Over the past few months we’ve been receiving reports from a few sites that they’ve seen an increase in law firms ‘trolling’ websites, basically looking for images that are being used without paying the necessary licensing fees. We’ve had three sites already receive requests for payment of these fees, including one that had a bill of $5,000!
What’s happening is that the users posting these images are sometimes just finding what they can in Google Images and aren’t checking to make sure they are royalty free.
As a result, the sites most impacted by this asked us to add a new required checkbox to the front end image upload tool so that users posting images must acknowledge that they have the rights to use that image. If they do not check the box then they cannot submit their image
While this is an optional feature we are STRONGLY encouraging everyone to adopt it in order to avoid potential fees and/or lawsuits.
How It Functions
- The section label (“COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT”), the instruction text and the opt-in text are all customizable, so if you would like us to tweak any of the language it will be an easy change now.
- The user must select the checkbox to proceed with uploading their first image. If they do not select the checkbox and then attempt to click the upload button they will get a pop up message that basically re-iterates the instruction language.
- This field is also now part of the organization and artist profile image upload fields. The label and text are shared across all modules so if the language is modified it will apply the other forms besides just the event form.
- The copyright acknowledgement field is now included on the event and other admin forms that have it active. So for any front end submissions you should now see the box selected on the admin side moving forward. The only instances where the box would not be checked are imported content from any third party sources (i.e. bulk upload, Ticketmaster), or images uploaded by admins/content managers.
Updating Your Privacy Policy
Your Privacy Policy should have a paragraph similar to the one below on graphics and photos.
Site.com provides users the opportunity to upload or email images to Site.com for posting in connection with an event; listings for organizations, venues, or schools; or an Artist Profile. Users are strictly prohibited from uploading any image in violation of any domestic or international copyright law. By uploading, or otherwise emailing, an image to Site.com for posting on Site.com, user represents that the material does not infringe any proprietary or intellectual property rights of any third-party, and that user has the authority to grant, and does hereby grant, to Site.com a paid-up, royalty-free, nonterminable license to use, display, copy and transfer the image for and in connection with the Site.com site, and the promotion of the event, organization, venue, school listing, or Artist Profile described by user in the submission form or email. Site.com reserves the right to exclude information, images, or graphical content that it determines, in its discretion, to be inappropriate for posting or use for any reason.
You may want to consider beefing up this part of your Privacy Policy. Sacramento365.com has probably the most comprehensive statement among the network sites:
Sacramento365 provides users the opportunity to upload or email images to Sacramento365 for posting in connection with an event; listings for organizations, venues, or schools; or an Artist Profile. Users are strictly prohibited from uploading any image in violation of any domestic or international copyright law. By uploading, or otherwise emailing, an image to Sacramento365 for posting on Sacramento365, user represents that the material does not infringe any proprietary or intellectual property rights of any third-party and that user has the authority to grant, and does hereby grant, to Sacramento365 a paid-up, royalty-free, non-terminable license to use, display, copy and transfer the image for and in connection with the Sacramento365 site, and the promotion of the event, organization, venue, school listing, or Artist Profile described by user in the submission form or email. Sacramento365 reserves the right to exclude information, images, or graphical content that it determines, in its discretion, to be inappropriate for posting or use for any reason.
Sacramento365 creates no claim or credit for images featured on our website unless otherwise noted. All visual content is copyrighted to its respectful owners and we make every effort to link back to original content whenever possible. If you own rights to any of the images and do not wish them to appear here, please contact us and they will be promptly removed.
If you believe material on Sacramento365 is infringing upon your copyright, please e-mail support@sacramento365.com with the following and the infringing material will be removed as soon as possible. (a) your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address; (b) a description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed; (c) the exact URL or a description of each place where alleged infringing material is located; (d) a statement by you that you have a good-faith belief that the disputed use has not been authorized by you, your agent, or the law; (e) your electronic or physical signature or the electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on your behalf; and (f) a statement by you made under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate, that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner’s behalf.
Please also note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity is infringing may be subject to liability.
Questions or suggestions? Contact: networksupport@artsopolis.com