Overview

Amazon enforces strict intellectual property policies, and copyright is one of the most common areas where sellers run into trouble. Whether you're listing a new product, uploading images, or reselling items, understanding how copyright law applies to your Amazon business is essential to keeping your account in good standing.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• Copyright protects original creative works — This includes photos, videos, written descriptions, books, music, and other creative content. If someone created it, it's likely protected by copyright law.
• You generally own what you create — If you personally took a product photo or filmed a video, you typically hold the copyright to that content and can use it freely on your listings.
• You cannot freely use others' content — Downloading images or videos from another seller's listing or an external website and uploading them to your own detail page is likely a copyright violation unless you have explicit permission from the rights holder.
• Uploading content grants Amazon a license — When you add your copyrighted images or videos to a product detail page, you grant Amazon and its affiliates a license to use that material. Other sellers may also list on that same detail page, even after you stop selling the product.
• The DMCA governs online copyright disputes — The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is the U.S. law that handles online copyright enforcement. It applies specifically to copyrights, not trademarks or patents.

How Copyright Works in Practice

Copyright law was designed to encourage the creation of original works by giving creators exclusive rights over how their content is used. To qualify for protection, a work must be created by an identifiable author and contain some degree of creativity. For Amazon sellers, this most commonly applies to product photography, listing copy, and video content. If you are the original creator, the copyright is yours by default — no formal registration is required for basic protection, though registration strengthens your legal position in disputes.

A common mistake sellers make is copying product images from a brand's official listing or another seller's page. Even if you're selling the same product, the photos themselves are copyrighted by whoever took them. The brand owner who photographed their products owns those images, and reusing them without permission can trigger an intellectual property complaint against your account.