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EA reusing photos
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Wouldnt it be the easiest way to solve this to get on to the current owner of this house and tell them who you are and that its your photos that are being used to advertise their house.
I would imagine they would want the photos of the interior of the house to be accurate - ie of the way it is now. Even if they don't, they may get onto this estate agent to take updated photos anyway in order not to offend you.0 -
moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »I would imagine they would want the photos of the interior of the house to be accurate - ie of the way it is now.
...but the current owners aren't selling their furnishings as part of the sale (I assume), and the OP here took their furniture with them.
Why is it a requirement for the photos to show a particular set of furniture, whoever owns it, that isn't included in the sale?0 -
Yes they have our furniture and personal possessions on which is how we identified that they are our photos. To me it feels like an invasion of privacy.
Why is this any more an invasion of privacy than having the photos published when you were actually in residence?
You've moved. You probably have different furniture and different possessions, and as I said - nobody viewing the property now will know you, know where you moved to, nor be able to make any connection between you and the property. You're the only one making the connection.0 -
Exactly. Publishing images of the inside of someone's home is similarly separate to copyright issues and treated much differently. And equally, EA could reuse the image of the interior of the property, subject to blurring out everything apart form wall floors and ceilings. But pointless, of courseBecause showing an image of someone where they are recognisable is separate to copyright issues and treated much differently. They wouldn't have needed you to sign a release form if they have made your image unrecognisable (eg. blurred your face).
If the EA took the photos, then there would be no copyright licence to pay for. But the implied licence to take the photos is for OP's sale. EA is now acting outside that.Getting back to the OP's situation, whoever took the photos would have copyright over them. The EA prob paid for a licence to use them, I would assume they are using them again to reduce the cost to the new sellers (if you were selling and one agent will charge for photos and one wont as they have previous photos, which agent would you go with?).You might as well ask the Wizard of Oz to give you a big number as pay a Credit Referencing Agency for a so-called 'credit-score'0 -
Exactly. Publishing images of the inside of someone's home is similarly separate to copyright issues and treated much differently. And equally, EA could reuse the image of the interior of the property, subject to blurring out everything apart form wall floors and ceilings. But pointless, of course
Why would they need to blur out all the OP's possessions? There would be no copyright issues on images of those apart from the obvious logos etc
If the EA took the photos, then there would be no copyright licence to pay for. But the implied licence to take the photos is for OP's sale. EA is now acting outside that.
You can't assume you know what the implied licence permits and what it doesnt without further details, for instance what was said or not said between the EA and the OP, not to mention what was included in their contact. Further to that, if an implied licence was granted for photo use for only the OP's sale, I dont really see how you could prove that. Implied licence is exactly that, something that isn't written down or discussed.
Additionally it has already been established that a third party took the photos.0 -
Who took the photos? You? (rhetorical, I see your later answer) Normally the person or firm that takes the photographs is the copyright holder.We sold our house in July 2012. As part of the sales process we had photos taken. These were taken on a basis that we would pay £180 if we did not sell, and if we did, this would be included in the EA fee.
If you took them you can complain about the copyright infringement.
If the estate agent took them, they are the copyright holder and have the legal right to use them unless they are misleading about the condition of the property.
If you used someone other than the agency, check your contract with them to see if you or they are the copyright owner. Usually you'll find that there is no transfer of copyright to you and in that case you have neither copyright ownership nor any standing to make a complaint. But in this case the firm that took the photos will probably want to charge the agent a fee to use them. You wouldn't have had to pay an additional fee initially because then the photos were for the purpose of you selling the place, so that was an anticipated use in your original agreement. But that is not so for the agent reusing them.
Did that agreement contain an "assignment of copyright" to you? Did it contain a "work for hire" agreement that made the photographer a paid employee of you while taking the photographs? (a work for hire agreement is not the same thing as paying a photographer to take pictures) Or did you simply pay a photographer to take pictures, with no transfer of copyright and no work for hire agreement, which means that the photographer is the copyright owner, who can pursue the agent for a fee for use of their work.I know the photos are of no use to me but I do feel like we paid for them - they weren't actually taken by the EA but by a third party. The agreement to pay for the photos if we didn't sell lead us to believe that they are our photos.
Note that just handing over money to get photos taken is not sufficient. One of those magic phrases needs to be present, you can't simply assume them because you paid someone.
But as I read your post, you just said that you didn't pay for the photos, right? Which means there was no transfer of value from you to the photographer and any assignment or work for hire clause is pointless anyway because there has to be a transfer of value in both directions, even a Pound would have done, had one of the clauses been present. So the photographer is the copyright owner.
