Images on products, packaging, tags and promotional pictures must be made by you or bought under a license; changing the color or adding an icon doesn't make it "altered"

Cost

Licenses from legitimate image libraries start at a few dozen CNY per image. Commissioning original design costs a few hundred to a few thousand CNY. For every image used on a product, keep a license record and the purchase record. The hard part is not using images picked up casually from the internet.

What you get

The Copyright Law (著作权法) lists "using a work by adaptation, translation, annotation and similar means without the copyright holder's permission" as infringement, alongside direct copying. So changing the color of the original image, swapping the background or adding your own icon is still using someone else's work without permission. This is where the bar for a prison sentence lies: to make money, printing and selling an artwork (copying and distributing it) without the permission of its copyright holder. Three figures make it a crime. Illegal gains of 30,000 CNY. Or business done of 50,000 CNY (illegal business amount). Or copies printed adding up to 500 pieces (sheets). Reaching any one of these is the crime of infringing copyright. The sentence is up to 3 years, with a fine on top or a fine alone. Reaching ten times the standard brings 3 to 10 years. Merely selling infringing goods that someone else printed, with gains of 50,000 CNY or more or sales of 100,000 CNY or more, is the crime of selling infringing copies, with up to 5 years. Trademarks work the same way: using a mark similar to a registered trademark on the same goods, or the same or a similar mark on similar goods, "likely to cause confusion" is itself within infringement. "Similar" is an infringing situation named in the statute, and a small change is still infringement (nationwide, with the judicial interpretation in effect from April 26, 2025)

Notes

There are three common pitfalls. One is printing cartoon characters and celebrity pictures found online on clothes, mugs and phone cases. Another is fonts: most commercial fonts need a separate license, and a free preview is not free commercial use. The third is a design made for a client that includes unlicensed material, where the responsibility still falls on the person selling the goods. To keep it simple, use a library with commercial licenses and save the license page. Or have the designer state in the contract where the material came from and how far the license extends, with the designer responsible if something goes wrong. Besides prison, there are civil damages and administrative fines: where the public interest is harmed, illegal gains can be confiscated and a fine of 1 to 5 times the illegal business amount imposed. For checking trademarks before production, see §12.19 (run the sample through a mass-production checklist). In the other direction, if your own images are used by others, you defend your rights under the same rules. For the criminal line on posting other people's comics and films online and earning from ads or membership fees, see §9.24 (fan-translated comics and reposted films and shows).

Evidence grade

A : Specific numbers from meta-analyses, large cohorts or randomized trials; for law and policy, the statute or official text.

Sources

1. 全国人大常委会 (2020). 著作权法（2020 年修正，第五十二条第六项、第五十三条）. http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c2/c30834/202011/t20201119_308796.html
2. 全国人大常委会 (2020). 刑法修正案（十一）（第二十、二十一项，即刑法第二百一十七、二百一十八条）. https://www.spp.gov.cn/zdgz/202012/t20201227_503682.shtml
3. 最高人民法院、最高人民检察院 (2025). 关于办理侵犯知识产权刑事案件适用法律若干问题的解释（法释〔2025〕5 号）. https://www.spp.gov.cn/xwfbh/wsfbt/202504/t20250424_693977.shtml
4. 全国人大常委会 (2019). 商标法（2019 年修正，第五十七条第二项；2026 年修订后为第七十二条第二项）. https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2019/7/30/art_95_28179.html

Translated from the Chinese original. Original book, section 12, tip 21. This section describes legal rules, mostly mainland China’s. It is general information, not legal advice; for your own case, talk to a lawyer. Content may be out of date and rules differ by place. When you actually deal with an agency, a doctor or a court, follow what local officials, doctors and lawyers tell you. Disclaimer