This page is a plain overview, not legal advice. It does not say whether a particular use is allowed under copyright law. If you are unsure, ask the person or company that holds the rights, or ask a lawyer.
Poems, song lyrics, photos and clipart can be protected
A poem, a song lyric, a photo, or a piece of clipart can be protected even if you do not see a copyright symbol. That can be true of work you find in a book, on a website, or on a social media page.
Seeing a work online, or wanting it for a funeral program, does not by itself give you the right to copy the whole piece into your program. The safest path is to use words and photos you created, or content you have permission to use.
Use your own words and photos, or get permission
For photos, use pictures your family took, or pictures the photographer or owner has said you may use. Do not copy photos from an image search or from someone else's website or social media page unless you have permission.
For poems and readings, you can write your own, use a piece you already have the right to use, or ask the author or rights holder for permission. The poems by Emily Matthews, Ron Tranmer and Helen Steiner Rice on our memorial poems and in loving memory poems pages are shared with permission, and families may use them in a funeral program or memorial card for their loved one. For other poems you find online, including others on our pages, a listing alone does not mean the poem may be copied into a printed program.
Song lyrics are often protected as well. If you want to print lyrics in a program, ask the rights holder, or ask a lawyer if you are unsure.
Some older works are no longer protected, and some images and texts are offered under their own public terms. Our clipart guide notes that sites which offer public domain or Creative Commons images, and commercial stock photo sites, have their own terms, and that paying for an image does not always mean you can use it in every way. Read those terms before you rely on them. This page does not tell you whether a specific poem or image falls in that group.
What our Terms of Service say about the templates
When you buy a template from Elegant Memorials, our Terms of Service set out what you may do with it.
The Terms say that templates may be reused by the purchaser to make multiple funeral programs as many times as needed. Our template FAQs say the same thing in slightly different words: once a template is downloaded to your computer, you can use it and reuse it as many times as you want, until you delete it.
The Terms also say that Elegant Memorials maintains exclusive rights to all funeral program graphic designs on this website, that graphics and images on this website are not to be copied, sold or redistributed, and that Elegant Memorials templates and template packages may not be resold or redistributed.
The FAQs also say you can change all of the text in a funeral program template, including the poems in the sample, and that you can add your own pictures and clipart.
Clipart you buy from us
If you want clipart to use in a program, we sell memorial clipart packages on our funeral program and memorial clipart page. Those packages are sold as a zip of images, not as a Canva, Word, or Apple Pages file.
Our clipart guide says these images were created for clients to use in funeral and memorial programs and other memorial products for family and friends, or for clients if you have a memorial printing business. The same page tells you to read our Terms of Service. The Terms still apply: do not copy graphics from the website itself, and do not resell or redistribute the files.
If you are unsure
People sometimes ask whether fair use covers printing a poem in a funeral program. Fair use is a legal question that depends on the facts of each case. This page does not call any use fair use, and it is not a substitute for advice from a lawyer.
If you are not sure whether you may use a poem, a lyric, a photo, or an image, ask the author, photographer, or other rights holder, or ask a lawyer. We cannot decide that question for you.
