Be Careful with Your Website!

midnight flyer said:
Thank you for thoughtful notification informing me that we had inadvertently published an image that was copyrighted. As I expressed to your company earlier, it was not my intent use the work of someone else in an illegal fashion. We had absolutely no knowledge that they image was not public domain. There were no labels on the picture, no notes of authorship on the picture or in its file name, nor watermarks on the image. The picture was removed from my website immediately after your notification.
Click to expand...

That's actually exactly what happened. In any case I have a pro looking into it for me. We'll see how it goes.
 
james terrio said:
That's actually exactly what happened. In any case I have a pro looking into it for me. We'll see how it goes.
Click to expand...

That sounds like some good wording from midnight flyer. Polite, to the point, clearly explains the situation without putting any blame on you or the owner of the image. I'd give it a shot.
 
jonnymac44 said:
That sounds like some good wording from midnight flyer. Polite, to the point, clearly explains the situation without putting any blame on you or the owner of the image. I'd give it a shot.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Jonny. With almost 30 years of self employment, it seems half of my job is admin these days, sometimes doing things just like this. This type of situation can be rough water for any self employed.

I don't see this situation as company that feels they have been financially robbed by an intellectual thief, but as a third party company
that found a way to make money on inexperienced businessmen on the net. Not my fight, but I had to chime in... been in James' shoes more than once.

James -

midnight flyer said:
Thank you for thoughtful notification informing me that we had inadvertently published an image that was copyrighted. As I expressed to your company earlier, it was not my intent use the work of someone else in an illegal fashion. We had absolutely no knowledge that the image was not public domain. There were no labels on the picture, no notes of authorship on the picture or in its file name, nor watermarks on the image. The picture was removed from my website immediately after your notification.

We are sorry for this misunderstanding and would like to apologize for any harm we may have caused you or your client. Thank you for your time and assistance in resolving this matter.[/I]
Click to expand...

Feel absolutely free to use any of that you find useful. My work isn't copyrighted! :D

Seriously, if you need a hand writing your response, just hit me up on my email and I can help you if you would like.

Regardless, let us know how you come out.

Robert
 
Something like this happened on the hot pepper forum recently, just reversed. There was a guy that was using other people pics to sell his stuff and when they wrote to tell him to stop using it, he would flip out, insult them and continue to use it. One guy finally threatened him with a suit and he shut down all of his websites. They said if he would have asked to use the pics or even just stop using them when they told him they were under copyright, they would have been happy. It's not always about how much you lose when someone uses your "intellectual property", it's about how much they gain by using something they don't have the rights to. It happens all the time on the internet and most times it's just a matter of saying "hey, could you take down that photo, it's mine". Most people don't even realize they did something wrong. There is so much "free" stuff on the net, how do you know? i think Midnight flyer hit it when he said a third party saw money. You said it was a company that represented photographers, so thats probably what happened. Stick with his "thoughtful noticfication" and you should be ok.
 
What you may have run into is the publisher of a "clip art" book of generic subjects that is sold to folks like newspapers and ad agencies. I have no idea what those services cost now (IIRC, you get kind of an unlimited "license" to use the pics in making up your ads when you buy the books/service) I wouldn't be surprised if they are trying to charge you the minimum amount it cost to subscribe to their service.
 
I say to change/remove that image from your site immediately. Make sure the image file doesn't even exist on the server any more. Then I would treat them as a Phishing Scam and barely cooperate with them (until proven otherwise). Also, save every communication with them and FORWARD any emails to an secondary email account. Make sure you use "forward" to preserve headers.

If you also know tech stuff, explore their domain name and mail headers to see if it's even originating from within the States.

I could see this a being real, but I could also see this as a very clever scam.
 
I would remove said image and ignore them. It's not like you maliciously stole their pic; you had no clue as to who it belonged to.
 
Also be careful of pics posted on photo hosting sites. Usually they sometime get the ownership of the photo or have weird rules like this from photobucket's membership agreement

"You are also giving other Users the right to copy, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and create derivative works from it via the Site or third party websites or applications (for example, via services allowing Users to order prints of Content or t-shirts and similar items containing Content, and via social media websites)."
 
Wow! Photobucket don't seem so "free" after all. Thanks for posting this James and please keep us advised of how things shape up.
 
I've had companies try that with me TWICE on two separate images... two different companies, infact. One was just under $1000 and the other was just over $7000. My philosophy was "Good luck getting blood from a stone". I took the image down, gave a sincere apology, and assured them that the picture was not duplicated in print. I also mentioned that upon review, I did not see any labeling to inform me of the copyright. In each case I was first sent an email of notification(I responded promptly to this email). Then a follow up to remind me that I will be billed... To which I replied that it will not be necessary because the images were immediately removed upon receiving the first notification and I have no intention of purchasing image rights or paying their bill. I never heard from either company again. That was 3-4 years ago.

