. I jumped on here to see if anyone had a better understanding of angel policies as I'd been tearing out my hair! I was thinking of making toppers to sell from my scraps with my many dies but now I might just sell bags of scraps on a stash selling site instead!

dewryce In the case of stamps and dies, artist creates and sells or licenses to a producer, who in turn sells to retailers, who sells to end user.
If an artist has an Angel Policy, a written copy should be provided with each item sold.