Copyright infringement via Permission Machine, acting on behalf of Alamy

[juicysteve]

Jumping on this thread of horrors with a slight twist on the usual Visual Rights Group nonsense.

I've had an email in relation to an image on a magazine/editorial website. The claim is the wrong licence was purchased (presentation licence) and so a spurious amount in the region of £450 or something is owed.

Now, the website in question was transferred last year from one company to another, so essentially the legal entity that is responsible for this heinous crime of buying the wrong type of licence is not the legal entity that has been served the demand.

Any thoughts on how to best handle this?!

[AndyJ]

Hi juicysteve and welcome to the forum.

It's nice to have a variation on the rather depressing theme of straightforward allegations of infringement.

Going straight to your question, since the image was presumably on the website during the period of ownership by the new company, then they would be liable for making the image available to the public without (it is suggested) the correct licence. This is so even if the actual error occurred during the time of the previous company's ownership. All it means is that the old company could be sued by the new company to recover the cost of rectifying the mater. I rather suspect from what you write that the old company may no longer be trading, so that is probably a dead end. Also, if the new company was the successor in title to the old company for other aspects, eg goodwill, physical assets, leases etc, then the new company just has to swallow the costs.

That said, it would pay to carry out a thorough examination of the terms of the two types of licence to make sure that what VRG are asserting actually stands up. Assuming it does, the company would only be liable for the difference in value between an editorial licence and a presentation licence at the normal rates. I would be very surprised if this came to £450. Editorial use is frequently just a limitation on the use of an image. For example an editorial-only image might not actually be usable for presentation / advertising / packaging etc purposes. For most stock images it's a bogus distinction anyway.

Strictly speaking the dispute is a matter of contract law rather than copyright law, although the underlying principles for how to settle the matter are fundamentally the same.

[juicysteve]

Hi juicysteve and welcome to the forum.

It's nice to have a variation on the rather depressing theme of straightforward allegations of infringement.

Going straight to your question, since the image was presumably on the website during the period of ownership by the new company, then they would be liable for making the image available to the public without (it is suggested) the correct licence. This is so even if the actual error occurred during the time of the previous company's ownership. All it means is that the old company could be sued by the new company to recover the cost of rectifying the mater. I rather suspect from what you write that the old company may no longer be trading, so that is probably a dead end. Also, if the new company was the successor in title to the old company for other aspects, eg goodwill, physical assets, leases etc, then the new company just has to swallow the costs.

That said, it would pay to carry out a thorough examination of the terms of the two types of licence to make sure that what VRG are asserting actually stands up. Assuming it does, the company would only be liable for the difference in value between an editorial licence and a presentation licence at the normal rates. I would be very surprised if this came to £450. Editorial use is frequently just a limitation on the use of an image. For example an editorial-only image might not actually be usable for presentation / advertising / packaging etc purposes. For most stock images it's a bogus distinction anyway.

Strictly speaking the dispute is a matter of contract law rather than copyright law, although the underlying principles for how to settle the matter are fundamentally the same.

Thanks Andy, I did indeed login to Alamy and compare the contrasting licences, it appears the difference is a whopping £20.

In a twist of irony, I have sold some images through Alamy and have $26 pending payout. Might just email VRG back and tell them to keep it and call it quits

Appreciate the help.

[giraffe67]

Hi

I got this from fairlicensing@pamediagroup.com saying there is possible Alamy Copyright.

They are asking for 450 gbp for one image that is 30 gbp to license.

Its actually of an athlete I work with who sent me the image - they cant recall how they got it. So i removed it immediately just in case.

I am based in Australia and my company is registered here. I've read every page of this forum which has been great.

Would sensible next steps to offer a 40-60gbp counter offer to account for license fee plus a % for their admin?


Hi,

I’m writing to remind you that our early settlement discount expires at midnight tonight.

This email is a reminder about your payment only. We will be in touch if you have written in regarding this enquiry separately.

We have not yet received proof of a license or a payment for your use. The details can be accessed here:

View Case Details
Enter your Case Number ****** and PIN ****** to access the details securely.

Kind regards,

Adrian


PA Media Group InfringementsTeam

[AndyJ]

Hi giraffe and welcome,

Yes I think that a £40 counter offer would be suitable.

It is an unfortunate fact that tthe subject of a photograph, such as your friend the athlete, has no rights when it comes to copyright in the image.

