10 September 2011
Use of images which are potentially copyrighted
Colleagues,
One of our clubs has recently received a demand from Getty Images in respect of a copyrighted image used on a club website. That particular club is dealing with the issue but it can cause difficulty for a club, and has the potential to prove costly.
Club websites are likely to be subject to web-crawling methods used by professional photo banks which often hold copyright on images which appear to be freely available. The best advice is that you remove any images which your own members did not take, or where you do not have an understanding with the owner of the image. It will not always be apparent that an image is copyright, regardless of where it came from so it is best to err on the side of caution.
Please take this advice on board.
