Pixsy demands - what do we do?
Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2021 10:00 pm
We're a small hospitality business located in quiet rural England. We pride ourselves on offering friendly service, honesty and integrity. Several months ago, just after lockdown lifted, we were finally able to welcome guests back. One of the things we did during our COVID-enforced closure was to add a little more interest to our website. So we created a page of local attractions - things for our guests to do when they stayed with us. A local wildlife park was a good choice, so we created a link to it from our website. The small image we used was one which we found on a local business website where this very same wildlife park was promoting itself. It had no photo accreditation or copyright information and we therefore assumed it would be in order to use the photo as it would have been supplied by the park which we were helping to promote. This local business website is still active and the photo in question is still there as part of the visual promotion of the animals and the park.
Out of the blue, we received in August, a bombshell of an aggressively worded email from Pixsy's London office accusing us of copyright infringement and demanding a £450 fee - or else things will be legally escalated. Pixsy claims that the image we used is copyrighted by one Marco Verch of Germany for whom Pixsy acts. Now, after a little digging, I found that the image for which Pixsy wants £450, is available free of charge for anyone to use on Marco Verch's website https://ccnull.de/fotograf/marco-verch. It's a Creative Commons photo, so Marco Verch places zero value on it. He just asks you to consider a donation when using it for any purpose plus a photographer's credit.
We immediately removed the image from our website after this first email.
As a LinkedIn member, I sent Marco Verch a friendly message explaining our unfortunate situation and kindly requesting that he asks his agent to reconsider, given that we had no idea we were using an image that wasn't the local park's, even though they were using it in their publicity! And that we were unwittingly using a photograph of his for which he makes no charge. Had his name appeared as a photo credit, then we would, of course, have repeated and published that.
Marco Verch has ignored our message and request and we continue to be bombarded by emails from Pixsy demanding the fee with a deadline set, beyond which legal action is threatened for non-payment.
This is very stressful, all the more so, as I have some worrying health issues that have just been diagnosed.
Are we at fault? Are we liable?
Do we pay up or do we sit tight and wait to get a court summons then settle out of court?
Or do we just ignore all the emails and hope Pixsy will realise that our case just isn't worth pursuing?
All we ever wanted to do was just add a bit more local information to our website and doing so has opened a whole can of unsavoury worms!
Pixsy's approach seems very heavy-handed and unreasonable.
All suggestions most welcome!
Out of the blue, we received in August, a bombshell of an aggressively worded email from Pixsy's London office accusing us of copyright infringement and demanding a £450 fee - or else things will be legally escalated. Pixsy claims that the image we used is copyrighted by one Marco Verch of Germany for whom Pixsy acts. Now, after a little digging, I found that the image for which Pixsy wants £450, is available free of charge for anyone to use on Marco Verch's website https://ccnull.de/fotograf/marco-verch. It's a Creative Commons photo, so Marco Verch places zero value on it. He just asks you to consider a donation when using it for any purpose plus a photographer's credit.
We immediately removed the image from our website after this first email.
As a LinkedIn member, I sent Marco Verch a friendly message explaining our unfortunate situation and kindly requesting that he asks his agent to reconsider, given that we had no idea we were using an image that wasn't the local park's, even though they were using it in their publicity! And that we were unwittingly using a photograph of his for which he makes no charge. Had his name appeared as a photo credit, then we would, of course, have repeated and published that.
Marco Verch has ignored our message and request and we continue to be bombarded by emails from Pixsy demanding the fee with a deadline set, beyond which legal action is threatened for non-payment.
This is very stressful, all the more so, as I have some worrying health issues that have just been diagnosed.
Are we at fault? Are we liable?
Do we pay up or do we sit tight and wait to get a court summons then settle out of court?
Or do we just ignore all the emails and hope Pixsy will realise that our case just isn't worth pursuing?
All we ever wanted to do was just add a bit more local information to our website and doing so has opened a whole can of unsavoury worms!
Pixsy's approach seems very heavy-handed and unreasonable.
All suggestions most welcome!