Copyright Policy.
Valerive — operated by S Commerce, Nieuwegein, the Netherlands — designs, photographs and writes about every dress you see on valerive.com. This page sets out, plainly and specifically, who owns what on this site, what you're free to do with it, what you're not, and exactly how to reach us if you believe your own work — or ours — has been used without permission.
Everything on this site belongs to someone. Here's who.
Every dress listing you browse on valerive.com — for example the Zirella Summer Dress, Fairy Maxi Dress, Fransesca Maxi Dress or Serelina Maxi Dress — is described, photographed and presented using content that S Commerce (trading as Valerive) either created in-house, commissioned, or licensed for use on this site. That includes:
Product names, descriptions, fit and fabric notes, size guidance, our FAQs, blog or journal content, and every policy page on this site, including this one, are original written works owned by S Commerce or licensed to us by the copywriters and translators who produced them.
Every product photograph, lifestyle image, model shoot and video clip used on our product pages, collection banners and social channels is either taken by or on behalf of S Commerce, or licensed to us with the right to publish it on valerive.com and in our marketing.
The cut, silhouette, print placement and styling of original Valerive-branded pieces may separately qualify for unregistered design protection under UK and EU/Community design law, independent of the copyright in any photograph of the garment.
The "Valerive" name and logo, our wordmark, and the overall visual identity of this site — including layout, colour palette and typography choices — are brand assets of S Commerce and may be protected as registered or unregistered trade marks and under the law of passing off (UK) or the Handelsnaamwet, the Dutch Trade Names Act (Netherlands).
The selection, arrangement and compilation of our product range, pricing and search results may also be protected as a database in its own right under the UK Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 and the Dutch Databankenwet, separately from the copyright in any individual product page.
Where we use stock photography, fonts, plug-ins or app functionality supplied by another company, that material remains the property of its respective owner and is used by us under a valid licence, not transferred to you by your use of this site.
Browsing and buying, yes. Copying and reselling, no.
By using valerive.com, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable licence to view, browse and use the content on this site — including our product photography and descriptions — for your own personal, non-commercial use: deciding what to buy, sharing a link with a friend, or saving a screenshot to your own private moodboard.
This licence does not transfer any ownership of that content to you, does not extend to any commercial use, and can be withdrawn if it is misused. Try the panel alongside to see how this plays out in practice.
What does the licence cover?
Switch between the two to see how the same content can be used differently.
What you must not do with our content
These restrictions apply to everything on valerive.com — text, photography, video, pricing data, layout and code — unless we have given you our prior written permission to do otherwise.
You may not use bots, scrapers, spiders or any other automated tool to harvest our product data, pricing, images or written content from valerive.com, in whole or in part, for any purpose.
Copying, downloading for republication, printing for distribution, or hosting our text or images on another website or app requires our prior written consent, given by S Commerce in advance and in writing.
Our photography, descriptions and design assets may not be used to advertise, list, or promote any product on another website, marketplace listing, dropshipping store, print-on-demand item or social media shop, regardless of whether the item itself is genuine.
You may not link directly to an individual image file, checkout step or internal page in a way that bypasses our homepage or product pages, or display any part of valerive.com within a frame or embedded window on another site, without our agreement.
Editing, cropping, recolouring, adding your own branding or watermark to, or otherwise altering our photography or written content before using it anywhere is not permitted, even where sharing the unaltered original might otherwise be allowed under Section 6.
Reviews, photos and tags — what happens to them
If you leave a written product review, send us a photo of yourself wearing a Valerive piece, tag @valerive or #wornyourway on social media, or otherwise submit content to us for possible use ("your content"), the following applies.
You keep ownership of your content. By submitting it to us or publicly tagging us, you grant S Commerce a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sub-licensable licence to reproduce, adapt for format, display and use it on valerive.com, in our marketing emails, and across our social media channels, with credit given to you where it is reasonably practical to do so.
You confirm the content is your own original work, that you have the right to share it, that it does not infringe anyone else's copyright, trade mark or privacy rights, and that it does not contain anything unlawful, defamatory or offensive. We may decline to use, or may remove, any submitted content at our discretion.
Want a piece of content removed, or credited differently? Email support@valerive.com with a link to where it appears and we will action it within our standard reply time.
If we say yes, here's how to credit us
Where we have given you specific written permission to reuse a Valerive image or piece of text — for example a press feature, an approved affiliate post, or a stockist agreement — please follow these attribution rules unless our written permission says otherwise:
Caption or credit the content as "Valerive" or "@valerive", and, where the format allows it, link back to https://valerive.com or the specific product page shown.
Use the image or text exactly as supplied, without cropping out our branding, adding your own logo or watermark, or editing colours, wording or composition.
Do not present the content in a way that suggests Valerive endorses your business, product or opinion, unless that has been separately agreed with us in writing.
Where a narrow exception can apply
We are sometimes asked about "fair use" of our content. It's worth being precise here: fair use, as a broad, flexible doctrine, is a feature of United States copyright law and does not apply in either of the two countries this policy covers. UK and Dutch law instead recognise a closed, narrower list of specific exceptions.
