GRcade

Hey all,

My partner has a couple of websites for her small business that she set up years ago.

Unfortunately, one of the tiny images she used has been subject to a copyright claim via email. I'm not naming the company involved in case they are searching the web for mentions. To be honest it seems like extortion, they are asking for hundreds of euros for this tiny image that's several pages in, hardly a revenue generating image and unknowingly used without permission (taken from a 'free images' site, but no proof of where). They are claiming for retrospective royalties, so apparently taking it down doesn't make a difference. They are apparently escalating to their legal team as we haven't yet responded.

If we'd known, we just wouldn't have used the image.

We've taken the websites down and are seeking legal advice.

We have absolutely no intention of infringing copyright, and it's not critical that we use specific images, it's just about finding suitable ones that we can use freely.

We need to relaunch ASAP, her business income is already down 90% due to Covid, it couldn't have come at a worse time.

Does anyone know of free-use image sites that are genuinely free to use, that we won't be called out on in the future? It's causing serious stress and sleepless nights here for something we had no intent to do

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT Don't use these guys.

Prototype wrote:[edit: not these guys] should do the job.

Thank you - am I right in thinking that you make a one off payment and then can use the images?

Are there any places where it's free to use the images?

You can try https://pixabay.com/

I'd actually recommend you pay for some really cheap stock images instead - having the receipts will help protect you should a claim be made against you at any point down the line (and they can still happen, frivolous or not). Non-exclusive rights to single images are cheap, it shouldn't set you back much (a quick look and both adobe and shutterstock work out at £6 an image) - although it looks like you can get 10 free images to keep from shutterstock if you sign up for a trial, so maybe that will cover you?

Just make sure you keep a record of any images you use with proof of where you got them from. Saving a link won't be enough because the image could always be taken down from wherever you sourced it. I don't know but I imagine accounts on places like shutterstock must make this easy.

Prototype wrote:https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/ should do the job.

Funnily enough I was told the opposite about Getty - I used some images in my PhD thesis that had to ultimately be removed due to the fact that if they were published, Getty would require a high fee and it would be difficult to license them out.

Lime wrote:

Prototype wrote:https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/ should do the job.

Thank you - am I right in thinking that you make a one off payment and then can use the images?

Are there any places where it's free to use the images?

Disregard my recommendation on what Cora just posted. We use Getty at my work but i don't have any further info on them. Wouldn't want you being bumped out of money.

Prototype wrote:
Disregard my recommendation on what Cora just posted. We use Getty at my work but i don't have any further info on them. Wouldn't want you being bumped out of money.

Ah ok, thanks. From a quick google they are also seem to be a company that uses threatening legal action rather than a 'takedown or licence' approach.

Lime wrote:

Prototype wrote:
Disregard my recommendation on what Cora just posted. We use Getty at my work but i don't have any further info on them. Wouldn't want you being bumped out of money.

Ah ok, thanks. From a quick google they are also seem to be a company that uses threatening legal action rather than a 'takedown or licence' approach.

Yep - apologies for my kneejerk recommendation.

I use Pexels and Unsplash personally - haven’t had any issues - but most of my image use is on an intranet at work so fairly low risk.

Thanks for all the information!

The email seems like extortion, and we've flagged it up for investigation. You can't just send someone hundreds of euro because they've emailed you.

Pexels.

Free to use images and high resolution.

https://www.pexels.com/

Free stock photos you can use everywhere. ✓ Free for commercial use ✓ No attribution required.

Lime wrote:Thanks for all the information!

The email seems like extortion, and we've flagged it up for investigation. You can't just send someone hundreds of euro because they've emailed you.

They sound like chancers. I would ignore.

Sorry to hear this Lime.

Unfortunately, you might need to pay them.

I’ve seen a few of these emails/letters in my time as a magazine editor. Picture agencies are notoriously defensive of their IP, and they used to employ people to find unauthorised use (it’s probably all automated with metadata). Getty are one of the most aggressive in my experience, ironically.

If you can’t prove you had the rights to use it, you haven’t got much room for manoeuvre.

Is there a phone number to respond to? I would expect a reputable picture agency to have one. Trying to talk to them might help, although my experience is they are quite inflexible. But you might be able to negotiate buying the rights instead.

I would definitely not ignore the email. I hope this is useful, even if not what you want to hear.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... UBlRW8MjnG

This is a link to a PDF from the British Institute of Professional Photographers which has some information about resolving issues towards the end. Hope it helps and you don't get too badly stung.

I want to create an image site that inserts Prince Philip or Prince Andrew into every picture, unless you pay up.

SerialCeler wrote:Sorry to hear this Lime.

Unfortunately, you might need to pay them.

I’ve seen a few of these emails/letters in my time as a magazine editor. Picture agencies are notoriously defensive of their IP, and they used to employ people to find unauthorised use (it’s probably all automated with metadata). Getty are one of the most aggressive in my experience, ironically.

If you can’t prove you had the rights to use it, you haven’t got much room for manoeuvre.

Is there a phone number to respond to? I would expect a reputable picture agency to have one. Trying to talk to them might help, although my experience is they are quite inflexible. But you might be able to negotiate buying the rights instead.

I would definitely not ignore the email. I hope this is useful, even if not what you want to hear.

It's not Getty, it's a company I'd not heard of, not UK based, and from a Google it has quite a chequered history to get where they are now- if indeed it is them, and not a scammer who's trying it on pretending to be them. I can't find the image on any picture site any more.

We've logged as a potential fraud for investigation, I think that's justified rather than sending off money with no idea if it's legit or not.

Having searched some legal forums, some people respond with examples of similar pictures and pricing, and ask them to explain/defend the huge pricing. I've not seen what the outcomes are, though, as nobody seems to come back to say what happened.

Just to close the loop on this, in case anyone remembers it or has something similar happen.

We got a letter through the post from a UK solicitor about a year later the original emails, basically threatening legal action unless we paid up, plus their legal fees (about another 50% on top)

My partner called them up, explained what a terrible misunderstanding it was, that the emails looked like fraud and were reported as such to action fraud (we had a case number for this, so we could prove it), that she is a sole trader with very little profit, the amount of money being demanded would take up 3 months money for bills etc, basically told the exact truth about the situation. I think they are used to 'catching' larger businesses that profit directly from stealing images.

They requested she put in writing the situation and make an offer.

She made a proportional offer as an apology to the original photographer, it was all done and dusted. Case closed. I'm not going to mention specifics on a public forum, but I think the outcome was fair.

Thanks to all who made suggestions!

I never saw this original thread, but found this quite interesting as an artist and web... Person. Thanks for the update on the story!

I would tentatively have entertained a settlement essentially, without possessing a license. Even if there's a chance it were fraud I would still have a good faith conversation with the information available without handing over any sensitive information.

Not had much experience here as I always tend to use my own images, I have two from Adobe Stock. But one particularly brazen use of my own work was by an agency in the same town as the copyright holder (my employer at the time) that had apparently lifted my illustration from Google images. The date modified date even matched on the file. Pretty stupid that they didn't even attempt to use a "free" image, and it wasn't just a photo, it was hand drawn. Even more brilliantly, they used it as the top banner image of about half the screen on their index page. Which was... Exactly what I had created it for and positioned myself as the Web designer for my employer. So it was like a 1:1 copy and paste in the same position and the same use case.

Lime wrote:Thanks to all who made suggestions!

So glad it worked out for you both

I would recommend Unsplash as a good source of royalty free images, by the way. I’ve found it pretty useful.