Version: 1.0
Effective Date: October 1, 2026
StoryToShop LLC · Spicewood, TX 78669 · legal@storytoshop.ai
Also referred to as the Originality & Human-Created Products Policy. Incorporated into the StoryToShop Seller Agreement under Section 46 as the "Product Originality Policy." This Policy provides operational detail and examples for Sections 11 through 15 of the Seller Agreement. It interprets those Sections; it does not expand or narrow them. Legal copyright and trademark complaints are handled under the separate IP & DMCA Takedown Policy.
1. Core Ownership Requirement
StoryToShop LLC ("StoryToShop") is built on authentic commerce and creative integrity. Every item listed on a StoryToShop storefront must be designed, produced, curated, or distributed under explicit legal authorization by the Seller.
Sellers warrant that all products, images, text, and brand assets uploaded to StoryToShop are original or fully licensed.
2. Prohibition on Counterfeit and Infringing Goods
Sellers are strictly prohibited from listing, offering, or selling:
- Counterfeit items, replicas, unauthorized knock-offs, or bootleg goods.
- Products bearing third-party trademarks, logos, brand names, or protected symbols without verified written authorization or valid commercial licensing.
- Items containing copyrighted visual art, graphic designs, written copy, or multimedia assets belonging to third parties without express rights.
3. Licensing and Authorization Proof
StoryToShop may request proof of legal ownership or licensing at any time. On request, Sellers must supply verifiable documentation within five (5) business days, which may include:
- Invoices from authorized manufacturers or brand distributors;
- Written licensing agreements or commercial permission letters; or
- Proof of registered trademark or copyright ownership.
Failure to provide satisfactory proof within the stated period will result in listing removal and may result in storefront suspension.
4. Human-Created Product Standard
This is StoryToShop's defining marketplace standard.
4.1 The rule
The creative expression a customer is purchasing must originate from human authorship. Generative AI may not create, or substantially create, the artistic or creative expression being sold.
This applies to artwork, illustration, graphic design, surface and textile design, patterns, creative writing, books and manuscripts, digital creative products, photography, music, voice recordings, video, book covers, merchandise artwork, and any other creative expression offered as part of a product.
4.2 What may not be sold
- Artwork, illustrations, or designs substantially generated by AI;
- Merchandise bearing substantially AI-generated artwork;
- Substantially AI-generated photography offered as creative work;
- Digital creative products consisting primarily of AI-generated output;
- Substantially AI-generated books or creative written works;
- AI-generated music, voice, or video sold as original creative work;
- AI-generated imitations of another creator's work; or
- Products produced by feeding another creator's work into an AI system for unauthorized commercial transformation.
4.3 Editing AI output does not make it compliant
AI-generated creative output does not become acceptable because a Seller changed the colors, changed the typography, redrew small portions, manually retouched it, combined multiple generations, passed it through a second AI system, traced it, used it as an under-drawing or base layer, or made minor changes to someone else's AI-transformed work.
4.4 Listing imagery
Generative-AI imagery may not be used as product photography or as listing imagery that represents or depicts the product being sold. Listing images must truthfully represent the real product.
Where a physical product is made to order and no photograph of the finished item yet exists, a Seller may use a rendering, prototype photograph, or template mockup of the Seller's own design, provided it is accurate and is labeled in the listing as a mockup or rendering.
4.5 A note on why
Many marketplaces permit AI-generated products with a disclosure label. StoryToShop does not. This standard is the reason a number of Sellers choose this marketplace, and it is enforced.
5. Assistive Creative Technology — What Is Allowed
Using technology in a creative workflow does not make a product AI-generated. Assistive technology may help you execute, prepare, edit, or present human-created work. It may not replace the human authorship of the creative expression being sold.
The following are permitted, provided the creative expression remains human-created and any listing image truthfully represents the actual product:
- Cropping, straightening, resizing, and reformatting
- Exposure, contrast, white-balance, and color correction
- Masking and selection tools, including automated masking
- Noise reduction, sharpening, and upscaling
- Spot healing and removal of dust, sensor artifacts, stray threads, and reflections
- Background removal, replacement with a plain or studio background, and background cleanup
- Vectorizing, tracing, or digitizing your own original artwork
- Compositing your own original design onto an accurate product mockup or template
- Automated layout, formatting, typesetting, and file preparation
- Accessibility tools, including alt-text assistance, transcription, and captioning
- Spelling, grammar, proofreading, and editorial assistance applied to your own writing
The presence of AI or machine-learning technology inside professional creative software does not by itself violate this Policy. Generative fill, content-aware removal, AI denoise, automatic subject selection and similar features in mainstream design and photo tools are assistive when used on your own work as described above. The question is always who created the creative expression the customer is buying.