They will not go after personal usage cases but when you post them on a business site it calls attention to you. Don't worry about Photobucket-type accounts unless you are linking to your business site. If you can get the picture from a Google search, tell them to go take a flying... well, you get the picture.(pun intended) If you are sniping from a site that sells image rights... you are up the creek, bud.
 
Last edited:
James, I believe that Mr. Marchand has the best advice on the subject. If you took it down, just send them a nice letter saying "Ooops, I goofed, sorry about that". There are tons of scams of this sort on the Internet.

Guys/gals, if you need royalty free stock images for your website, simply go to someplace like iStockPhoto.com or BigStockPhoto.com. There are others, but I mainly use these two when building a website. I pay around $1.50 per image, sometimes more, sometimes less. You only need the extra small images for your site. Their "extra small" pics are usually in the neighborhood of 300 x 300. Now if you're going to use those pics on a brochure, biz card, coffee mug, T-shirt or the sorts, you'll be required to spend a little more. But for web use, stay with the smaller images. It does you no good to buy the larger ones.

The worse thing you can do is to browse the 'Net and copy photo's. Sooner or later you're bound to get a hold of one that's copyrighted. Of course, if you live in China o similar country, none of this matters ;)
 
I used iStockPhoto.com to build the backgrounds on my current website.

ETA
My wife has been a web and graphic designer for 15yrs. She owns her own business and has also been work for Parks Canada as a Graphic Designer/Publications Specialists/Promotions Officer. She is well versed in CYA tactics when is comes to graphic, photos, video, text and language translation.

She tries to keep me out of trouble.;)
 
Last edited:
A few years ago, a friend ran an "Air-Brush" (T-Shirts and Car Tags) business in the local mall. He had an FM radio on while he was airbrushing (volume down low), strictly for his enjoyment.

A guy stopped in one day and handed him some paperwork......... He was charged for using copyrighted music for public entertainment without express permission from the original.... whatever.....whatever.

Cost him a bundle.

On a side note, I ran a part-time photo business in the 80's and listed my home phone number on my business cards. The phone company called and informed me that I would be placed on a business plan, which more than doubled the costs of my basic phone service. Seems they had a team that scoured newspapers and local business card posting boards looking for just what I was doing. Leeches they are, just leeches.

Sorry to hear of your troubles my friend.

Robert
 
I'm doing web work for a friend right now and have had to repeatedly explain this kind of issue. If I didn't shoot it, he didn't shoot it, or we didn't buy the rights to use it in the form it will be used, I don't wanna touch it. The exception are promotional materials provided for this use by the manufacturers of the products, and even then I pester him to dig up the documentation and make sure it says he can use it for this. It's way too easy to get nailed. Unless something is specifically noted as public domain you have to consider it copyrighted and will need permission to use it legally. You may not have to pay to use it, but you do need permission and you want it in writing that outlines what is allowed so there's no confusion later.

I sell some of my work on microstock sites and they're also where I get most of the general purpose images for the site. They're a great source for small business web sites where you need to spice it up a bit but aren't using the image as the main attraction. My usual go to is bigstockphoto.com since they're one of the easiest to buy small numbers of images from and I know the owners. The best part is that they have a mechanism for you to use the images while designing or doing mock ups without having to buy them. That way when you're going through a dozen different ideas you can try things out and then just buy the ones you actually go with for the live site.
 
"Blood from a stone" indeed! By pure luck, a recent client of mine deals with this sort of thing for a living and has volunteered to do the talking for me. I'm not really comfortable saying more about it until it gets resolved, but I appreciate all your input. This is an important conversation for any of us who simply want to do legitimate business.

Again, the most important thing is learn from my mistake.
 
Robert Dark said:
A few years ago, a friend ran an "Air-Brush" (T-Shirts and Car Tags) business in the local mall. He had an FM radio on while he was airbrushing (volume down low), strictly for his enjoyment.

A guy stopped in one day and handed him some paperwork......... He was charged for using copyrighted music for public entertainment without express permission from the original.... whatever.....whatever.
Click to expand...

That sucks but it is true. I have several song credits and music videos out, have friends who are DJ's and fitness coaches and a buddy who hosts a local radio program. Check out this link...

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-licensing3.htm

ETA..... Woah... I must have missed the FM radio part.... that is free listening no matter how many folks are present. The radio station already paid for that. Are you sure it wasn't CD's?

Rick
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top