Image Rights Copyright Infringement Notice

[Jimuk]

Hello all,

I have received an email regarding an image posted on a UK blog I run in 2016.

The email is from and American company called ImageRights and it says that unless I can prove that I have a licence I must pay them £970 to resolve the matter.

I found the image on google and placed a logo on top for an article. My blog doesn’t make any money it is just a fan page.

I have now removed the blog completely.

Could anyone give me any advice on how to proceed please?

[AndyJ]

Hi jimuk and welcome

There are several threads here which deal with this topic, and variations of it specfically involving Etsy shops and abuse of Creative Commons licences. If you take some time and read through what has been said in them you should get an idea of how to proceed.

[Jimuk]

Thank you

[Jimuk]

Thank you for your speedy reply Andy. I have read through some of the previous threads which are very useful. Is it possible to contact ImageRights and negotiate a fee? Using the various reasons I have for not applying for an original licence.

Or in your opinion should I just pay up to avoid further action? I received their email yesterday, if I leave it until they attempt to contact me again will the fee escalate?

Thank you again

[AndyJ]

Yes we absolutely advocate making a counter offer to settle the claim. You need to try and establish the actual licence fee which would be applicable to the image that you used. You can usually do this by conducting a reverse image search using google image search or Tineye. However if you no longer have a copy of the image concerned, you may still be able to find it by searching the popular image agencies such as Shutterstock, Alamy and Getty etc. Once you have an idea of the current market value of such a licence, make that the basis of the counter offer. If you wish, you could add a small uplift (say around 10%) as a goodwill gesture. Even then you will probably discover that the true market value is a fraction of the amount being demanded by ImagePights. Clearly their figure is intended to make the whole procedure profitable for them. However you are under no legal obligation to enrich ImageRights. If the photographer chooses to employ an agency to try to recoverr the money owed, then they must bear the costs as normal business expenses, just as they would with insurance premiums or rent on a studio.