Copyright infringement - Letter to pay

Savvy_Sue

Undervalued wrote: »

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.

Which brings me back to my original post, and the post above yours:

martindow wrote: »

How can you be sure that someone does indeed have copyright of an image?

It would be very easy for someone to send out speculative emails to web sites claiming images are theirs. A real money spinner if even a very small number of people pay up.

Plus, as I read it, the OP found several instances of the image they wanted to use online. How do they trace the copyright holder?

bearcat16

Plus, as I read it, the OP found several instances of the image they wanted to use online. How do they trace the copyright holder?

Who cares if they can trace the copyright holder or not. Not being able to trace the copyright holder does not mean you can use it all you like (or even once). It's simply no defense.

The answer to the question "what if I can't trace the copyright holder?" is "don't use the image".

Undervalued

bearcat16 wrote: »

Who cares if they can trace the copyright holder or not. Not being able to trace the copyright holder does not mean you can use it all you like (or even once). It's simply no defense.

The answer to the question "what if I can't trace the copyright holder?" is "don't use the image".

Exactly!

As a recent headline case showed, finding a £20 note on the ground doesn't give you the right to keep it just because you can't trace the owner. It gave that lady a right to a criminal record!

da_rule

There are registers of copyrights that can be searched, but these are not compulsory for a copyright holder to sign up to. Some charge £50-£60 for each work registered so unless the work had real potential or actual value it probably isn't worth registering (but it still is protected).

As has been said, being unable (or unwilling) to find the owner is not an excuse. There are plenty of sites out there that offer public domain images or images that can be purchased and used for commercial endeavour (or you can just take your own).

Guest101

DomRavioli wrote: »

It doesn't. Read the post above about the Berne agreement.

If someone wants to sue for this, they can. What you have quoted above is not relevant nor useful.

I disagree, the principle applies in all courts.


Someone can sue for anything, I could sue you for £1,000 if I wanted to, doesn't mean I'd win.

Guest101

Undervalued wrote: »

Exactly!

As a recent headline case showed, finding a £20 note on the ground doesn't give you the right to keep it just because you can't trace the owner. It gave that lady a right to a criminal record!

Actually it does, the police even said, take reasonable steps to find the owner.


She didn't...

FatVonD

A magazine I worked for had to pay £16,000 for using a pic they'd found on the internet so £800 sounds like you're getting off lightly.

I guess you could try offering a smaller amount coupled with offering to take it down.

In future try istockphoto, shutterstock, bigstock etc where you will be able to buy a pic for less than £20.

springdreams

OP, not sure if you qualify, but this may be of help:

http://www.ipprobono.org.uk/

patman99

Getty did gain a reputation for going after people for copyright infringments even if the picture was taken by the person using it. Their excuse was that the picture was exactly the same as a picture in their image library taken by xxx, therefore, the user must have used it without permission.

In this case, the op has found an image, searched to see who else has used it, found that a number of other site used it, so used it themselves.
Now, the op has had a letter from a photo agency regarding his use of said image on his website and a bill has been include.

At a guess, I wonder how many of the other sites the op found the image in use on have also received the same letter.

As a photographer myself, it does irk me to see folks using copyright images without first obtaining permission. If the op wants to use other peoples images on his site, then he should have googled for either 'copyleft images' or 'copyright-free images' and used one of those instead.

Fallen-Angel

People talking about "all the other sites using it" - please bare in mind that they may have paid to be able to use it. Just because you pay to have an image from a pic agency doesn't mean it is now yours exclusively. They can sell it to as many people as they want (unless otherwise agreed), these sites can then prove that they've paid to use the image on their site.

If these sites haven't paid for it then no doubt, like the OP, they'll be getting a letter too.