Copyright law applies to nearly every piece of content we create at Vendasta, from our website to our blog posts to the gifts we make for our partners. We display proper—and prominent—copyright notice on our website site and any other content we produce.
At minimum, these copyright notices read, “© [YEAR] Vendasta.”
At the bottom of every page of our website, we also include a longer notice to make it clear that all rights are reserved.
We respect the copyright of other creators. If we want to use someone else’s copyrighted work, we have to obtain a license from the owners.
A copyright license spells out these terms:
A common license will read something like this:
“You grant Vendasta a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty free license to display, distribute, and publish the Work in our marketing in any medium now known or later developed.”
If you need to get a copyright license for work at Vendasta or if someone outside of Vendasta asks to use our copyrighted work, please contact the legal team.
This is an area where the letter of the law and common practice sometimes differ.
Social media posts often include copyrighted elements like pictures, GIFs, or pieces of writing. If you’re using a copyrighted element in a commercial manner on social media, you should request permission from the copyright holder. Since Vendasta is a company, we defer to the position that our use will be perceived as commercial. But if you’re using it in a more informative or commentary way, like sharing a meme to indicate how you feel about a news story, you may not need to request permission.
Regardless, you should always link to the source of the copyrighted element you’re using, and never make it look like you created work that belongs to someone else.
Vendasta almost always uses original images in our blog posts. If you use an image, photo, or other design element made by someone outside Vendasta, get permission first. Once you have permission, always give the copyright owner credit and link back to the original source.
Images retrieved via Google image search are not licensed for fair use, but many images are available under license through stock photo websites, or open for use under a Creative Commons license. Flickr has a great search feature for images available under Creative Commons licenses.
Instead of the standard “all rights reserved,” some creators choose to make their work available for public use with different levels of attribution required. That’s what we’ve done with this style guide. Find a breakdown of licenses on the Creative Commons website.
Please check with Vendasta’s legal team before making something you created here available under a Creative Commons license. We love to share our work, but we use these licenses sparingly, because we have to protect our intellectual property and trade secrets.
If you’re working on a new product at Vendasta, submit name possibilities to the legal team so they can get a head start on the trademark search. Even if you haven’t used the name yet, we can go ahead and file an Intent to Use application.