Multiple infringement notices for the same image from CopyrightAgent

[SillyBilly]

Hi all,

Thanks for your time here. I've spent some time browsing a few other relevant forums but believe my case here is a little different - I'm struggling to find any mention of this situation and hopefully someone here can shed some light.

So: earlier this week I got three separate infringement notices from a company called CopyrightAgent, each demanding £400. Each infringement is the same image, used on three different pages of my website.

The image is an Alamy stock image. I uploaded it to my website 10 years ago so I cannot remember where I got it from. I'd put good money on it being a free stock image site but it no longer appears to be anywhere other than Alamy (although Alamy doesn't have exclusivity as far as I'm aware, so it's perfectly reasonable to assume it could have been available elsewhere in 2015). Since I cannot prove where I got it from, however, it's sort of redundant. I accept I don't have a license when I should.

I've responded to the initial email in a polite manner, explaining it was a genuine mistake and I've immediately removed all uses of the image, which is a reasonable step to take to show I'm willing to co-operate. I also asked that, since if I did have a license, it would cover all uses of the image across my website, if two of the cases could be dropped.

I got a response today saying (of course), no: Each separate page counts as an infringement regardless of what the license would cover and so the three separate demands stand.

I asked on Reddit (never ask anything on Reddit) and was met with mostly rudeness but the general consensus that yes, they are in their right to demand payment for all three.

I am willing to pay /something/ because I accept I've made a mistake, but I believe their demands of £1200 are outrageous.

Having looked at some previous forums here (most notably the 14 pages on Permission Machine), some of you have provided breakdowns of what reasonable cost would be in court, including damages. Am I right in saying that in this case the damages for all three would be the single license fee (which is £24)? And if it did go to court, all three claims would be dealt with together, meaning there's only one set of court fees to consider?

Any advice you can provide will be greatly appreciated. I run a small website with my partner - we are not a big entity by any means, and £1200 is a huge amount of money for us. If it wasn't so high, I'd pay it just to stop having the worry hanging over my head.

[AndyJ]

hi SillyBilly and welcome to the forum,

I think the other commenters on Reddit are probably correct in saying there are three separate instances of infringement. Whether or not a valid licence would have allowed multiple uses within the same website is not really relevant since you didn't have a licence.

But the principle remains the same that what the copyright owner has lost - and therefore might expect in damages - is the market value of the licence, and in this case this arguably needs to be multiplied by three. £72 is therefore the figure that you should use for your counter offer, unless there are any additional factors which might amount to flagrancy or infringement of the author's moral rights, such as removing a copyright notice. You haven't mentioned any of the latter so I assume they do not form part of the claim by Copyright Agent..

[SillyBilly]

Thanks for your response, Andy. I'm struggling to get my head around the logic when the image was uploaded once (i.e. the image url is the same on all three webpages) and the loss to Alamy is the cost of one license fee.

But! I will accept that part of their demands at least, for the sake of ease. We are planning to offer them around £250 which would more than cover three separate licenses and any admin/fees related.

As for copyright removal or anything else - I'm not sure and certainly not maliciously. The emails I've received from CopyrightAgent simply mention a missing license. I was using the image as a genuine error, so wherever I got it from in the first instance did not have any copyright tied to it.

When I'm making a counter offer, should I return with one lump sum for all three cases or offer a separate amount for each (say, £80)?

[AndyJ]

I don't think it matters, so long as you make it clear that the £250 counter offer is for all three claims together.

[SillyBilly]

Thanks, Andy. We put forward £100 per claim, so £300 altogether. I'm guessing they won't accept, but we'll see what happens.

Thanks so much for your responses here - both to me and across the forum. There's a lot of helpful info here, and it's appreciated.