Fair use and demanding money

premiumz

Hi there,

I run a website and have recently had a company email me on their clients behalf demanding what they deem a fair payment for using one of their photos in one of our blog post years ago.

They said if we don't pay they will proceed with trying to get the maximum fine possible for it.

The photo we used has a license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

We have linked directly to the photo for attribution and we don't use it for commercial purposes.

So am I right in thinking they are in the wrong here or am I missing something?

Many thanks

85_East

Can you post a link to your website, and one to the blog post? Might be easier to determine if it could be interpreted as commercial.

novamation

I think, if you make money from the blog through affiliate links or ads, they might be right?

glentoran99

just take it down

premiumz

85_East wrote: »

Can you post a link to your website, and one to the blog post? Might be easier to determine if it could be interpreted as commercial.

I don't really want to post our URL here in case they are able to view this conversation but our website is similar to websites like BoredPanda.

premiumz

glentoran99 wrote: »

just take it down

They said the next step in their email was to forward the case on to their legal team/attorney if we don't pay but for £500 surely that would not be worth fronting those fees for and is merely a threat to try to scare people into simply paying whatever figure they make up?

tykesi

What makes you think you can use the picture without the permission of the copyright holder? Not having a go, just curious?

85_East

novamation wrote: »

I think, if you make money from the blog through affiliate links or ads, they might be right?

I suspect so too, that's why I was asking for a link to your site. It may be interpreted that you are using the image to gain revenue through advertising etc, Boredpanda operate in this way as do others.

premiumz

tykesi wrote: »

What makes you think you can use the picture without the permission of the copyright holder? Not having a go, just curious?

The post was from years ago, we didn't always have ads on the site but we eventually got them to cover costs etc


The post wasn't just of their image it had many images in it which are fine to use.

They basically dug into the past and are trying to shake me down, I am not saying I am right or wrong, I just want to know where I stand in terms of, the license said you can use the image as long as attribution was given (which it was) but it also says non commercial use, which I haven't used the image to sell anything but the website does contain some non related to the post banner ads.

dj1471

https://creativecommons.org/faq/#does-my-use-violate-the-noncommercial-clause-of-the-licenses

I think you're fine, even with ads. Is the entity you've attributed the same as the client of the company? If so I'd be inclined to ignore them - you're complying with the terms of their license.

premiumz

dj1471 wrote: »

https://creativecommons.org/faq/#does-my-use-violate-the-noncommercial-clause-of-the-licenses

I think you're fine, even with ads. Is the entity you've attributed the same as the client of the company? If so I'd be inclined to ignore them - you're complying with the terms of their license.

Yes, the attribution linked directly to the persons image and their name.