Our photo used by a business without permission.

[xgsjx]

My wife & I used to have a small cake making business, which we closed about 6 years ago. However, we kept our Facebook page (Torta Couture) open as there are tutorials on it (some free, some paid).

We’ve just recently discovered that a major U.K. cake making equipment supplier has been using one of our images from a tutorial to selling about 10 products. The cake wasn’t created with their product & they never asked for permission to use the image. They’ve been using it since 2016 to sell products
My wife contacted them to say that the image is being used without permission & they took it down a few days after, but she’s not happy about them using it to start with.

I was thinking about sending an invoice for them using it, but not sure where to start or where I stand. Any advice would be appreciated.

Here’s the photo in question.

[EnglandPi]

Whilst the copyright of an image belongs to the person/entity who originally took the photo or designed the image, once it has been posted on a social media platform it is difficult to defend the copyright.

I would suggest you post the image to https://tineye.com/ to see who else if anyone is using your image. If the copyright is owned by a now defunct limited company, invoicing the transgressor would not be an option but if its owed by an individual you could have a right to compensation but you would have to give the breach of copyright a monetary value. Are you www.cake-stuff.com or is this the company using your image?

[xgsjx]

Thank you for the advice. My wife owns the image. Cake-stuff are the company using our image.

How do I give the image a monetary value?

Thanks for pointing me to Tineye, I’ll check on there.

[EnglandPi]

You don’t give the image a monetary value, you give the breach of copyright a monetary value. In other words, you need to decide how much compensation you require for the breach.

There will be many factors to consider such as how long the breach lasted.

It would be prudent to consult a solicitor who specialises in copyright law, you can find one here https://justbeagle.com

[xgsjx]

Thanks again. I’ll have a look at the link.