From the hundreds of matches you find of your images online, through our software, sadly only a handful make it through as cases worthy of legal pursuit. We would like nothing better than to pursue all the matches for your images, but there are certain must haves, without which, there is no case.
Below are the Do’s and Don’ts that make or break a match/case.
- Is the website of commercial nature, a business, an organization, a media house, a newspaper? Something more than a travel blog or a public/member forum? The question to ask is, ‘Is this website trying to use the image for a gain in its business operations? If the answer is ‘Yes’, then we can move onto the next step
- Is the website from a country that is in our supported list of countries? You can usually find this out, by their address in the ‘Contact’ section. Or look at their ‘Privacy policy’ or ‘Terms of use’ section. More than not, you will find that information there.
- There is some sort of address, contact information that can be used to send them a legal notice. No address, no way of contacting them – Pretty simple.
- You have no doubts about the license status of the image in question. (see Pre-Licensed works below for more details).
These were an overview of the general guidelines.
Let’s go a little deeper into each of these.
Nature of the website
Our legal team will only pursue a case if the infringing website or host company is an entity, an organization, a commercial venture, a media house, a publisher, a news agency, a governmental body etc., where the image is being used for their own gains. Please do note, we would not pursue a case against a children’s hospice or a hospice in general.
Websites, like blogs, travel blogs, group forums, review websites etc. are not commercial ventures and hence will mostly not be pursued.
Further, if you come across somewhere on the website that it is hosted by ‘Wordpress’ or ‘Weebly’ or some other Content Management system, and the template has been taken directly from them, without any own effort, then this weakens the case significantly.
Domain name matching for image
This is as important a point as any. Whether the image in question is actually on the websites’ server, or if its hosted by a 3rd party website. This can be checked by opening the image in another tab and seeing the domain name. Whether it matches or has a part that matches with the website or not.
Below is an example of that
https://www.test-website.lapixa.com/ – here the domain name is test-website.lapixa.com
https://www.test-website.lapixa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/original.png – this is the link of the image opened in a new tab. As you can see the domain names are matching and hence this image is hosted on this websites own server.
Supported country
We have a list of supported countries, where our legal networks exist on ground. If the website originates from any of these, we proceed with the case. Normally a good indicator is the language of the website. If it’s in an foreign alphabet, chances are we won’t be able to take it.
However, in special circumstance, it is possible that we make an exception. Don’t hold us to it, but you can talk to our legal team for clarification and then the case can be assessed.
For example, Canada is not yet in our list of supported countries. However, if the website/company/organisation in question is very big and/or reputable, we could use our lawyers from another country like the USA or the United Kingdom to pursue the case legally.
Here is a list of the countries we are currently operating in:
- Germany
- United Kingdom
- Netherlands
- Denmark
- Sweden
- USA
- Switzerland
- France
- Austria
- Belgium
- Canada
- Norway
- Finnland
Keep checking back for additions to this list.
Address
For our efforts to make any difference, we need to be able to contact the infringer to send them an official legal notice via post. For this we need a legitimate correspondence address. That may be the organizations own, or its parent company’s, or the owners. A registered address is a must. For some countries like Germany, it is required by law for it to be on the website. For other countries, it differs. However, normally it can be found in the ‘Contact’ or ‘Privacy Policy’ and ‘Terms of use’ section as it pertains to legality in most situations.
Pre-licensed works
It’s a possibility that you maybe have licensed your image out to another company, client, photo agency or in some previous partnerships for onward use. They may have given the rights to one of their clients or customers, if that clause is allowed in the licensing agreement.
As an end note. If there are any doubts, regarding any of the above points, do not worry. You can still submit the case, just add a comment for us to see. We will hold the case and await further instructions till you clear the confusion and figure it out. We are here for you, so don’t worry about it.
So, there it is. All the information that you need to make a sound decision as to whether an online match of your image should translate into a worthy case or not.
Feel free to contact us for any queries or clarifications. The team at LAPIXA is always ready to help.