You agreed to publication. Your right to privacy of what is in the photos vanished when you did. Unless you think you had made a creative work of art and imposed restrictions on publication of it as part of your sale agreement with the new owner.Yes they have our furniture and personal possessions on which is how we identified that they are our photos. To me it feels like an invasion of privacy.
I think that you have no standing to complain but the person or firm that took the photos does. So tell them. If it's their business they will probably be happy to take the agency to court to get their fee. And the agency will probably be happy to take new photos to avoid paying that fee, solving your problem.
But if they have any sense, the head office will tell the agency to take new photographs. Regardless of whether they need to, just as good customer relations.
Werdnal's post gave no legal basis for them not being able to reuse them. Nor has yours. The next two paragraphs pretend that it was the agency that took them, which isn't true in this case.The EA's copyright alone is IMO not sufficient to permit them to reuse the photos. They need further rights, about which see Werdnal's post above.
What is your legal basis for thinking that a copyright holder cannot use photos that they own when the owner of the private property involved is consenting to the disclosure of pictures of the non-private spaces involved? The new owner clearly has a right to have photographs of at least the fixed parts published, since they are the owner of them now.
Are you claiming that there is enough original artistic value in the interior decoration done by the initial owner to create an art work, so the copyright of the photographs is not sufficient to allow republication, and that this right survived without there having been any agreement to that effect in the contract for sale of the property to the new owner?
You have publicity rights, they have copyright. They were paying for permission to use your likeness, so you couldn't complain about it later, a different thing from copyright of the photographs themselves. And you got some money so if you were confused and thought you had some other right like copyright, you wouldn't waste their time with a claim for things like repeat fees on rebroadcast or similar things that would be a hassle for them.I remember being caught on camera for filming of some trivial TV programme/ Now certainly, the film maker had copyright - but I was asked to sign a release form to allow them to broadcast. Now why would they do that if copyright were sufficient authority to broadcast?
You were paid to go away and stay away, and in case you became well known later, so they woulnd't have to go and try to check whether anyone became famous every time a broadcaster anywhere in the world used their work.
Easier to pay you a little money up front and be sure they have got rid of the problem in advance. Manchee was correct.
A human has a right of publicity. So can some inanimate objects but it seems very unlikely that the room picture would be valuable as an endorsement for anything. Unless, maybe, the poster here is a well known interior designer and this is a classic example of their work, so recognisable that it implies that they are endorsing the sale in some way. In which case the poster should mention that and contact their publicity representative, the agent or lawyer they use to handle licensing issues.Exactly.0 -
Your argument falls down here. The agreement to publish was implied, not explicit. And the implied permission was only for the purposes of sale of OP's property. With the sale of that property, the implied permission has lapsed.You agreed to publication. Your right to privacy of what is in the photos vanished when you did.You might as well ask the Wizard of Oz to give you a big number as pay a Credit Referencing Agency for a so-called 'credit-score'0 -
What money??? Obviously you know more about it than I do, although you weren't there. So it is you who might be confused when I tell you your memory is mistaken - I refused to give release :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:And you got some money so if you were confused and thought you had some other right like copyright, you wouldn't waste their time with a claim for things like repeat fees on rebroadcast or similar things that would be a hassle for them.You might as well ask the Wizard of Oz to give you a big number as pay a Credit Referencing Agency for a so-called 'credit-score'0 -
The original consent to publish threw away any potential privacy argument - you can't consent to have something private published then complain about breached privacy when it's republished. You already accepted that it was no longer to be private when you agreed to the initial publication.Your argument falls down here. The agreement to publish was implied, not explicit. And the implied permission was only for the purposes of sale of OP's property. With the sale of that property, the implied permission has lapsed.
The remedy is not to let the photographer or their camera into the place initially. Then the privacy is protected because they can't see it or photograph it.
Publicity rights could potentially apply to second and subsequent uses, if there were any initially, which doesn't seem to be the case here. Absent that famous interior designer potential situation that just might exist.
That's your prerogative. Then it's theirs to decide whether to go ahead and use your likeness anyway. They probably decided not to, but assuming it was a public place they could have continued. If you're curious about your rights, see Protection of Image Rights.I refused to give release0 -
honestly why bitter your life with stuff like this? It sounds like you're trying to get one up on the agent.
What do you stand to benefit or gain from stopping the agent using the photos apart from getting one over them?0
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