Copyright Claim - Pixsy - Creative Commons 2.0

[donellan]

I have received an email from Pixsy relating to an image I used on my website. I found the image on Flickr and used it as it was listed as CC 2.0 free to use.
I am always very careful to only use images that are rights free on the internet and when I used this image I didn't put attribution back to the original image as stated in the licencing. Pixsy is asking for £595 to settle this for the image owner.
I totally messed up on this one and I do admit that but for an image that is CC 2.0 (a free image) £595 seems very steep.I tried to contact the photographer but he just sent me the standard Pixsy terms saying to deal only with them. My question, do I have a leg to stand on? Is it worth arguing the case or should I just pay / settle. What is a reasonable amount and has there been any case president in the UK on CC 2.0 and not attributing rights. on the CC website they only list cases from Europe, I can't see one from the UK. Any help is much appreciated.

[Amethyst]

Have you now added in the attribution or removed the image?

Pixsy appear to take 50% of any payments so I'm sure there is room for negotiation. If the original photographer is commercial then are there any clues as to their usual pricing for online use of images etc to compare to?

[donellan]

Have you now added in the attribution or removed the image?

Yes, I removed the image immediately. I do not want to use CC 2.0 images as they seem to be a bit of a mine field. I usually use websites that provide royalty free images.

Pixsy appear to take 50% of any payments so I'm sure there is room for negotiation. If the original photographer is commercial then are there any clues as to their usual pricing for online use of images etc to compare to?

The photographer is called*Marco Verch and his title is Professional Photographer. Looking through search results he seems to have a LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and a very basic website

https://www.flickr.com/photos/30478819@N08
https://www.instagram.com/marcoverch.photography/?hl=en*
https://www.marcoverch.photography/*
https://twitter.com/wuestenigel*
https://www.instagram.com/wuestenigel/*
https://www.facebook.com/verch*

I can not see any mention of pricing for his images and I found an article written by a lawyer that seems to suggest he releases his images on CC 2.0 with the intention of catching people out that don't know how to attribute and sends them the email I received -*https://steigerlegal.ch/2019/06/23/m...h-abmahnungen/

This is obviously really frustrating and I am juggling just paying and getting legal advice.*
Any thoughts?

[Amethyst]

Ahhh interesting . ( translate page for ref https://translate.google.co.uk/trans...n/&prev=search )

Have you reverse image searched the image you used? ( is it used in many other places and any pre-attribution to someone else?) - though he does seem to be an 'actual' photographer - his FLICKR pics do have the 'some rights reserved' tag and link to the CC 2.0 licencing info - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Looked at a few on his 'smugmug' website and he seems to charge £800 odd for a full licence for a photo.

I guess if you're not selling much in the way of your photos it's a way of running a business as a photographer.

I think legal advice might be that you are liable as you did use the image without following the licence terms. So it may be a case of trying to negotiate considering you removed the image as soon as you were made aware of the issue.

[R0b]

Are you able to upload a copy of the email so we can see exactly what he has said?


Whilst I agree with Ame, you are probably in breach of copyright laws that website link you referenced seem to suggest this guy is living and/or operating out of Germany. So he even with the threat of legal action, he would have to submit his claim - the U


K has specific rules about serving claims to people outside jurisdiction and Germany may have similar laws which then could be an added expense.
Once he gets judgment assuming you wouldn't travel over to Germany to defend yourself, he would then have to incur further costs to make a further application to enforce the judgment over here. Of course if you haven't had an opportunity to defend yourself then the court may not enforce it anyway, likewise if he failed to follow the correct protocols and procedures such as having notice of the claim.


Sounds to me the guy is on a fishing expedition and trying to bully people into paying up. You can of course stick two fingers up to him and call his bluff, or as suggested try to renegotiate a settlement - start low at £100 and if possible, be aggressive on that point and say it was an honest mistake, the image was immediately removed and you will no longer be using his works, take it or he can put himself to the expensive option of going through the courts and then trying to enforce judgment at a miuch higher cost than what he is asking for.

Really depends on your appetite for this one.

[typonaut]

The question is whether you ae in breach of contract, or breach of copyright. With the former the damages are the terms specified in the contract, or the losses incurred if there is no specified sum for your action. With copyright breaches the damages are the provable losses.

You can see these might be two very different things.

Your choices are either to pay the amount requested, make a lower offer, or sit it out and wait for him to sue you. If you do the latter, and they do sue, then it is likely that your costs will increase.

You might find some information on these sites:

http://www.ipkat.com/

(there's actually a post there today about this very issue: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2020/01...s-that-is.html contract/IP infringement)

https://www.copyrightaid.co.uk/

[iBoemba]

Marco Verch appears to be a copyright troll. He produces 'free' content and tracks it with software he has made for this purpose. He lures you into using it and when you find his picture through google, it looks like it is free to use. He tracks down people who use his pictures and haven't placed the entire string of sources. Alex de Ridder made a nice video on him or you can look up a Swiss lawyer called Martin Steiger, he is sueing Verch.*If you want to know more, you can PM me, I had to deal with him too.

[Guest]

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[Guest]

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[Celestine]

I helped someone recently who was receiving similar letters from KodakOne - who are using an AI tool to trace images they 'own'. Various letters received by email, threatening legal action.
The interesting bit was their threat to issue the claim against my acquaintance and instruct UK solicitors to recover legal costs.*
The claim was for around 450 Euro. We replied stating that this amount fell into small claims track (same tracks in IP court btw) and that they would not be able to recover legal costs so go away. That was the last we heard from KodakOne/Ryde

[lepetitdodo]

I've just had an email which appears to have come directly from this Marco Verch chap. When it comes to making a lower offer (as much as I want to leave it/fight it, I'm fairly busy right now and can't spare the time), the only means of contact that I have is an email address - is that a suitable medium to discuss it?

[des8]

I don't know if you have already seen this but here is someone else's account of dealings with MV
https://www.justanswer.co.uk/law/c27...ses-photo.html

[ostell]

So what does the metadata on the photo say?