Court awards damages of £2851.42 for a single infringing image on a website

[IANL]

Hi, I am aware that over the years people have been talking about image copyright infringement demand letters. Unusually a recent court case has been published that shows that if you ignore a claim you could be liable for litigant in persons costs, Usually in a small claims court costs are capped.

If you get a demand from a photographer for copyright infringement, don't ignore it, try and settle.

Jonathan C K Webb [Claimant] vs Cardiff Steel Erection Limited [Defendant]. Case number IP17S00135, heard in the High Court, Chancery Division, Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC), before District Judge Hart, 11th April 2018

Transcript on the photographers web site
www.webbaviation.co.uk/WebbvCardiff%20Steel_Erection_11April18_approved_judgment.pdf

An article about copyright infringement can be found at the following link

http://www.epuk.org/news/cardiff-steal

 

[dotcomdude]

Hmm, interesting. Now I know what to do with that SLR camera I bought a year or so ago and haven't really got out of the box yet!

There are so many 'web designers' that will stick whatever image they think works well into a website, that it's quite easy for a layman to fall into this trap. Obviously more reputable firms know what they're doing - but clients are easily tempted by a cheap price...

 

[mattk]

Very interesting, thanks. It seems as if the bulk of the award was due to the image being cropped to remove a watermark and copyright information being removed from the meta data.

 

[Newchodge]

It seems as if the bulk of the award was due to the image being cropped to remove a watermark and copyright information being removed from the meta data.

Possibly not because of that, but because it was absolute evidence that the infringment was deliberate from the start, not inadvertent.

 

[paulears]

Removing ID marks really does show contempt of the system - not knowing is not a valid excuse in law, but knowing and clearly trying to hide the origin is something the courts came down heavily on before. We should bring this topic up whenever people complain about IP.

It's actually well worth reading the Judges comments - how he calculated the damages and why. Ignoring emails and letters, attempting to blame somebody else - all counted for nothing. The judge complimented the copyright owner for doing it properly, keeping detailed records and having a long wait. The old advice to ignore those letters from the copyright agencies like Getty Images is clearly terrible advice when somebody decided to go to court.

 

[obscure]

This is actually the second settlement in his favour. A previous case can be found at http://www.epuk.org/news/aerial-photographer-s-damages-claim-achieves-record-height

 

[DavidWH]

We took a person to court for using one of our images on their website.

We were awarded £1651.40 by the IPEC. What's more alarming is, that despite me having the judgment infront of me right now, and upgrading it to a High Court Writ for enforcement, my judgment, and all judgments haven't been registered on the on the register of orders, judgments and fines.

12months on, I've had confirmation from the court that they should be registered, and I've made two complaints and getting nowhere.

All the while there's no public record of the judgment, so it won't show on any credit reports.

From personal experience it's a complete waste of time, as they may not pay (as ours haven't) and with no CCJ recorded on their credit file, where's the incentive to pay?

You can ask for an uplift in damages, if they've removed watermarks (flagrency) and also if it's been used with prominence, the image of ours was used as a main header image on a website, as a link to a services page, and on social media, the screen shots with the 1000's of likes really helped, along with the defendant adding a disclaimer on their website admitting not all images were theres as if that indemified them, and admitting they'd used the image in their defence.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

This is actually the second settlement in his favour. A previous case can be found at http://www.epuk.org/news/aerial-photographer-s-damages-claim-achieves-record-height

I think you will find that Mr Webb is well practiced.

For further reading try https://www.create.ac.uk/publicatio...y-enterprise-court-in-historical-perspective/

 

[obscure]

Good on him.