Copyright infringement - Letter to pay

CtrlAltDel wrote: »

Hi all.
Ive a small website that promotes my cafe. I was looking to sell Xmas lunches for posted on it and used a photo i found on the web of a plate of food on a Chinese website
I was aware of copyright, so i downloaded the image and then used google image search to try see if it was copyrighted. All the results came up (14 of them) and were none to any pic agency type website. So i used it.

Today in the post i get a letter from a pic agency to say it was their image so they give me a bill for £2,200 or quick payment offer of £800 (if i pay within 14 days).

Looking on their website, i can see the image, it has no copyright mark on the one they display. there is no info in the metadata of the image i have either. they would sell the image for 5 years for £225.

They didn't send any type of remove request, just straight in with a bill.
Anything i can do as i don't have the £800, let alone the £2.2k
Thanks

All images are somebody's copyright unless they choose to place them in the public domain. They do not need to have a copyright mark for that to be the case.

Ultimately if you don't pay and they sue all they will get is a reasonable fee, plus of course costs. Unless there is some truly exceptional about the image in question it is unlikely to be anything like the amount they are asking for.

Undervalued wrote: »

Sorry, but they don't need to! Any creative work is copyright unless the author chooses to give up that right. Copyright lasts for 70 years for the end of the year of the author's death.

OK, but if the OP found the image they wanted to use in several different places, how are they to know a) that the image is copyrighted and b) that THIS picture agency has the copyright rather than any of the other places where they found it?

If you're in the business of putting your work 'out there', surely you would put a copyright notice somewhere? And if you're in the business of putting your work 'out there' for profit, surely you'd put the t&c of how your work could be used and what the fees for using it would be somewhere?

Or am I missing something terribly obvious?

BTW I'm not, absolutely not, saying that we can all just find pictures online and make use of them. I am wondering how a responsible person would find the copyright holder in the OP's situation, or better yet find copyright-free material.

Or maybe the obvious answer for the OP would be to take their own photos ...

Unfortunately as the UK is signed up to the Berne Convention the use of a copyright notice is not required on any copyrighted works. The copyright automatically exists for the relevant period (depending on the type of work).

The onus is on the person wanting to use the work (in this case, the image), to find the original copyright holder and then establish (a) whether the time limit for the copyright has now expired and the work is classed as being in the public domain; or (b) if the copyright is still 'active' negotiate with the right holder (or their estate) in order to use the work.

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

OK, but if the OP found the image they wanted to use in several different places, how are they to know a) that the image is copyrighted and b) that THIS picture agency has the copyright rather than any of the other places where they found it?

If you're in the business of putting your work 'out there', surely you would put a copyright notice somewhere? And if you're in the business of putting your work 'out there' for profit, surely you'd put the t&c of how your work could be used and what the fees for using it would be somewhere?

Or am I missing something terribly obvious?

BTW I'm not, absolutely not, saying that we can all just find pictures online and make use of them. I am wondering how a responsible person would find the copyright holder in the OP's situation, or better yet find copyright-free material.

Or maybe the obvious answer for the OP would be to take their own photos ...

I'm afraid you are.

Basically any image is copyright unless either the author (or whoever he has assigned the rights to) has placed it in the public domain. Or, it is more than 70 years since the end of the year of the author's death.

It doesn't matter how much the image is "out there", unless you know the copyright has be waived you must assume it exists. You cannot assume just because it it has not been marked copyright it is free to use.

Whilst there is probably a very good chance of getting away with it lots of times some copyright holders, or their agents, pursue infringements aggressively.

If you just help yourself to somebody else's image you run the risk of exactly what has happened here.

Keep in mind too that if you commission somebody to take a photograph for you the copyright belongs to them unless they specifically agree to the contrary. The commissioner normally only acquires the rights to use the image for the originally intended purpose.