Designs offered through the Silhouette Design Store are protected by copyright and are owned by Silhouette America or its licensors. All digital designs are available for personal use (see Section 4 of the Terms of Service). Some digital designs are also available for commercial use by purchasing a commercial license for the specific design in question.
What is a Commercial License?
A commercial license provides you with the ability to use the design within a commercialized setting, so long as the terms of use below are observed.
The following actions are permitted when a commercial license is owned:
- Use the design to create physical projects that are in turn sold
Example: A shirt with the design cut out of heat transfer vinyl and applied to the shirt - Incorporate the design into a digitally created image to display the image commercially
Example: The design is part of a larger graphical advertisement - Incorporate font characters to create digital end-products for sale commercially provided all the following are true:
- The end product has been rasterized, flattened, and/or converted to vector shapes;
- The font file itself is not included or embedded in the end product; and
- The characters of the font cannot be easily extracted, separated, traced, or otherwise used to create new text designs.
- Use the design in marketing efforts, either in print or online visual format, so long as such action does not include providing access to the design file, either in whole or in part.
The following actions are restricted, even if a commercial license is owned:
- Redistribute or sell files in a digital format containing the commercial license image in a way that provides access to use the original design file, either in part or in whole
- Adjust files and then claim them as original creations to bypass the original IP
All Commercial License options include a personal use license and can freely be utilized for personal use, as well. If a commercial license is unavailable for a design, that design is strictly limited to personal use only. It is permissible for individuals to reproduce physical goods using personally licensed images for any individual, organization, or event, so long as it is not with the intent of resale purposes.
Commercial License Cost
The royalty-free license fee is a flat, one-time payment for Unlimited commercial use of the specific individual design. Pricing will vary based on the design type and other select factors.
Purchasing a Commercial License
To purchase a design for commercial use OR to upgrade an already owned design to obtain a Commercial Use license:
- Go to the Silhouette Design Store
- Search for the design in question
- Clicking on the design to view the details pop-up window
- Check the 'Commercial Use' box, if availableNOTE: If the 'Commercial Use' box is greyed out, then a commercial license option is not available for this design
- Add the design to your cart
- Proceed to check out
Commercial License Records
Click here to view commercial licenses that you own on your Silhouette account and have commercial use rights for.
Older Commercial Licenses
For limited-use commercial licenses purchased before January 2018, the following terms apply:
Commercial License options may be available for 1) producing up to 100 units, 2) producing up to 1,000 units, and c) an unlimited option, which allows you to produce an unlimited number of units for commercial purposes.
For instance, if you plan to produce 50 scrapbook page kits using a design from the Silhouette Design Store, you would need to purchase the commercial license allowing "Up to 100" units. If you plan to produce 150 units, you would need to purchase the license type allowing "Up to 1,000".
You can upgrade older commercial licenses to the current default unlimited-use option by following the steps above.