Who Owns What in a Managed Line: Your Art, Your Accounts and What Brakebee Builds

Handing someone the online side of your art business is a big step. Your name, your art and years of work are on the line, so you should know who owns what before you start. Every managed line follows one rule:¹,²

> What you bring in stays yours, and Brakebee manages it. What Brakebee builds belongs to Brakebee, and Brakebee stops using it for your line when the partnership ends.

This guide explains how that rule applies to each part of your line. Your signed agreement is the final word on the details.

Your art and its copyright

You keep the copyright to your original work, before, during and after the partnership.² During the partnership you give Brakebee permission to use your art to run your line: to photograph it, list it, post it, email it and make products from it. That permission lets us do the work. It never transfers your copyright to Brakebee.

Your name and your existing accounts

Your name, your existing social accounts and any website and domain you already own stay yours.² If you want us to post to your Instagram or manage your site, you give us access, ideally through the platform's own team tools. Your handles, followers and the posts you made remain yours, and access comes back to you if you leave.

Your contacts

Booth sign-up sheets, past buyers and old email lists are valuable, and the list you share stays yours.² Brakebee uses a copy to email those people about your line during the partnership, and every email lets a reader unsubscribe.

What Brakebee builds

Brakebee owns what it creates for your line.² That includes:

• shops and seller accounts Brakebee opens, such as an Etsy shop for your line
• social accounts Brakebee opens for your line
• the listings, product photos, mockups and copy Brakebee produces
• the website Brakebee builds for your line on its platform
• Brakebee's own email list, including people who sign up or buy through Brakebee channels

When the partnership ends, Brakebee stops using these to sell or promote your line.²

Products made from your art

When the print lab turns your art into prints or other products, Brakebee owns the product designs, files and mockups it creates. Your original art inside each product stays yours.² If you leave, your agreement explains your choices for those products.

Selling online during the partnership

During the partnership, Brakebee is your online seller for the products in your line. You don't sell those products online elsewhere, yourself or through another service.² Everything outside your line stays open to you:

• in-person sales at art fairs, festivals, markets, galleries, pop-ups and open studios
• custom and commission work
• products that aren't part of your line

Right of first refusal on your body of work

Some artists, later in their careers, sell the rights to their whole body of work to a publisher or licensing company. The managed line agreement includes a right of first refusal for that moment.² If you decide to sell your body of work and receive a genuine written offer, you show it to Brakebee first. Brakebee can match it on the same terms or pass. Brakebee can't make you sell, and there is no bidding.

Selling an original at a festival, taking a commission or selling everyday prints doesn't trigger it. The timing and the full terms sit in your agreement, and we walk through them in the partnership conversation.

If anything here gives you pause, ask us before you sign. That is what the partnership conversation is for.

Next in the series: Is a managed line right for you?

Start a partnership conversation

See the Managed Lines overview

Sources.

¹ Brakebee, Managed Lines page: program scope, ownership summary, organic marketing. brakebee.com/managed-lines, confirmed Oct 15, 2026.

² Brakebee Managed Lines program terms: ownership principle, artist accounts and contacts, Brakebee assets, derivative products, online exclusivity for in-scope products, right of first refusal. Your signed agreement governs.