Infringement of our Copyright Images

If you have been directed here then it is most likely that it has come to our attention that you have used one or more of our photographic images on your website or eBay auction, without our consent.

Under international (Bern convention), UK (including the “Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998”), US, and other national laws, you are not permitted to copy any original work of art including photographs which are subject to copyright without the copyright holders consent.

Please note that prohibition from copying images includes using derived and modified versions of images, inter alia because the modification itself entails copying. Any comments we make about images includes modified images.

Please cease using any and all of our copyright images immediately, and desist from using them in the future.

As copyright owners we do on occasion license other parties to use our images for specified purposes subject to receipt of suitable fees, and the use of copyright notices. It is not our habit to license our images for use in competition with our own business.

We are entitled to damages from you in respect of loss of fees for your unauthorised use of our images, even if you have now removed the images or your auction has been removed. As a guide, our starting price is £5,000 per image, although we licensed without fee in certain cases, but our claim against you is not limited to this amount. In all cases, we require a clear, readable credit and / or copyright ownership, together with a search engine friendly link. If you have a robots.txt file or similar, this should state “index, follow (link to our site / page)”; this should point to our page from which the image was sourced.

Because you have used our images in a manner which competes with our own business, this may have reduced our profits by reducing the prices we are able to obtain for our own similar items, or by stopping our items from selling or reaching our minimum price.

We are also entitled to request from you an account of any profits or benefits you have derived from the unauthorised use of our images, and to pay us the amount of your profit or benefit. We hereby request that you provide such account and make the appropriate payment to us.

We are entitled to, and do, hold you responsible for any and all costs we incur in obtaining satisfaction against you, including administrative fees and legal costs.

We may have already given notice to eBay or your ISP about your infringement, and reserve the right to do in future.

We request that you provide us within seven days with a written undertaking that you will not use any of our copyright images in the future,

We request that you provide us within seven days with your account of all profits or benefits as mentioned above, including all previous uses of our images.

We request that you forward to us within seven days your offer to cover all the above-mentioned profits, costs, and losses, and enclose a sterling cheque or make a transfer to our bank account. On receipt of this offer and payment, we will consider your offer, and at our absolute discretion, decide whether to accept it.

If we do not consider your offer acceptable, or if you fail to make an offer within the time, we will pass this matter to our legal advisors with instructions to enforce your compliance with our rights, including compensation.

We may also need to obtain a court injunction against you, which will involve you in substantial legal costs.

Please note that many countries can and do apply a range of statutory damages, in the USA for example up to $150,000 per item / infringement.

If you have used any of our description or other textual material, we may also have a valid claim against you for breach of copyright in respect of the textual material.

Use of our images may also have the effect of making your items appear similar to ours, or to give the impression that you are associated with us, licensed by us, or in some other way endorsed by us. It is also possible that any similarity may result in an action for passing off, for which we may have similar or other remedies available to us against you.

If you are in any doubt about which of our image or images you have used, it follows that you must have used images from a variety of sources, in which case you almost certainly have infringed the copyrights of others. It is not our responsibility to identify each and every image to you, or to provide proof of our ownership of the rights to the images. If you insist on us providing you with copies or the locations of each original, we retain the right to charge you an administrative fee.

We have invested a considerable amount of money to equip ourselves with high quality professional photographic equipment, lighting equipment, computer equipment, and computer software, in order to be able to capture high quality professional photographic images. We have also invested considerable amounts of time in training and education to enable us to produce high quality results, and invested much time in the taking, recording, and processing of our images. Our investment in photographic image currently stands at approximately £400,000 (at at October 2015).

It is with much anger and frustration that we note almost daily theft of our copyright material by private individuals and companies alike. You may consider your own infringement to be marginal or harmless. We can assure you that we see it as part of a larger and more serious problem. We are determined that theft of our copyright material will not go unpunished, and will seek appropriate compensation from any and all unauthorised users of our images or other copyright material, and this will include punitive as well as actual damages.

If you have not already provided us with your name address and full contact details, please ensure that you do so immediately. If we have to obtain this information from eBay, your ISP or elsewhere, we reserve the right to charge you an administrative fee.

We reserve the right to seek any and all other remedies against you.

None of the above should be taken to limit or prejudice any of our rights.

If you in any doubt about any of the above, we suggest you consult a qualified professional legal advisor.

