Unauthorized use of images on a governmental website

In 2007, I found that the Animal Services Department of Brevard County had pirated 35 snake images from my website and posted them on their own Snakes of Brevard County informational page. They used thumbnails linked to full-sized images (800 pixels). After a bout of back and forth emails with the individual responsible for the website, and invoicing the department for 1 year's use of the images, they were taken down. The bureaucrat explained that they were under the impression that since the images were on an .edu site, he thought they were state-sponsored, and therefore free for use by anyone (!). Since my images are hosted on a private university's website, he said, he realized that his department had erred and he had the webpage taken down.

Yesterday I went to the URL that had hosted the pirated images, and the page was back up. I contacted another individual in the department, explained the previous exchange, and invoiced them again. Today they have taken the site off-line. I didn't do screen grabs or printouts of any of the pages, so I have no evidence it was ever up. Do I have any recourse or chance of recovering licensing fees? What's to keep these sleazeballs from waiting a few months and putting the webpage up again? Clearly they are aware of the illegality of what they are doing. The fact that it is a governmental agency doing this is particularly galling.

The photos involved were not registered with the copyright office.

Any advice on how to proceed, or should I just let it go?

Since you don't have any "evidence" of the latest infraction, I'm guessing that legal action would be next to impossible. I think I would have handled it just as you did with the invoice and call. Taking the highest road possible, I'll make a second guess that a change in personnel was involved at the other end and the newbie there went astray. You'll have to surveil them for sure, but is there a chance to use it somehow to build a more constructive relationship with them, one in which they regard you as a good source (paid) of photos now and in the future, but also one who is professional enough not to be messed with?

I'm not sure how parallel our situation is, but we run into something similar in our licensing of images. The license is usually for a discrete period, but the buyers easily forget the end point and go right on using the images simply out of habit. We've learned to keep careful tabs of license end points, then contact the client in writing three months before the end, sending them a copy of the original license with the end date highlighted and asking if they'd like to extend the license, select and license new images from our stock, or hire us to take new photos. In many cases that results in a new sale or shooting contract, or at the very least a license extension for a lesser amount.

I hope that serves as an example of how to build a long term relationship out of licensing agreements. From afar and with the limited details I have here, some form of long term relationship would seem like a potentially good solution for you and for them.

Thanks, Hank. Your solution sounds eminently reasonable. I've emailed the director of Animal Services suggesting the possibility of negotiating a mutually acceptable fee structure for use of the photos in question. We'll see how that goes.

As you suggest, absent any hard evidence of the infraction (aside from the emails), I don't really look forward to a prolonged and contentious battle trying to recover fees.

Have you tried the wayback machine? I'm not sure if your problem would be within its timeframe but its great for grabbing shots of older sites for situations such as this.

Also, I did a quick Google of the likely addy for the snakes page based on Brevard's standard naming procedures. Google cache has a shot of the page when it was live on July 28, 2009. http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:b1c-Y2tZutIJ:www.brevardanimalservices.com/snakes.htm+http://www.brevardanimalservices.com/snakes.htm&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Just save that page to a file and you're good for proof. At that point I would recommend printing out everything that you have done with regards to contacting these people, the cached page, your work screenshots, and a timeline and then contact an attorney. Them doing it once I would probably let slide but that second go around would put me on the warpath.

Good Luck!

Good to have those things in the files, but I'd be really loath to sick attorneys on them except as a final resort, a total slamming of the door. Picture these two scenarios of the conversations between the agency and other potential photo users:

Version 1: "We screwed up and used some of Peter's photos on our web site without permission. Good thing he's a nice guy and has worked with us to sort it out. Be sure to call him before using his photos! He's reasonable and easy to work with."

Version 2: "We screwed up and used some of Peter's photos on our web site without permission. And he sicked his attorney on us! Beware of how you deal with this guy."

Version 1 has worked for us. I wouldn't walk near version 2 unless I really wanted to slam dunk the abusers at the expense of my reputation.

Thanks again to both of you. Liz, the link to the cached page was invaluable. As it turns out, they had taken down the index page with thumbnails, but all the linked pages with the full images are still on-line. I wouldn't have been able to figure that out easily without your help.

I've heard from the director of the department, and he seemed honest, contrite, and broke, so they won't be purchasing any usage rights. Pretty much what I expected. I'll give them a day or two to get the linked images down, and if they don't, perhaps I'll think about pressing forward with an attorney then.

I appreciate the valuable advice both of you have offered.

Here is another approach that I have not seen here yet. The guy is broke and can not pay you anything. They like YOUR images enough to post them several times and remove an index but continue to have them posted. YOU want exposure. You do not expect to paid since they have no money...might want to ask other photographers they use if they got paid. Anyway, back to you. Tell them they can use the photos they have from you!! But in order to set everything straight, you want the images to be credited to you by name! And better yet, you would like a tiny section extolling your photography and how happy they are to have you as a snake specialist photographer. They could easily devote a webpage for this with VERY LITTLE effort. A link should be provided from their home page. They could also provide a link to your own website. This is a win-win situation. No hassles, no money, exposure for you. You can then have a link to your page on their site in your site. This will help prove to anyone looking that you can or do specialize in snake photography. This could help set you up for getting requests from other groups for images (for pay!).

Since it looks like you will not make any money from this offender, get the next best thing! It is hard enough already to get websites to use our images - you have had a golden opportunity dropped into your lap.

I think the government folks will be more than pleased that for a little effort on their part, there will be no law suit that they would most certainly lose, they get to use your images, you have a government website that now showcases YOUR images with the possibility of providing them more, and you have exposure that you did not have to buy.

Now, I would not make this a habit, but when you run across this kind of situation, take advantage in a way that wins for all. Let us know how it worked out!

Troup Nightingale

In addition to what has been suggested above, register the images with the copyright office. This gives you another level of "threat" even if you do not intend to go to court with them. In fact, you would never get to court if the images are not registered so you lose even the "threat" of legal action if the images are not registered.
The process can be done online (in fact that is the prefered method) and you can register hundreds perhaps thousands of images for a single fee.

Glad you finally got in touch with someone with some relatively straight answers. And glad the cache was of help as well.

Hank, no one likes sending lawyers but sometimes it has to be done. "Version 2: "We screwed up and used some of Peter's photos on our web site without permission. And he sicked his attorney on us! Beware of how you deal with this guy." " Sorry but I really don't care what image thieves think of me. Sometimes things (like this instance) seem to have just fallen through the cracks with bureaucracy but more often than not its very deliberate when images are removed and then reposted that way.

I have to work first with the benefit of doubt Liz. We're in a small market and have eked a living out of it for 20 years. The only times lawyers have been needed are always larger markets, and glad to have them. If he's not dealing with people he'll see on the street the next day or next week and never hopes to do business with the outfit or the friend of the employees in the future, fire away with the legal beagles.

But if it's in his own backyard, and a small one at that, my advice stands.