Burden of proof - pa media group
Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2024 2:24 pm
I received an email from PA media group on behalf of Alamy saying the following:
"We have noticed that you are currently using one or more images from our collection on your website. PA is the national news agency for the UK and Ireland and own the copyright to images taken by our photographers in the course of their employment with us.
We have been unable to find a license for this usage of our imagery by your organisation.
We're writing to establish if you have a valid license for the usage in question. Please send us a copy so we can validate it and close this enquiry."
In a knee-jerk reaction, I removed the image, but the problem is that back when I started my website, I had a well-paid job and thought nothing of buying photos from Corbis and Getty. Over the past 20 years, I've moved domains several times and changed web hosting and email accounts. I've also gone through several computers. I can't find a copy of the original photo on my current hard drive.
The image in question is from 2012. Alamy has only had the rights to sell this image from 2021. Shouldn't they be the ones proving that I don't have a valid licence?
Their latest email says, "This is our final outreach in goodwill, understanding that mistakes can happen. We offer a retroactive license for a one-time fee of 1585.00 GBP to settle the unauthorised use."
I don't have that kind of money. I'm retired. I'd rather go through all my backup CDs that are in storage first before I concede. Can I just ask them to provide proof?
"We have noticed that you are currently using one or more images from our collection on your website. PA is the national news agency for the UK and Ireland and own the copyright to images taken by our photographers in the course of their employment with us.
We have been unable to find a license for this usage of our imagery by your organisation.
We're writing to establish if you have a valid license for the usage in question. Please send us a copy so we can validate it and close this enquiry."
In a knee-jerk reaction, I removed the image, but the problem is that back when I started my website, I had a well-paid job and thought nothing of buying photos from Corbis and Getty. Over the past 20 years, I've moved domains several times and changed web hosting and email accounts. I've also gone through several computers. I can't find a copy of the original photo on my current hard drive.
The image in question is from 2012. Alamy has only had the rights to sell this image from 2021. Shouldn't they be the ones proving that I don't have a valid licence?
Their latest email says, "This is our final outreach in goodwill, understanding that mistakes can happen. We offer a retroactive license for a one-time fee of 1585.00 GBP to settle the unauthorised use."
I don't have that kind of money. I'm retired. I'd rather go through all my backup CDs that are in storage first before I concede. Can I just ask them to provide proof?