Copyright Correct can protect you from unexpected fines and costly court cases that have the potential to financially ruin your business.
If you answer
Yes to statement 1 and
No to statement 2
you need our help...
1 Our website uses
photographic images
2 We know all images
are Fully licensed
At Copyright Correct we perform the often painful exercise of checking all your images are properly licensed.
We help remove any situations that could potentially lead to heavy fines and even court cases if you have unwillingly infringed copyright law.
The use of images is an integral part of any good looking website. Images are easily accessible on the web for website designers and businesses to use.
Many companies have sourced images perfectly innocently from the web without realising the need to acquire a legitimate licence from the copyright holder of the image. This is increasingly leading to cases of the image user being tracked and the licence holder seeking recompense for the use of the image.
Image libraries and copyright holders are using increasingly sophisticated technology to track and trace the users of images that have not been correctly licensed leading to often costly 'fines' from the ‘owner’ of an image.
Recent payments to licence holders have run into thousands of pounds and are charged per image, not per website.
Please be careful where you source your images from –
it's worth checking.
Copyright Correct have over twenty five years experience working in the stock image industry and have developed an in-depth knowledge of copyright law and the issues relating to the correct licensing of these images.
What we do
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We do not wish to alarm you, we just want to ensure you have a good website free from any potential conflict and possible expensive claims on images used.
We always take the following steps to ensure a pain free process of checking your website for potential problems.
1 A full review of the site page by page.
2 Full notes provided on where images are used.
3 Highlight any images which require a licence.
4 A recommended course of action to be taken by the website owner.
Result –
A worry free website still looking fantastic, but free from unlicensed images.
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If you are using images on your website under UK law you must have contacted the holder of the licence before using the image.
Licensing
The licence holder, whether this is a photo library or an individual, is entitled to expect recognition of their work and can ask the image to be removed. If the art work is a licensed image a fee can also be expected for the use of that image.
This fee may be back dated from the original date of use and ‘penalty’ fees may also be charged for using the image without the permission of the licence holder.
In the digital age, ignorance is not bliss. Simply not knowing that the image was licensed is no longer an acceptable excuse. If there is no way of knowing a licence existed, then the image should not be used.
You may have left the sourcing and use of images on your website to a web designer. However under UK copyright law final responsibility for any art work used on a site lies with the site owner and not the designer who created the site.
Many web designers simply do not have a full understanding of copyright law and still use images that have not been licensed or have been ‘borrowed’ from Google Images.
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When you are contacted by the licence holder there are often a number of questions. You may think you are covered or have done no harm - it is only a picture - what does it matter?
FAQs
Google is a search engine –Google is not authorised to give permission to use any image displayed in a search result.
Further to your Google search, you should have requested evidence of copyright ownership from the website on which you found the image and written confirmation from the photographer to use the image for free, prior to using the image.
Somebody else created my company’s website.
A third-party designer, former employee, or intern may have been contracted to design and develop your company’s website. However, if no licences from the copyright holder exists, the liability of any infringement ultimately falls on the company (the end user) who hired that third-party, employee, or intern.
I am happy to pay the licence fee, but not the other charges on the Settlement Demand
When a represented image is used without a licence or appropriate copyright credit, it denies the creator his/her right to recognition and compensation for the work. It also creates the potential for very costly licensing clashes. These charges are necessary to ensure that the photographers right to full compensation is given. All charges from the licence holder have been recognised by the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court.
We have removed the images and now consider this matter closed.
The licence holder may appreciate the removal of its represented images from your company’s website. However, removal of the images in question solves only part of the issue, as the licence holder will continue to require full payment of the demand presented to settle the matter and avoid further escalation.
We chose ‘Royalty Free’ images in order to avoid copyright issues.
Royalty Free does not mean that the image is free to use. The term denotes a flexible, not exclusive licensing model. Royalty Free images are subject to copyright restrictions and licensing fees.
I did not know that the image was copyrighted.
An image bears copyright from its date of creation and formal authorisation must always be obtained from the copyright owner/representative prior to any use. The copyright expires 70 years after the death of the copyright owner and enters the public domain. Whether the work is marked or not (e.g. watermark or ©) doesn’t affect the level of protection of the work.
We didn’t know these images were represented and had to be licensed.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that your company may not have known, this does not excuse your company’s unauthorised use, nor does it relieve you of the obligation to pay the demand to settle a claim of copyright infringement. If no licences exist, you received the benefit of using the images in question on your company’s website without permission from the licence holder or its represented photographers. Since the unauthorised use already occurred, payment for that benefit is necessary.
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Using our expertise we will check each image individually. Due to the complex nature of individual websites we cannot offer a set pricing structure. However we do offer a Free consultation service to give you an exact quote as to how much our service to you will cost
Ordering
Pricing
As a guide –
0-20 images £200
21- 40 images £300
41+ images. £300 +