Selling AI-made digital products in 2026: Etsy's disclosure rules, the EU AI Act from 2 August, and what a UK seller must label

On 2 August 2026 Article 50 of the EU AI Act started to apply. From that date, according to the European Commission's own guidance page, providers of generative AI must mark their outputs as machine-generated, and anyone who publishes a deep fake to an EU audience must say so at first exposure. The rule reaches businesses outside the EU whenever their AI output is used inside it, and the maximum fine is £15 million or 3% of worldwide turnover, whichever is higher.

Two years earlier, on 9 July 2024, Etsy had already rewritten its rules. Its Creativity Standards, covered that day by TechCrunch, put seller-prompted AI work into a category called "Designed by a seller", required disclosure in the listing description, and banned the sale of AI prompt bundles outright. Between those two dates the UK government published a report proposing to remove copyright protection for wholly computer-generated works.

If you are a UK professional planning to sell a planner, template or guide that AI helped you make, these three documents decide what you must label, where, and what you can claim to own. This post sets them out with dates and sources, gives a platform-by-platform table, and ends with the checklist I would use before listing anything.

Etsy: allowed, labelled, and policed

Etsy's position has been stable since July 2024 and it is the strictest of the mainstream marketplaces. Under the Creativity Standards, every listing carries one of four labels: made by a seller, designed by a seller, sourced by a seller, or handpicked by a seller. Entrepreneur reported on the launch day that seller-prompted AI art belongs under "designed by", and TechCrunch quoted the policy line directly: sellers "must disclose within their listing description if an item is created with the use of AI". Etsy's chief executive at the time, Josh Silverman, framed it as keeping the marketplace human rather than as a ban.

Three things follow for a digital seller. A planner whose illustrations came from an image model is permitted, provided the description says so and the label is "designed by" rather than "made by". A bundle of prompts is not permitted at all; those listings were removed from the launch date. And the seller must have done the prompting: trade guides such as iscompliant and Bulkmockup report that in June 2025 Etsy tightened the standard so that items must be "based on a seller's original design", closing the route of buying someone else's prompt pack and reselling the output. That June 2025 wording comes from trade sites rather than an Etsy press release, so check the live policy.

Several seller blogs published removal counts for early 2026. Etsy has not published any such figures and none of the blogs cites a source, so this post does not repeat them. What is on the record is direction of travel: in Etsy's spring and summer 2026 trend report on 17 March 2026, trend expert Dayna Isom Johnson said shoppers are "stepping away from AI-overload". A marketplace that says that in public is not going to loosen its labelling rules.

The EU AI Act: what a UK seller actually has to do

Article 50 creates four transparency duties, and only two of them touch a digital product seller. The first sits with providers: the companies that build the models must mark their outputs in a machine-readable way. That duty is theirs, not yours, and systems already on the market before 2 August 2026 have until 2 December 2026 to meet it. The Digital Omnibus in force from 27 July 2026 delayed the high-risk rules to December 2027 but, according to Gibson Dunn, left Article 50 untouched.

The second duty sits with deployers, which is what you become when you publish AI output as part of a business. Under Article 50(4) a deployer must disclose, clearly and at first exposure, any deep fake shown to people in the EU. The Act's definition, quoted by Kirkland & Ellis in its 17 February 2026 note on the draft code of practice, is any image, audio or video created or modified by AI that imitates real people, objects, places, entities or events in a way that could mislead someone into thinking it is genuine. There is a separate duty for AI-generated text published to inform the public on matters of public interest, which does not apply to a sales page.

Does it reach a UK seller at all? Yes, if EU buyers can see the content. The Commission's FAQ says providers outside the EU are covered where the output is used in the EU, and Cooley's note of 3 August 2026 records that the same applies to deployers whose outputs reach European users. A Gumroad page or Etsy shop selling to Ireland, France or Germany is reaching European users. The obligation is on you, not the marketplace, and the Commission's guidelines say a deployer cannot rely on the provider's invisible watermark alone. Content published before 2 August 2026 does not need retroactive labels.

Shopify and the platforms that say nothing

Shopify has no AI labelling rule of its own. Its Terms of Service, last updated 1 August 2026, make the merchant responsible for the store, its materials and compliance with all applicable laws, but contain no clause on AI-generated content. Its Acceptable Use Policy does not mention AI, and the help page for Shopify Magic, its built-in AI writing and image tool, says nothing about disclosing what the tool produced. Shopify hands you the tool and the liability in the same motion.

Notion's Marketplace guidelines require original content and accurate listings but say nothing about AI. Redbubble permits AI art if it is original and, according to PrintKK's guide of October 2024, recommends saying so in the description. Amazon requires the metadata tag "contains-synthetic-performer" on any photorealistic AI-generated person in listing media, according to Nightjar's platform guide updated 16 September 2026 citing Amazon Seller Central. The platforms that sell physical goods have written rules, the platforms that sell files mostly have not, and the law now sits above all of them.

One caveat on the table: the Etsy and Amazon rows were read through trade press and help pages rather than live policy text, and the EU row describes the law as it stood on 19 September 2026, before any enforcement decision has been published. Check the wording in your seller dashboard before listing.

Who owns it: the UK copyright position

This is the part with the least certainty, and it should be labelled as such. Section 9(3) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 says that where a work is computer-generated with no human author, the author is the person who made the arrangements necessary for its creation. A&O Shearman's note of 20 August 2024 points out two problems: protection lasts only 50 years rather than life plus 70, and the provision sits awkwardly with the requirement that a work be original, which the courts tie to human creative choices. Ownership, the firm says, is decided case by case.

On 18 March 2026 the government published its Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, required under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. On computer-generated works it states: "we propose that this specific type of protection should be removed, while copyright should continue to protect works created with AI assistance." No bill has followed. Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer's March 2026 summary reads the report as concluding that more evidence is needed before anything changes, and that section 9(3) could go. The same report proposes working with industry on best practice for labelling AI-generated content rather than legislating for it.

The live case is Getty Images v Stability AI. The High Court dismissed Getty's secondary infringement claim on 4 November 2025, according to Pinsent Masons; permission to appeal was granted on 16 December 2025, Taylor Wessing reported, and as of September 2026 the Court of Appeal has not ruled. Whichever way it goes, the case concerns the training of models, not the ownership of what you generate with them.

A tool for expertise, not a substitute for it

That rule is also the commercial one. A product that is only AI output has three weaknesses at once: it may carry no copyright, it must be labelled as AI on the platforms that check, and it competes with everyone who can type the same prompt. A product built on something you actually know, where AI drafted a checklist you then corrected from experience, has none of those weaknesses. The label is honest, the value is yours, and the copyright in your selection, arrangement and edits is the ordinary human kind.

The fee maths for digital products in the previous post makes the same point from the other side: a £25 product that sells to a hundred people a month is worth building, and a £4 generic file that sells to nobody is not. AI shortens the build. It does not create the reason to buy. Finding that reason is the subject of which digital product should you build.

The labelling checklist

None of this should put you off using the tools. It should put you off building a product that is nothing but the tools. The seller who uses AI to draft, then corrects from experience, labels honestly and keeps the record, is in the strongest position on every platform and under every law above. The process for packaging what you know has not changed; the labelling around it has.

This article is general information, not legal, financial or tax advice. Platform policies and the interpretation of the EU AI Act and UK copyright law are changing; check the live policy pages, the European Commission's Article 50 guidance and GOV.UK before you rely on anything here, and take independent legal advice for your own circumstances.

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