Copyright Aid

I can't provide case law as I know of no case where secondary infringement was used as a Defence for a breach of section 20,comunication to the public, however I can quote L Bentley ,Intellectual Property Law, 4th Edition - page 219 "Secondary Infringement does not apply to communications to the ...

And J "the onus was on the claimant to show how the value of the claim had been arrived at"
Ah we are back in harmony now, yes indeed the burden of proof is on the claimant to prove the value of the work and the easiest way to establish that is to see where he or she is selling it. If the copyright ...

The above makes for interesting reading. here are a couple of points to consider.

As Andy J mentioned, Agency law is very complex and if the copyright holder previously had a relationship with the photo agent then its quite possible that the licence to you was valid and the copyright holders claim ...

Unfortunately and image being freely available on the internet does not mean it is free to use. There may be thousands of people all publishing the same image but copyright still belongs to the creator unless he or she has assigned it to somebody else in writing. Copyright in a photograph lasts for ...

I agree with everything Andy J has said above. His advice is sensible and cautious, however if you are particularity aggrieved you could claim a higher amount. Andy J suggests a total claim of 2x the normal value , however if the infringer is particularly badly behaved then you could quite ...

This is an interesting case. I agree with most although not all of what Andy J says.

At the heart of this case is who posted the image as a CC image on Flikr. If it was the photographer himself then he has valued his own work as zero and the claim is fundamentally flawed. If the CC licence demands ...

I agree with most of what Andy J has said. The only very minor disagreement is that what you send is a "demand" and not an invoice. Invoices are for where the parties have agreed.

Obviously , given the position of the people depicted, you should first demand removal of all infringing material ...

There is an aspect to this case that has been missed. The photographer is German. I see no reasons why he would or should enforce his rights in the IPEC. If the infringement was visible in Germany then the copyright holder can action the case in the German courts. ( See Pez Hejduk. v. EnergieAgentur ...

Do let us know how you get on.

Be aware that after your hearing the court is taking a considerable time to issue the Notice of Judgement , so you may still be some time away from getting paid. I read of a hearing in early November where the notice of judgement was only sent out mid January. they ...

I think ist impossible to say from a simple forum post whether an amount of 4000 to 6000 GBP is too much or very reasonable.

Looking at market rates is only relevant if the image is not one that is available to licence on the open market. If this is a professional image then the value of the image ...

Andy J, I understand what you are saying, however I should point out that the court don't just rubber stamp whatever additional damages the claimant is asking for. Additional damages are always an amount decided by the court and they take that role seriously, this is why there is a quantum hearing ...

Its true that the defendant did not appear in court in person, however that is the beauty of the Small Claims Track, neither claimant nor defendant needs to appear, you can have your arguments heard on paper. With trainfares sometimes costing over 300 GBP and the value of a lost days work, sometimes ...

A small claims case at the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court ( IPEC ) has been published. Normally small claims track judgements are not published and so its rare to actually see in black and white the sort of decisions made by the court. Apparently the photographer concerned went to great ...

Andy J , yes there are some historical exceptions to the general rule that copyright extends to 70 years from the authors death, however I don't think this will help much here. Unless I am searching specifically for a historic image, almost all the images I see in online searches are digital images ...

I agree with much of what Andy J says however I disagree where he says "If you obtained the disputed image from a legitimate source and you can prove this, then this may provide a defence, and liability for primary infringement (if it exists) passes to the person who supplied the image to you."

If ...