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Using images online: European Court confirms sharing is not allowed without permission

08/08/2018

At a glance

Any Google images search will throw up thousands of images which are seemingly readily available for further usage. But this temptation must be resisted since any copying and reuse on other websites requires a new permission from the copyright owner.

This principle has been finally entrenched in a European Court ruling this week in a case concerning online usage of a travel photograph of Cordoba which a student had obtained for their school website.

The Court ruled that ‘the posting on another website of a work gives rise to a new communication’ or in other words, each new website usage requires a license from the copyright owner.

This ruling is unsurprising for intellectual property lawyers but may come as a surprise to anyone updating or creating website content: just because something is already online and seemingly available does not mean it is free to use.

The practical impact of the judgment is that photographers, illustrators and other creators will be further encouraged to pursue claims for copyright infringement on the web.

In the UK, damages are generally limited to amounts which are comparable to standard license fees. But in the US, despite possible defences of ‘fair use’, ‘statutory damages’ are available (up to US$150,000 per infringement if wilful) triggering very high value claims over quite anodyne usage.

Sharing of Snapchat, or Instagram images, or embedded images in tweets, can also be considered infringement: a case earlier this year concerning a picture of American footballer, Tom Brady, triggered substantial claims from the photographer when the image inevitably went viral on Twitter.

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