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Intellectual Property Policy

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Every Rubytee T-shirt starts with a design, and designs are intellectual property. This policy explains who owns the content on rubytee.com, what you are welcome to do with it, what you may not do, how we respect the rights of other creators and brands, and how to raise a trademark, design or other intellectual property concern with us. For copyright notices specifically, please use the process on our DMCA page.

At a glance

  • The Rubytee name, logo, designs, product photos and text belong to Rubytee or our licensors.
  • You are welcome to share links to our pages and to post photos of yourself wearing our shirts.
  • You may not copy our designs onto other products or reuse our images and text to sell anything.
  • We only sell designs created for us or used under licence, and we do not sell unofficial brand merchandise.
  • Report concerns to support@rubytee.com; we acknowledge within 1 business day and review within 5 business days.

1. What we own

All content on rubytee.com is owned by Rubytee or used with permission from its owners. That includes:

  • the Rubytee name, wordmark and logo;
  • the artwork and designs printed on our T-shirts, including graphics, illustrations, lettering and layouts;
  • product photographs, mock-ups and lifestyle images;
  • product descriptions, category descriptions, size guide content, help pages and policies;
  • the design, structure and code of the website.

This content is protected by copyright, trademark and other intellectual property laws in the United States and in other countries, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

2. What buying a shirt gives you

When you buy a Rubytee T-shirt, you own that physical shirt. You can wear it, give it away, resell that individual shirt second-hand or donate it. What you do not receive is any right to the design itself. Buying a shirt does not give you permission to reproduce the design on other shirts, mugs, stickers, posters or digital products, or to sell copies of it, even for a small fundraiser or a club. If you would like to use a Rubytee design in that way, ask us first (section 9).

3. What you are welcome to do

  • Share links to our product pages and collections on social media, in messages or on your own website.
  • Post photos and videos of yourself, your family or your team wearing Rubytee shirts. We love seeing them.
  • Quote a short extract from our pages, such as a sentence from a help article, with a link back to the original page.
  • View and print pages for your personal, non-commercial use, such as printing the size chart to measure a shirt.

4. What you may not do

  • Copy, trace, redraw or reproduce our designs, whether exactly or with small changes, on any product.
  • Use our product photos, mock-ups or descriptions in another online store, marketplace listing or advertisement.
  • Use the Rubytee name or logo, or anything confusingly similar, in a way that suggests you are Rubytee or connected with us, including in domain names, social media handles or ads.
  • Scrape, crawl or bulk-download the site’s content with automated tools, except normal indexing by search engines.
  • Remove or alter copyright notices or watermarks on any of our images.

5. Our trademarks

“Rubytee” and the Rubytee logo are trademarks used by Rubytee to identify our products and our store. Other names, logos and marks that may appear on the site belong to their respective owners. Their appearance on the site does not mean that the owner endorses us or that we are connected with them.

6. How we respect other people’s rights

We sell original designs and designs we are licensed to use. In practice, that means:

  • We do not sell unofficial merchandise for sports teams, leagues, universities, films, television shows, video games, bands or other brands. Our sports, holiday and event designs are original artwork built around themes, not around someone else’s logo.
  • We do not use photographs, illustrations or fonts found online unless we have the right to use them commercially.
  • We do not print images of real, identifiable people on our designs without the rights to do so.
  • If we learn that a design may infringe someone’s rights, we review it promptly and remove it when appropriate, even before any legal process is required.

Short everyday phrases and common themes, such as “best dad ever” or a pumpkin at Halloween, are used by many designers and are not owned by any one person. We still aim for every Rubytee design to have its own original artwork, layout and lettering.

7. How to report an intellectual property concern

If you believe something on rubytee.com infringes your trademark, design right, right of publicity or another intellectual property right, email support@rubytee.com with the subject “IP concern” and include:

  1. Your name, organization (if any) and contact details, and your relationship to the rights owner.
  2. The right you believe is being infringed, for example a trademark registration number and country, or a description of the protected design with a link or image.
  3. The URL of each product or page concerned and, for products, the specific design.
  4. A short explanation of why you believe the material infringes your right.
  5. A statement that the information in your report is accurate and that you are the rights owner or authorized to act for them.

