Hi - I am new to the club... having just received an infringement letter from Masterfile.
Being a photo-illustrator by trade, my pieces often involve a combination of original studio photography with stock elements. Being a photographer myself, I am religious about securing the rights for any images used in one of my pieces, and in fact, have often turned down lucrative offers to resell images because I did not have the rights to some of the elements in the illustration for more than one use.
I received a letter from Masterfile stating that I had violated copyright on an image used as a background element in one of my photo-illustrations. The illustration appeared on a new portfolio website I was building. The website is still under construction, and the image had been sort of thrown up there to be considered with other images in my portfolio. The image in question was originally used legally, with my client at the time, a magazine, licensing the image for use in the illustration. This may be the factor that makes this tricky... the image was licensed by my client, at my instruction. Not by me personally.
While I am hardcore in my belief that artists and photographers should be compensated for use of their images, I feel we are treading into tricky ground when creative image professionals are not allowed to even show examples of their capabilities and past work without paying usage fees.
When i received the letter, I immediately (within 30 minutes) removed the offending image and contacted Masterfile in good faith... thinking of course they will understand what happened... they work in a creative industry and fully understand the concept of "portfolio" usage. This was not the case. While I got them to lower their initial claim from $2220 to $740, I still feel this is too high for this "innocent infringement".
I offered to settle the matter in good faith with a payment of $400. They rejected this offer.
My question is, has anyone else been approached over images used in a creative portfolio? How did it turn out? I have officially written to them rejecting their first offer and now am waiting to see what will happen.
I think these letters will be the death of rights managed stock. Why should I or any of my clients risk future legal battles with litigious stock agencies who seem only interested in short term gains over forging long-term relationships with honest clients. There is so much work online on retouchers' websites, ad agencies' websites, designers' websites etc. I can not imagine anyone is paying usage for what amounts to documentation of legally executed jobs. In fact, you could argue it is in the best interests of stock agencies to allow legitimate professional creatives to show legally obtained stock images because if they get more work, they will, in fact, have to purchase more stock.
So anyone have any advice? Did I open up a can of worms by rejecting the offer to settle?
Thanks
Being a photo-illustrator by trade, my pieces often involve a combination of original studio photography with stock elements. Being a photographer myself, I am religious about securing the rights for any images used in one of my pieces, and in fact, have often turned down lucrative offers to resell images because I did not have the rights to some of the elements in the illustration for more than one use.
I received a letter from Masterfile stating that I had violated copyright on an image used as a background element in one of my photo-illustrations. The illustration appeared on a new portfolio website I was building. The website is still under construction, and the image had been sort of thrown up there to be considered with other images in my portfolio. The image in question was originally used legally, with my client at the time, a magazine, licensing the image for use in the illustration. This may be the factor that makes this tricky... the image was licensed by my client, at my instruction. Not by me personally.
While I am hardcore in my belief that artists and photographers should be compensated for use of their images, I feel we are treading into tricky ground when creative image professionals are not allowed to even show examples of their capabilities and past work without paying usage fees.
When i received the letter, I immediately (within 30 minutes) removed the offending image and contacted Masterfile in good faith... thinking of course they will understand what happened... they work in a creative industry and fully understand the concept of "portfolio" usage. This was not the case. While I got them to lower their initial claim from $2220 to $740, I still feel this is too high for this "innocent infringement".
I offered to settle the matter in good faith with a payment of $400. They rejected this offer.
My question is, has anyone else been approached over images used in a creative portfolio? How did it turn out? I have officially written to them rejecting their first offer and now am waiting to see what will happen.
I think these letters will be the death of rights managed stock. Why should I or any of my clients risk future legal battles with litigious stock agencies who seem only interested in short term gains over forging long-term relationships with honest clients. There is so much work online on retouchers' websites, ad agencies' websites, designers' websites etc. I can not imagine anyone is paying usage for what amounts to documentation of legally executed jobs. In fact, you could argue it is in the best interests of stock agencies to allow legitimate professional creatives to show legally obtained stock images because if they get more work, they will, in fact, have to purchase more stock.
So anyone have any advice? Did I open up a can of worms by rejecting the offer to settle?
Thanks