Several years ago a photographer who was, very briefly, a member of a Club in the NCPF uploaded an image to the Club’s members’ gallery which has subsequently been identified as plagiarised.

A web-trawler from an image library (who represent the true author) picked this up and sent the club an invoice for several thousand pounds (reduced to around £1300 if paid within14 days) for ‘use of a licensed image with no record of payment’.

The NCPF checked the claim using ‘Copyright Aid’ who, having identified similar cases, state that it was “perfectly legal but morally questionable”.

The image library in this case is just one of several who are currently web trawling specifically to find unlicensed images from their stock collections and they can represent a large number of photographers

If clubs are caught using a licensable image, they run the risk of substantial claims.

The NCPF recommends to clubs that:

• Images loaded to the club’s website MUST be the work of members.
• Check when using a link to a member’s website that the site only uses images taken by the member.
• When a member leaves, all their images, and any link to their website, should be removed from the club website.

Clubs may have members who send images to an Agency. The advice is to check the Agency’s terms and conditions in case use by the club infringes any copyright.

Photographers are also advised not to publish any pictures other than their own and to check ‘calendar’ and similar competitions who sometimes claim the copyright of images submitted to the competition – the advice is to check the terms and conditions.

NCPF Data Manager