Sections 29, 30 and 30A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 permit limited use of copyright material, without our permission, for non-commercial research or private study, criticism or review, quotation, reporting current events, or parody, caricature and pastiche — provided the use is genuinely fair and, other than for parody, is accompanied by sufficient acknowledgement of the source.
The Dutch Auteurswet sets out its own closed list of limitations, including the right of quotation (citaatrecht, article 15a), private use, and parody (article 18b), each subject to its own specific conditions such as acknowledgement of the source and proportionate use of the original work.
If your intended use doesn't clearly fall within one of these specific exceptions, please ask us first at support@valerive.com rather than assuming it's covered.
Notice-and-takedown procedure
If you believe that material on valerive.com infringes your copyright, trade mark or design rights, tell us and we will investigate promptly. Because our store is hosted on Shopify's platform in the United States, we operate a notice procedure aligned with the approach used under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), alongside the routes available to you under UK and Dutch law described below.
A description of the copyrighted work you believe has been infringed, the exact URL(s) on valerive.com where the material appears, your contact details, a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is unauthorised, and a statement, made under penalty of perjury, that you are the rights holder or authorised to act on their behalf.
Email support@valerive.com with "Copyright Notice" in the subject line, or write to us at S Commerce, Wijde Wade 4-89, 3439 NP Nieuwegein, the Netherlands. You can also call +31 6 26269395 during our support hours, Monday to Friday, 09:00–18:00 CET/CEST, or use our Contact page.
Our customer service team is monitored 24/7 by email; we aim to confirm receipt within 5 hours.
We assess whether the notice is valid and complete, targeting a decision within 10 business days.
Confirmed infringing material is removed or disabled, and, where relevant, the person who submitted it is notified.
If you believe content of yours was removed in error, you may send us a counter-notice explaining why; we will consider it in good faith.
What happens if our content is used without permission
S Commerce actively monitors for unauthorised use of Valerive product photography, descriptions and brand assets, and reserves the right to take action proportionate to the infringement, which may include:
In most cases, we will first contact the person or business responsible directly and ask them to remove or licence the content properly.
Where content is hosted by a marketplace, social platform or another Shopify store, we may submit a formal notice to that platform's own reporting process.
Persistent or commercially damaging infringement may lead to a civil claim under the CDPA 1988 or the Auteurswet, seeking an injunction, damages, an account of profits, or delivery up of infringing material, together with our legal costs where a court allows this.
Payment and platform logos aren't ours to claim
Our checkout displays logos for payment methods we accept, including American Express, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Maestro, Mastercard, Shop Pay and Visa, and our storefront runs on Shopify. Each of these names and logos is the trade mark of its respective owner, is displayed solely to show you which payment and platform options are available, and is not claimed as Valerive's own intellectual property.
Every law behind this page
S Commerce is established in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands, and currently sells exclusively to customers in the United Kingdom. Both legal systems apply to how we protect and license content on valerive.com, so this policy is written to satisfy both.
| Law | Jurisdiction | What it does for this policy |
|---|---|---|
| Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 | UK | Grants automatic copyright protection to our text, photography and video, sets the term of protection (generally life of the creator plus 70 years), and defines the fair dealing exceptions covered in Section 6. |
| Auteurswet 1912 (as amended) | NL | The Dutch equivalent of the CDPA: grants copyright in original works, protects for the creator's life plus 70 years, and sets the closed list of limitations (beperkingen) referenced in Section 6. |
| Copyright and Rights in Databases Regulations 1997 / Databankenwet | UK & NL | Protects the structured compilation of our product catalogue and pricing as a database in its own right, separately from the copyright in individual pages. |
| Trade Marks Act 1994 / Benelux Convention on Intellectual Property (BVIE) | UK & NL | Governs protection of the Valerive name and logo as registered or unregistered trade marks, and the related law of passing off in the UK. |
| Handelsnaamwet (Dutch Trade Names Act) | NL | Protects "Valerive" and "S Commerce" as trading and company names against confusingly similar use by another business. |
| Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 | UK | Sets out the framework under which online service providers, including hosting platforms, can benefit from limited liability once they act promptly on a valid notice. |
| Burgerlijk Wetboek, Article 6:196c | NL | The Dutch equivalent hosting-liability provision, implementing the same underlying EU e-commerce principles, and the basis for the Dutch Notice-and-Take-Down code of conduct we follow in spirit. |
| UK & EU/Community unregistered design right | UK & NL | May separately protect the original shape, cut and print design of Valerive-branded garments, independent of any photograph of them. |
What we protect, and how we keep this up to date
The categories below are the parts of valerive.com covered by this policy at all times. We review this Copyright Policy at least every 12 months, and sooner whenever we add a new content type, change our third-party apps, or when UK or Dutch/EU copyright law is updated. The version in force is always the one published here, dated at the top of this page.
Illustration of the categories of content we actively monitor for unauthorised use.