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How much for Infringement


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Just found an "interesting one".  I was doing a reverse image search to see where a recent small sale had been used ( ended up being Daily Mail). Anyway, I then found it on the website of a travel company who had believe originally purchased it. RM Image, paid $37 or so for it, it is of one of their brands / products, but taken in public space, with property released down as "No" .  Turns out they've put the image on their Marketing / PR page as a free download, and it's the original full res image ( 6000 x 4000). No attribution to me, no statements on image use of anything, anyone can download. All metadata appears to have been stripped out.  Even still got the original Alamy Image ID as file name.  Reckon it's been up there for 5 years.

 

What do you reckon ?

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Better check with Alamy as to the terms of the original licence, but it sounds like an infringement. Alamy probably has first refusal on chasing it, but if they hand it off to you, and it's a UK company,  the threat of going to IPEC usually works.

Edited by spacecadet
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On 26/06/2021 at 10:17, Simon said:

Just found an "interesting one".  I was doing a reverse image search to see where a recent small sale had been used ( ended up being Daily Mail). Anyway, I then found it on the website of a travel company who had believe originally purchased it. RM Image, paid $37 or so for it, it is of one of their brands / products, but taken in public space, with property released down as "No" .  Turns out they've put the image on their Marketing / PR page as a free download, and it's the original full res image ( 6000 x 4000). No attribution to me, no statements on image use of anything, anyone can download. All metadata appears to have been stripped out.  Even still got the original Alamy Image ID as file name.  Reckon it's been up there for 5 years.

 

What do you reckon ?

 

The part about it being unreleased on your part won't matter as the company that owns the IP in the image have bought it, so they can release it themselves for commercial use if they want to (assuming it only contains their IP and no-one else's...). The fact that it's RM though and seemingly being handed away for free doesn't sound right, but only Alamy can say whether it's a breach of the agreed terms.

 

I would think that even if a company buys an unreleased photo containing one of its own brands with intent to use it commercially they must still specify that when buying. What does the original sale info say on your account, if it even goes that far back? (I haven't been here long enough to check)

Edited by Cal
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On 27/06/2021 at 09:25, spacecadet said:

Better check with Alamy as to the terms of the original licence, but it sounds like an infringement. Alamy probably has first refusal on chasing it, but if they hand it off to you, and it's a UK company,  the threat of going to IPEC usually works.

 

You are surely allowed to insist on chasing this yourself as the copyright remains with you.

Alamy will just issue a retrospective licence for a minimal fee and then take 50% fee.

Howver it's hard to find out if they have sold the image legitimately as they won't tell your their clients!

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1 hour ago, Dodgyrog said:

You are surely allowed to insist on chasing this yourself as the copyright remains with you.

Not necessarily.

According to the contract ( s16.4) Alamy is entitled to chase a breach of licence conditions in the first instance. In any case it would be a breach of contract for you to contact an Alamy customer directly (s4.5 and 4.6). If they can't get satisfaction they will hand it off to you.

Only if it's a third-party infringement can you go after it yourself.

Edited by spacecadet
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1 hour ago, Dodgyrog said:

Howver it's hard to find out if they have sold the image legitimately as they won't tell your their clients!

They will in a case like this. Whenever you tell CR about a use you don't recognise, they will look for a relevant download and tell you if there's a match, so they effectively identify the client.

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