Andy

[giraffe67]

Yes, it's crazy. The photo was taken during a game of his in around 2015, was on their site in 2021. He cant even remember who gave him the photo as he's had it for that long.

Not that this Adrian fella who is emailing will listen to any of that.

I'll try the counter offer and see how the steps pan out.

Thanks mate.

[Tomato]

I thought I would write an update for my case. I was first contacted by visual rights group by email well over a year ago. I never communicated with them. Probably got 6 emails in total, final warning, late payment, last chance, then a discount, then legal action. They have now stopped. Ignore these clowns, they will never pursue with any of their threats.

It has been an education though. I will do proper due diligence in the future. All the likes of Alamy need to do is ask for the licence fee and make people aware of their innocent mistake and move on....

[Les]

Thanks for this. The outcome of these cases is often not updated, and it's good to see. I'm glad you've shaken them off.

[stevedavies]

Very likely, Tomato.
I've had threats, warnings, chases, discount offer (joke...), 2nd warning, final warnings, more follow ups, last chance, offer refused, followups, escalation warnings.... since August 2023.
It's been several weeks since I cut off comms with Pixsy after they refused my offer.
I have not ruled out them contacting again. Not yet. Maybe if months drift by. I just don't dwell on it anymore unless I do get an email from a lawyer. an actual lawyer not a dickhead 'case manager' with no legal experience and nothing more than a bully. However, I've deflected bullies often in life and Pixsy are no different.
There is that chance that they'll circle back, maybe months down the line but you're right to take your mind off it.
Flickr were very helpful with me in the investigation of the artist but sadly I won't ever use their site again until the CC 2.0 license is removed and artists are forced to upgrade to 4.0.
I only use Unsplash as the site makes use of a free license and a new wordpress plugin I've started using, automatically adds attribution. Or I pay for an image from Shutterstock.
Keep us updated. I will too if I hear from an actual legal team.

[Terrar56]

Hey Steve,

I too was in the same boat as you. I contacted a lawyer for piece of mind and they reviewed the case. Their copyright lawyer said it was absolute rubbish. Firstly they'd have to hire a local lawyer to take on the case which would cost way more than the fee they're asking for. Also noone would bother to take it on because the 'artist' would have to justify the damages from a free image and not being credited correctly which would be near if not $0. He said and I quote "they can go jump".

Like one of the first posts I read, they are a bunch of chancers and make their money by intimadation and scare tactics. They are not lawyers even though they say they are a 'law service' which again is just another tactic. For anyone reading don't buy into their bullshit and just ignore them.

[stevedavies]

I actually wish I hadn't allowed them to make me feel I needed to invest so much time in researching the case and their actions this past 6 months. But, if anything, it's been an education and I am looking towards having my case covered by a journalist once I know they have pretty much ceased contact. They have not heard the last from me for the stress they've caused.

Glad you spoke to a lawyer. I had varied advice from lawyers but couldn't get much of a legal consultation moving forward as I was told my case was not worth it, for the reason you pointed out on costs. A lawyer's fee would drown the money they try to extort from people.

They are chancers. Sadly, many have paid up, some as much as £600 and a few of those could not really afford it and were scared into submission. You'll find examples of these cases I believe on here, on Legal Beadles, Trustpilot and a few other legal forums.

Pixsy are no more than daytime crooks who operate like any other rogue operation out there when it comes to extorting money. They only just manage to not be labelled a scam.

But Flickr have assured me they are working on a lot of changes, particularly how the licenses work and I believe them after they banned the "artist" on my Pixsy case. They investigated and came back with "We have reviewed your report, and taken appropriate action on the content in accordance with our Terms & Conditions of Use." That was funny... a big stab in the dark really as he may not have been a troll. But on investigation into his 70k images where so many were almost identical - a common trend by trolls to quickly set up 1000s of images - Flickr clearly found suspicious behaviour. I may contact the photographer, may not, just for fun.

Anyway, I'll update here if I get further hassles, over on my thread. Good to know that another actual copyright lawyer finds the claims and attempted legalese threats from Pixsy to be rubbish.

[Another victim]

Hello again to this group
I bring both good news and bad. Firstly, I would like to offer some crumb of comfort to the recipients of claims letters - it is now over 18 months since our last threatening letter from VRG, who eventually tailed off after we held firm with our counter offer of about £60 in the face of their claim for £400. Of course they could restart this process but I think sufficient time has passed to feel that they have moved on to potentially more lucrative targets. So, if you're being besieged by letters ramping up threats, be strong - you will prevail eventually as long as you have followed all the advice kindly given in this thread.

