Trying to be sued for using an image

[jellybabys]

Hello

Can i please ask for some advice, we have a blog that we hire people around to the world to write and add articles to are blog, one of the articles that was written for us used an image from another blog, we believe they asked permission to use the image and also we linked the blog home page saying "image source".

A large image company has sent me a letter saying that they own the image rights, and would like £1700.00 because we used the image, the article had been up for 6 weeks, they have given us no break down of the charges they just called it a "settlement demand".

The bit that is confusing me is that we did not know who owned the image as it just came from the other blog, the other blog did not say that this other company owned that image so we had no way of telling.

The company that does own the right said this does not matter as we should have found out and it comes down to the end user? and that even if we remove the image they still demand the fee.

Can they do this as we had no idea who owned this image other than the other blog using it? and can they just charge us what they like?

Thanks for any advice

[Ian J]

Trying searching on Google for the name of the company that is threatening to sue you as if it's the company that I'm thinking of you will find quite a lot of other people have been in the same boat as you

[jellybabys]

Thanks Ian

Does the company start with Ge------ and ends in ges ?

Thanks

[peterjhale]

Yes, I've seen stuff on this before.

As Ian says, go to google, type in the name of the company followed by the word "sued" - there are many results to help you...

[jellybabys]

Thanks

Ive taken a look and found what i was looking for, you both was right.

As i believe i have don't nothing wrong (like claiming VAT when you are US based) i asked the other blog if i could use the image and i never had it in my database, i willing to go to court with them and pay if i lose but if i don't lose hopefully this will set president for anyone else that use an image in good faith.

By the way im not saying steeling an image is right, just if you use one and are innocent then they should not try to punish you.

Lastly how do they set their fees, £1700.00 for 45 days is robbery and the image royalty cost a lot less than that?

Thanks again

[DavidT]

It does sound expensive, and I doubt the image royalty cost would be near that (particularly for web quality use, larger print quality use can be a bit).

I understand the situation is unfortunate, what can a company do when the image itself does not show who owns the copyright?

In your situation you wanted to use the image, probably the only thing mentioning copyright anywhere (as the image itself probably doesn't!) was a notice at the bottom of the blog website... so you asked if it can be used and they said yes.

I would think those incorrectly providing you with the right to use the image which they must have obtained from elsewhere (Get...ages or somewhere else) would really be who is pursued. Also not great for you if you can find yourself caught between the two and appearing to cause trouble when you never had the intention (or expectation) of doing anything wrong.

Sorry to hear it and hopefully it is just an empty threat and attempt for them to get easy £s.

Personally if I ever found myself on their side of the fence, someone unintentionally breaching copyright, I would rather take a more positive approach and ask it be stopped, or offer it continue to be used if paid for... not just going straight in for the throat.

David Toohey
The Accountants Circle
Accountant & Bookkeeper Forums | Find Me an Accountant

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