For copyright, please follow the specific requirements on our DMCA page, which ask for a signed statement under penalty of perjury.

8. What happens after you report

Rubytee intellectual property report timeline
Stage What we do Timing
Acknowledgement Confirm receipt and give you a reference. Within 1 business day
Review Compare the material with the right you described; ask questions if needed. Within 5 business days of a complete report
Outcome Remove or change the material if the report is valid, or explain why we disagree. Communicated by email when the review ends
Customer orders If a removed design has open orders, cancel those items and refund customers in full within 7 calendar days. Immediately after removal

We may ask for more information before deciding, for example proof of a trademark registration. We handle every report in good faith and keep your contact details confidential, except where we must share them to respond to a dispute or as required by law.

9. Asking permission to use our content

Journalists, bloggers and partners sometimes ask to use our images or text. If you would like to use Rubytee content beyond what section 3 allows, email support@rubytee.com with the subject “Permission request”, and describe what you want to use, where and for how long. Please wait for written permission before using it. Requests to reproduce our designs on merchandise are generally declined.

10. If you see a copy of our designs elsewhere

If you find a Rubytee design being sold by another store or marketplace seller, we would be grateful if you let us know. Send the link to support@rubytee.com with the subject “Copy spotted”. Shirts bought from other sellers are not covered by our returns, refunds or quality promises, because we cannot vouch for products we did not make or sell.

11. Ideas and feedback

Customers sometimes send us design ideas or suggestions. We appreciate them, but please be aware that we may already be working on similar ideas, and anything you send can be used freely without payment or credit. If you have an idea you want to protect, please do not send it to us. We will never publish your personal information or photos without your permission.

12. Common situations and the answer

What you can and cannot do with Rubytee content
Situation Allowed? Notes
Posting a photo of yourself wearing a Rubytee shirt on social media Yes Tagging or linking to Rubytee is welcome but never required.
Sharing a link to a product page in a group chat Yes Links are always fine.
Printing the size chart to measure a shirt at home Yes Personal, non-commercial use.
Reselling a single Rubytee shirt you bought and no longer wear Yes You own that physical shirt.
Printing a Rubytee design on blank shirts for your team No Order the shirts from us instead, or ask about permission.
Using our product photos in your own online listing No Even if you are reselling a genuine Rubytee shirt, take your own photos.
Writing a review or blog post that quotes a sentence from our site Yes Keep it short and link back to the page.
Registering a social media name that includes “Rubytee” No It could suggest a connection with us.

13. Designs for groups and events

Many customers buy Rubytee shirts for family reunions, birthdays, charity walks and teams. If you love one of our designs and need more shirts than you first ordered, simply place another order; shipping is free. If your group needs a design adapted, for example with a date or a family name added, please contact us before using the design anywhere else. Altering our artwork yourself and having it printed elsewhere is not permitted, but we are always happy to talk about what we can do for your event.

14. International protection

Intellectual property rights are recognized internationally through treaties such as the Berne Convention. Our designs and content are protected in the countries where we sell, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as the United States. Equally, we respect rights registered or recognized in those countries when we review a report, even if the right is not registered in the United States.

15. Fonts, stock elements and licensed artwork

Some designs combine original illustration with licensed elements, such as a typeface or a decorative pattern bought under a commercial licence. In those cases Rubytee holds the licence needed to print and sell the design, but the underlying element still belongs to its creator. That is another reason we ask you not to extract or reuse parts of our designs: doing so could infringe the rights of the original creator as well as ours. If you are a creator and believe one of your licensed elements is being used outside the terms of its licence, please report it as described in section 7 and we will check our licence records.

16. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as our range grows. The date at the top shows the latest version.

17. Contact

For any intellectual property question, email support@rubytee.com or write to Rubytee, 6085 Hogan Dam Road, Valley Springs, CA 95252, United States. See also our Terms of Service and Contact Us.