Now the bad - a friend who I had previously recounted our story with VRG to has now himself received a similar letter claiming infringement and asked for my help. It is a similar instance to my own historical one, but the letter has come from Alamy themselves (they obviously feel that VRG aren't doing a good enough job on their behalf), and the recipient lives in Scotland. I know there is something different about IPEC in Scotland, but can't see exactly what that is?

[AndyJ]

Hi AV,

Firstly, thanks for the update on your own case. It's always useful to hear how things turn out.

And turning to your friend's issue, you are right that the system in Scotland is slightly different in that the claim, if the claim (a cause in Scottish legal terminiology) were to go to court, it would be heard in the Outer House of the Court of Session, rather than the IPEC. As with the IPEC, such a case would be heard by a judge with specialist experience in intellectual property law. A defender (Scottish version of defendant) can represent himself if he feels confident about the legal issues involved - you know them already from your own experience - and of course the actual law being operated is the same Copyright Designs and Patents Act as applies in England and Wales (and Northern Ireland).

The major issue which does fall into your 'bad news' heading is that there is no rule which means that the winning party's legal costs will be awarded against the losing party, as is the case with the IPEC Smal Claims track. However a defender is allowed to put forward argument as to why costs should not be awarded against him, for instance if the pursuer (the claimant in England and Wales) had failed to accept an earlier reasonable offer to settle which was either the same as or higher than the actual damages the court awarded. Also if the court could be persuaded that the pursuer had acted oppressively by making an unjustifiable initial claim (eg demanding £400 where the loss of the licence fee was £40), this might also persuade the court not to give a costs order.

Although Scotland does have a small claims procideure - known as the Simple Procedure - which bars the awarding of costs in some cases and all those under £200 in value), that procedure does not yet apply to Intellectual Property cases which have to go to the Outer House. Having said that, there is a proposal by the Scottish Law Society to streamline the way simpler IP cases are dealt with, which seems likely to borrow some ideas from the success of the IPEC model.

[ManxMan]

Afternoon All,

I have spent the last 2hrs reading through all the threads, dating back to 2022 and earlier. Its so good to have a page setup like this, for people to share their experiences. I have had my weekend ruined as I received an email and letter in the post from Visual Rights Group working on behalf of Alamy requesting a payment of £439.95.
We are a start-up (Limited) company, not yet trading, have a website that basically has zero traffic, haven't even got a bank account setup yet. We genuinely used an image of a town center, which we believed was free to use... No messages, no copyright mark, no watermarks. I of course appreciate, maybe we should have trilled into the details of the image (lesson learnt). Based off the back of this forum, I have taken the image down from our server. I am more than happy to pay the Alamy fee of £35.99, plus a gesture of good will for the admin £30.

Andy, one other small curve ball, which I'm hoping may help the case when they decline my offer, is that our company is registered in the Isle of Man, and taking us to the Small Claims courts surely would not be in their interest.
If you have had any previous experience of Isle of Man cases, I'm all ears.
Up until this morning, I was half considering paying the fee but after reading these threads, I have done a full 'U' turn - thanks to everyone's feedback.

[AndyJ]

Hi ManxMan and welcome to the forum.

I have no experience of the Manx legal systen as regards the enforcement of intellectual property law (or indeed other civil matters!). The Manx law (the Copyright Act 1991 as amended) closely follows the text of the UK Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, and like the CDPA, Manx law requires that all copyright claims are heard in the High Court (the Manx one, not the Royal Courts of Justice in London). However, for fairly obvious reasons, there is no IoM intellectual property small claims court system similar to the IPEC, so any claim would go before the High Court in Douglas. This makes it more complicated (and possibly expensive) for the copyright owner, but your position as a potential defendant is not made unduly more disadvatageous as you could certainly appear as a litigant in person if you wished. Alternatively if the matter did go to court you could opt to have the matter heard in Manchester (the current home of the IPEC small claims court) if you wished. If you want more specific advice I would suggest you contact one of the nine IoM advocates who specialise in Intellectual Property matters (details here). Only members of the Isle of Man Law Society have a right of audience in the IoM courts.

Sorry I can't be of more help.