Selling panel prints purchased from Wish

[Soldier boy]

It is my intention to purchase panel prints from WISH, mount them and sell them on, will I be infringing on copyright, there’s no artist recognition on the items themselves, however they do come from China???

[AndyJ]

Hi Soldier boy,

There would be no copyright infringement in mounting and then reselling these prints. This is permitted under something called the exhaustion of rights doctrine, which says that once an item subject to copyright has been lawfully sold, the copyright owner's right to control the distribution of the item is ended (exhausted). Although this doctrine was formally introduced to UK law as a result of an EU Directive (Article 4 of the Information Society Directive 2001/29 EC) it is now firmly embedded in UK jurisprudence and won't be affected by Brexit.

Since the artist's name is not visible anywhere on the item, you do not need to acknowledge it (see section 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988).