Law
Under international (Bern convention), UK (including the “Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998”), US, and other national laws, it is not permitted to copy any original work of art including photographs which are subject to copyright, and textual content, without the copyright holders consent.

Photographic & Other Images
Please note that prohibition from copying images includes using derived and modified versions of images, inter alia because the modification itself entails copying. Any comments about images includes modified images.

Licensing
As copyright owners we do on occasion license other parties to use our images for specified purposes subject to receipt of suitable fees, and the use of copyright notices.
Prospective licensees should contact us with details of intended use, and their standard terms if any. Our terms will apply in the event of any other written agreement.
It is not our habit to license our images for use in competition with our own business.

License Conditions
All images must be accompanied by a copyright notice and credit, e.g. © www.chards.co.uk
If used on the internet whether on a website or auction, the copyright notice must also provide a link to our appropriate website or websites, e.g. © www.chards.co.uk.
The copyright notice and credit should be clearly legible, and of a readable size, at least that of the normal text size in the article or web page. It must be clearly placed close to the image used.

License Fee Guidelines
We consider the following to be minimum rates, per single image, per use. All exclude VAT which must be added where relevant.

Commissioned (competitor) £5,000
Commissioned (non-competitor) £150
Stock £100

Additional Charges
Percentage surcharges will be compounded. (Double x double = x 4)

DescriptionFee
Electronic TransmissionIncluded in standard fee
Omission of credit, copyright notice or link.Double Base Fee
Use without prior consentDouble Base Fee
Modification without prior consentDouble Base Fee
Attempted disguiseDouble Base Fee
Passing off as own workDouble Base Fee
Use in competition with our business * But see our other comments.Double Base Fee

Free Private Usage
We will allow free use in a number of circumstances, including:
Educational use. Single copy of one or more of our images as part of homework, coursework or similar,
Educational use. Teacher / lecturer use of one or more images.
Screensaver. Use one or more of our images on your own personal or work computer.
For the above, we do not require prior consent or notice.
Club and charities. Coin, metal detector, treasure hunt clubs, for educational or non commercial purposes, and private individuals, but we ask that you notify us.
In all cases, you should include a copyright notice and credit, with a working link if it is on a website or auction site.
All free use must be non-commercial, and not compete with our business, or promote any of our competitors direct or indirect.
We reserve the right to alter or withdraw our free use conditions generally or in specific cases.

Competitive Use
We will not normally allow use of our images or other material by competitors, even though we have quoted a 100% surcharge in our “Additional Charges” table. This includes one-off use by EBay sellers and similar.

Unauthorised Use
We will take action against any parties making unauthorised use of our images.
We will expect to recover damages for non-payment of the above published fees and charges, and for damage to our business caused by any use which competes with our business, including sales by private sellers on EBay or other auction sites or similar, or other websites.
In addition we will seek payment of any and all administrative costs, legal fees and any other expenses and costs we incur in proving unauthorised use, tracing the offender, and collecting payment.
Ignorance of copyright law shall be no defence against any claim we may make or action we may take to enforce our rights.

Remedy Following Unauthorised Use
Where we discover unauthorised use and contact the culprit, we invite the offending party to reach a settlement with us by:-
Admitting the unauthorised use, stating when and where the images were obtained, not requesting us to prove the misuse or demonstrate our ownership, providing an account of any profit or gain by its use, apologising for the misuse, giving an undertaking not to repeat the misuse, making an offer to compensate us. Any payment should accompany the offer.
We will, without prejudice, look favourably on genuine and timely attempts to compensate us.

Our banking information. 

Denial of Unauthorised Use
Any denial of unauthorised use should include your full identity and contact details, including EBay member ID (or similar) where applicable. You should state where, when and how your images were obtained, including third party details if applicable. Claims such as “found on a website” or “other people have used it” will not be accepted.

Without Prejudice
While we may seek to rely on any or all of the above, it is to be taken as without prejudice to any action or claim on our behalf. We reserve the right to change this page or any of our copyright terms without notice.

Website Designers and Web Developers

If you are web designer, developer, or graphic designer who has provided a site design and content for a client we have named, then this page applies to you.

Website Owners Using a Third Party Web Designer

If you have had your website designed, and content supplied by a third party, then you should read this page.

Copyright Theft

Copyright theft is now a criminal offence in the United Kingdom, under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.