Copyright Infringement Notice Help

(The theft analogy is misleading in some important ways, but if you see a – whatever, say a bicycle – leaning on a wall, you can’t just take it to use as your own, and the owner has no responsibility (legal or moral) to register ownership in order that you might be able to contact them and offer to buy it off them. It’s not yours, just leave it. If it’s abandoned or whatever of course you might act differently, but let’s assume it looks like it might be owned. Similarly, with content on the internet. It’s not yours, don’t copy and republish.)

The licensing fee for this image is £35, alternatively we must request that you remove it from your website.

This simply does not work as it fully encourages the ‘ask for forgiveness rather than permission’ approach.

Used an image for three years and get found out? Well that’s three years of free usage and the offender will just take it down and go and lift another photo off the internet. The value of imagery is already diluted enough thankyou.

The normally accepted fee for purchasing a retrospective licence is 3x the standard single image licence fee. To me this has always felt acceptable from an individual. Larger companies will always cost more as they have higher overheads when it comes to chasing unlicensed image use (for example just the fair licensing software is a grand a month). Sure, 500 is a bit high, but they always take less. Same as parking firms take less for quick response any payment.

So you are saying the court would allow a punitive fine rather than only the ‘loss of’ licence fee of £35 or whatever?

Discussing what a court would do misses the point.  To find that out  you would have to go to court.  Which is unlikely.  OTOH, a copyright library will think it worth spending £thousands chasing £tens of damages “pour encourager les autres”.

how are “we” supposed to know/find out who owns the copyright to a certain image if it isn’t stated?

I don’t know who owns the nice Spesh locked up at the station but I know it’s not me!

and how are “we” supposed to know/find out who owns the copyright to a certain image if it isn’t stated?

well if you can’t find the owner with proper due diligence then it’s known as an orphan work:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/copyright-orphan-works

you are then expected to register your use with the IPO, pay them a license fee which they will pass to the rightful owner if they ever come forward.  The have an admin fee (about £20) and the license fee (depends on use – could be hundreds).   The orphan work license conditions require you to label / caption the work such that if the artist were to find it they would know there is a license fee waiting.

I found the book with the etching I liked. 1888 Sunday at Home.

So if I took a picture or scanned can I use it ?

Just found it on Getty, Istock etc. being peddled £35 and other licenses.

Surely this is Public Domain not some implied ownership.

I get, if I never had the (original) even that’s a copy 1888) and I wanted a copy, I would need to buy a photograph of etch done by someone else who also at some point had access to the book.

It’s the implied ownership of old works by just taking a photograph .

I bet they would not comprehend that someone had an original.

And why should I have to prove myself to them, when they feel like popping up out of the blue.

Irks me, that does. 🙁

Sometimes, it feels like …. On the web CC0 on everything.

I mean if it ended up in court would the copyright holder not have to prove damages /lost income.. Otherwise what are they suing for?

Dilution of originality value or loss of control of what you create is damages, no? Not like losing an arm but there has to be rules on 3rd party use of created work. If there wasn’t creative businesses and artists would just get ripped off all the time.

FWIW I’ve been on both sides of this one. I’ve created work with copyright stated and assumed that has been used online w/o permission and I’ve had to send a demand to remove it. Also had commercial companies using aspects of the work w/o permission that had to be discussed for fair ongoing use. On the other side of it a long time ago I used an image on a webpage draft, published the page and forgot about it. A few years later I got a licence demand email for the image use. I could have fought it or avoided it but tbh it was a fair cop, my mistake and I paid up. Wasn’t a lot and I can’t disagree with the principle.

redthunderFree Member
I found the book with the etching I liked. 1888 Sunday at Home.

So if I took a picture or scanned can I use it ?

If 1888 is the publication date, and you scan the actual book, yes.

So if I took a picture or scanned can I use it ?

Yes. Someone taking a picture of an old work does not make it any less in the public domain. The only copyright that would exist is on any photographers picture of the old work.

You don’t even need to prove anything. “I took a photograph of the original book which contains this etching myself, therefore I own the copyright on my image. The original book is over 70 years old meaning the content is now in the public domain”

@greyspoke

Yes, 1888 an old musty (smelly) leather thing.

What worries (not major) me is getting some shister/ scammy claim from a stock photo outfit.

Not keen to use the image from the book (even though I can) and get future hassle. Possibly.

They will be able to tell whether you’ve stolen their version of the public domain work by pixel matching. If you make your own version, crack on with no fear of retribution.

So the drawing I did today will have a a copyright of 70 years + 70 years after my death.

So if I get hit by an asteroid tonight ;-(

2024 + 70 = 2078 then Alamy can have it 😉

Say I live another 20 years, second asteroid… tin foil hat saved me on the first one 😉

2024 + 20 = 2044 the a further 70 = 2098 then the Sons of Alamy can have it .

Am I reading this right ?

ChatGPT:

Say this.

In the UK, copyright for an original artistic work, such as a drawing created today, generally lasts for the life of the creator plus an additional 70 years after their death. This means that if an artist creates a drawing today and lives for another 30 years, the copyright would be in force for 100 years from now (30 years during the artist’s lifetime plus 70 years after their death).

Therefore, the duration of copyright for a drawing created today by a living artist in the UK is the artist’s lifetime plus 70 years.

Just to update

I was really worried over this but have since calmed down.

Having read lots of other info and replies other people in similar positions made, I made an offer to the company of 3 x the standard licence fee. I think this is a fair and reasonable offer.

Obviously I removed the image on notification and have shut my blog down for the moment.

There’s been no reply yet – I emailed them over a week ago.

Thanks for all the info on this thread

We will see what happens and I will update.

Cheers for update and hope that no news is good news. <Thumbs up>