6. Permitted Business Uses of AI
Sellers may freely use AI-assisted tools to run their businesses, including for:
marketing strategy · promotional concepts · advertising · copy drafting · SEO · keyword research · market research · analytics · inventory planning · scheduling · bookkeeping and administration · customer-service drafting
AI-assisted promotional material must not falsely depict a product, mislead a customer about what is being sold, or infringe another person's rights.
7. Proof of Human Creation
StoryToShop does not require Sellers to maintain a permanent evidentiary file as a condition of selling.
Where StoryToShop has a credible reason to question whether a product meets the Human-Created Product Standard, StoryToShop may request reasonable supporting information. Depending on the medium, that may include sketches, drafts, layered or source files, RAW photographs, progress photographs, time-lapse recordings, manuscript drafts, design files, production records, correspondence with a production partner, or timestamps.
StoryToShop will say what is being requested and allow a reasonable period to respond. StoryToShop considers all available evidence, including publication history and development timelines. Failure to provide requested information is a factor in the review; it is not by itself treated as proof of a violation.
StoryToShop will not provide a Seller's private source files to a complaining party, and will use submitted materials only for marketplace review, fraud prevention, legal compliance, and related trust-and-safety purposes.
8. Creator Integrity — Copycat Standard
8.1 The standard. StoryToShop's originality standards may be more protective of creators than the minimum requirements of intellectual-property law. After human review, StoryToShop may remove or restrict a listing, or take account action, where it reasonably determines that a Seller materially copied or deliberately imitated another creator's original expression, product presentation, branding, packaging, or distinctive creative material.
A product may fail StoryToShop's originality standards even where StoryToShop is not determining that legal copyright or trademark infringement occurred.
8.2 This is not a legal ruling. A Creator Integrity decision is a private marketplace-policy decision. It is not a judicial determination or a finding that copyright, trademark, trade dress, patent, or any other legal right was infringed.
8.3 What StoryToShop considers. Substantial similarity in original expression · unusually close composition or arrangement · replication of distinctive details · repeated copying across multiple products · copied product photography · copied packaging · copied branding or naming · copied original wording · documented access to the earlier work · patterns of imitation · development records and source files · publication dates.
8.4 What no Seller owns. StoryToShop will not remove a listing solely because it shares another Seller's:
artistic style · medium · technique · aesthetic · genre · subject matter · common motifs · trends · functional design elements · ideas or concepts · public-domain material · generally available templates and industry conventions
Working within a popular style, trend, category, or subject matter is not a violation. StoryToShop does not grant any Seller exclusive marketplace ownership over a style or an aesthetic. This review is directed at copying of original expression, not at shared aesthetics.
9. Creator Integrity Complaints
9.1 How to file. Submit a Creator Integrity complaint through the StoryToShop complaint form, including:
- Identification of the original work;
- Identification of the disputed listing;
- An explanation of the claimed copying; and
- Reasonably available supporting evidence, such as publication dates, source files, or development records.
9.2 How it is handled. StoryToShop conducts an initial human review. Where circumstances reasonably permit, the responding Seller is given an opportunity to respond before a Material Enforcement Action is finalized. StoryToShop may request additional information from either party, then makes a marketplace-policy determination under Section 8 of this Policy.
9.3 Decision and appeal. Material enforcement decisions are communicated to the affected Seller with a meaningful explanation, subject to legal, safety, fraud, and confidentiality limits. The Seller may appeal within fourteen (14) days under Section 34 of the Seller Agreement.
9.4 Immediate action. StoryToShop may act before receiving a Seller response where reasonably necessary to address fraud, safety risk, counterfeit goods, legal requirements, payment provider requirements, or serious marketplace abuse.
9.5 Abuse of the process. Knowingly false, retaliatory, fraudulent, or abusive complaints may themselves result in enforcement against the complaining party, up to and including termination.
9.6 No duty to monitor. StoryToShop's authority to enforce these standards does not create a duty to monitor every listing or discover every instance of copying, and a decision not to act in a particular case is not a waiver of StoryToShop's rights.
10. Production Partners and Resale
Using a legitimate print-on-demand service, manufacturer, printer, or fulfillment partner for a Seller's own original design is permitted, and must be disclosed where the Seller Agreement or the Seller Performance Standards require disclosure.
Operating as a genuine curated boutique reselling authentic third-party branded goods is permitted, provided the Seller has the right to resell them, the goods are genuine, and the Seller does not represent them as personally created or handmade.
Anonymous generic dropshipping and catalog arbitrage are prohibited, as defined in Section 9.6 of the Seller Agreement.
11. Audit and Enforcement
StoryToShop uses automated scanning and human review to detect originality and intellectual-property violations. Automated systems flag and route; people make the final decisions.
Repeated or egregious violations of this Policy will result in termination of the Seller's account and, where appropriate, referral to the affected rights holder or to legal authorities.
Questions about this Policy: legal@storytoshop.ai
To report a copyright or trademark matter as a legal claim, see the IP & DMCA Takedown Policy.