I received an email last week from a firm that retrieves funds over breach of image copyright. They told me a photo I had used in 2016 and which was currently on my website in a blog archive was in breach of copyright. I have to pay €595 within the next 14 days or they will go down the legal route of retrieving the funds. I would not mind. It was not me that put the photo up on the website. It was a former colleague of mine. And I am not quite sure of this either. It could have been our marketing company who did it. The image was owned by a well known international news agency who have decided to rake Google and retrieve anyone who used the image without a licence.
At first I thought this was a scam but after ringing the company up, I soon realized that this was the real deal. So I took the image down first of all. The company did tell me that this would not be enough to make this go away. I had to reimburse them for the use of the image since 2016. I would not mind but the image was used to promote St Patrick's Day in Ireland and it was not used for monetary value whatsoever. I decided to do my own digging in terms of copyright.
So there are a couple of ways around paying this fine.
[Source](Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay)
1.) If your marketing contractor can produce the licence.
2.) If you can produce the licence.
3.) If you are a charity then you get some rebate.
4.) If the photo was not used for monetary value.
5.) If you give credit to the copyright owner. (popular among the Hive Community)
6.) Stated that "No Copyright Infringement" was intended.
So I went down through the list and all I could really challenge this summons on was that it was not used for monetary value. It was a photo on a website where there was no monetary gain. It had nothing to do with Hive by the way. It was just a website blog.
So when I rang the lady back in the image rights section she basically said it did not matter around the monetary value, I had taken this image and used it on my website.
So there we have it. When I first received this email I did not want to open it to see the bill. €595 is bad enough but I was thinking it could have been more. If it was 20k for example I would have been in trouble. Again it was done in the past and I would challenge this because it was not me who posted the blog so there would be no way in hell I would be paying 20k. I contacted my solicitor to see if there was a statute of limitations on things dating back this long and they are getting back to me over it but this really gives me food for though especially on social medias such as Hive. Image rights are going to start becoming a huge thing on these social medias as they evolve so I think it is time to really look at this.
The grey areas around the likes of your own creations with some other photos. I think the old timers are well aware of the dangers around image rights but some of the newer users are falling into the whole. But who looks at the photos anyway? They are more a content filler really and we are gone passed the days of one image and a title to get a reward thanks to the good works of the whales. But you do need some sort of image on your content to show it off to the world. This is what I did above. I used Pixabay and free content and credited the guy who created the image also. So am I fully covered. I would say so yes.
Pixabay and image websites such as Shutterstock and Alamy may be worth subscribing to if you are serious around Hive, Production Suites such as Canva and Envato Elements may be helpful as well as I see more and more people using their own content on Hive.
Are the decentralized Hive second layer happy for them to use their images for free?? The likes of Splinterlands and Leofinance, Maybe but I am not sure. I do know that Splinterlands post Hive friendly versions of their cards for people to use freely which is nice to know.
We screenshot the likes of Polycub and Cub webpages now all the time. Is this allowed?
Just discussion points.
I know some writing groups have very strict rules on image sourcing and they will not upvote content if the image rights are not there. We have to look at video rights as well. Youtube is now a part of Hive. You can play the content without having to play on Youtube. I would think this is allowed but I am not 100% on it.
So many little issues. All I know is that I am going to be a bit safer now when it comes to image copyright when I get stung for 600 squiderooney. The good thing around Hive is putting the real name to the Hive name. Many can disappear into the darkness if image copyright turns up but is there a way for these copyright firms to obtain an email for a copyright infringer on Hive.
The other positive is who to send the subpoena to if we are in a decentralized environment.
Might be worth reviewing your own methods before you get the same email in a day, a month or a year or maybe even 6 years in my case.