The World Service Office recently posted a thorough update to the OA Copyright and Trademark Requests page (formerly the Copyright Requests page) on oa.org to offer the most comprehensive information about how and when registered OA groups and service bodies may use and reproduce bookstore literature, Lifeline stories, logos, and other resources that are the intellectual property of OA, Inc. If you have questions about using and sharing OA materials for your workshop, social media, or service body logo, this page has your answers.
OA’s position has long been to maintain a balance: we want to strengthen our Fifth Tradition by enabling our Fellowship to carry the OA message with as few barriers as possible, yet we must also safeguard OA’s intellectual assets to maintain our Sixth and Seventh Traditions and our legal copyrights and trademarks. To this end, we make as much material available as we can for registered OA service bodies and groups to use without requiring written permissions (so long as OA is appropriately credited) and we restrict usage and deny reprint requests when it is necessary.
We invite you to read and reference our updated Copyright and Trademarks web page when you have questions about using OA materials.
For information about lawfully using non-OA materials, such as stock images for your service body website, see the recently updated Guidelines for Using Copyrighted Materials and Trademarks, which includes answers to many frequently asked questions that can quickly help you decide whether and how to use images and other materials found online. There’s even a fun quiz at the end to test your knowledge. Check it out!