Cached webpages - Copyright infringement?

BlondieClondie

Dear Sirs/Madams,

Basically i bought a website/forum a year ago, and everything appeared to be alright, however recently we have had letters from various copyright holders, stating we have breached copyright and to remove pictures/articles from our website or face court action.

We put our hands up, we should have done due diligence before we bought the site, however we have removed loads of images and articles from our site, replied to the various copyright holders, and have heard nothing since.

However these articles/images still appear as cached webpages via google, will this still be seen as copyright infringement? We have asked google to remove the cached pages but so far they have refused. Are cached pages something that i should worry about in terms of upsetting copyright holders? Or will they be happy that i removed the material from my site and that's the end of the matter?

PasturesNew

No, they'll see you've removed them and the cached stuff will disappear, so I'd not worry about it.

BlondieClondie

PasturesNew wrote: »

No, they'll see you've removed them and the cached stuff will disappear, so I'd not worry about it.

Many thanks for the reply.

The strange thing is the cached stuff is going back over 2 years, so before i even bought the site.

I worry because reading stuff on the net, the likes of Getty have filed copyright claims based on using the wayback machine website.

I dont think the right holders are even aware of my cached pages, however still a bit of a worry.

I have requested to google to remove the pages but they have not.

AndyPix

I wouldnt worry about it,.
If you think about it, it is no longer you that is hosting the offending material - It is google.


There was an issue many years ago when some people tried to bring a case against google for caching their pages because if you think about it, google are actually copying every single page that they cache - that isnt theirs to copy.
Long story short - google won.


I dont think this is your problem to worry about.
But fair play for due dilligence

S0litaire

Just send a polite email telling them that the "offending" article is not hosted by your site and state that it's a "google cache" issue.

Then give them this link so they can apply for it to be removed from Google searches:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals?pli=1

*more information* :
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6332384?hl=en

beansOnToast_3

As others have said, if you've removed the infringing material from your website then you're fine.

Just double check that as opposed to not just linking to the content you don't have the content still stored on your servers. For example, thumbnails of pictures can sometimes be cached on your own servers if you use certain forum software. Certain forum software will often store user uploaded images and documents in a media folder that is accessible on the internet even after the original posts that contain them are removed.

For future reference, when you purchase a website make sure your purchase agreement includes clauses that do the following:
1. Gets the seller to confirm that they own the title to the assets they're selling
2. There are no outstanding or previous claims, complaints, legal proceedings in relation to the website from third parties
3. Gets the seller to confirm that they've not infringed any copyright in the production of the website and that the website does not contain or host infringing material

A professionally written website purchase agreement is worth getting as it will contain all these clauses as standard and pass on any liability arising from before your purchase to the person you bought the website from.