This week on The Engaging Marketeer, I want to talk about something that’s happened to two of our clients in the last few weeks. And it’s the kind of thing that happens to business owners that have websites all the time, every day, every week, every month, every year. Completely unexpected.
(00:35) Now, two of our clients recently received in the space of a week received a fine from a photo licensing company from the exact same company demanding that they pay $1,000 for the use of an image, different images, different companies, different websites on their site. And both of them weren’t sure if this was a a genuine request or if it was some kind of extortion extortion scam which which happens all the time as well.
(01:08) Now what had happened was the photographs that were used on these clients websites were licensable images. They were not free images. They were licensable images. And this photo licensing company had clocked the fact that these images were on the websites. they’d checked against a a license whether this particular company or website had a license to use these images and found that they couldn’t find anything and rather than contact them because this is what they do.
(01:38) rather than contact them and said ah you’re using this image we need you to provide a license for this image they document it they record it and they wait they wait a period of 6 months a year 18 months 2 years maybe longer and then they contact them again and they say you’ve had this image on your website for x amount of time say 5 years the image costs this much per day or this much per week or this much per month this is how much you now owe us for using this image unless you can provide a license for that image.
(02:17) Luckily these two clients in particular, these two businesses, one was an electrician, one was a financial advisor. These two clients both had used Engage Web for this and we used licensable images from our own image library that we pay a license for. So, we were able to make these claims go away very quickly simply by logging into the portal that was provided with this request for £1,000 each and provide the license for those images that we had paid for.
(02:49) Now, if that hadn’t been the case, if these two clients hadn’t used engage web or another company that does things properly, then they could well have been in trouble. And you see what happens is as a business owner, if you want to write a blog on your website, you put a piece of content up, you write a blog about your business or about a service that you have or about something going on in your industry.
(03:14) Typically, you’ll think, well, I’m going to need an image to go along with this. I’m going to need a photo to go along with this. So, let’s say, for example, as one of the images was, it was related to a fire brigade. It was related to something to do with the fire services. And what most people will do is they will go to Google and they will Google firemen, fireman UK, fire engine, UK fire engine, that kind of thing.
(03:39) Click on Google Images and there’ll be loads of photos there that they think they can use on their website. They’ll pick one that looks good. They’ll click on the photo. They’ll save it to their desktop. They’ll upload it to their website. and Bosch, their photo is on their website. Why not? It’s a great place to find images.
(03:59) I mean, Google has an image search specifically so that you can find images, find photographs. That’s what it’s for. But you won’t think that, do you know what? Maybe I’m supposed to pay for that photo because more often than not, you are. If you Google for an image and you use it on your website, there is a very high likelihood that you are using an image that is licensable that you have to pay for.
(04:26) And the part of the reason is that the companies that provide these paid images are really good at SEO. They’re really good at getting these photographs to appear in Google search when somebody looks for them. And they don’t just put them on their own website. Images like Getty Images or Shutterstock or iStock, they’re not just hosted on there.
(04:49) They’re hosted on other websites as well. So, it doesn’t look necessarily as though they are paid images. They could be on a blog or they could be on a news site. They could be on the BBC. They could be on the Telegraph or the Daily Mail. Any news site like that, any website, these images could exist and you’ll see them on and think, “Oh, they’re free to use.”
(05:10) They could even be on image repository websites that again look like they’re free to use. You search for them in Google Images, you find them, you click save, you upload them to your website. Who’s going to know? Well, that’s where is the problem. You see, it’s very easy for these companies to track who’s using them because they can do what’s called a reverse image lookup.
(05:35) Now, I’m not going to go into detail on how you do that here. We’ve got blogs on that on Engage Web’s website. Have a look. You’ll find out how to do it there. It’s a reverse image lookup where they take their photograph, they drop it into Google, and they find other websites that are using that photograph. It’s easy.
(05:56) So, looking for the people that have essentially stolen their copyrighted images is a piece of cake and it’ll produce a nice list of all the websites that are using that image or a website that is using an image that is based on that. Maybe you’ve edited, maybe you’ve you’ve put it into Photoshop or into Canva and you’ve changed it.
(06:15) You’ve added text, you’ve changed colors, you’ve done something to it to make it your own. It’s still a licensable image that you should have paid for. And again, what they will do is rather than contact you and say, “Ah, you’ve used this image. You shouldn’t have used it. That’s licensable. Please take it down.” They will record the date they find that image and they will wait and they will wait and they will wait and then months or years later they will send you one hell of a bill.
(06:45) One hell of a bill for use of that image during the time that it’s been on your website. One of our clients came to us and said, “Is this a scam? Is this a scam? It looks like a scam. It’s from America. It’s got loads of American spellings in it. It doesn’t seem like it’s anything to do with the UK or anything to do with photograph law. It wasn’t a scam.
(07:08) It was a genuine bill for the image. But again, because we had used the licensed image, the client was fine, it was paid for, the image was licensed properly, and we were made able to make it all go away without any problems. This is the issue now, and this is the advice I want everybody to follow.
(07:28) If you are writing content on your website, if you are writing pages on your website and you want photographs, do not, I repeat, do not under any circumstances go to Google, type in the description of your image or the what you want to find, click on Google Images, save an image that looks right, and then upload it to your website.
(07:49) Do not do that because you are almost certainly using an image that needs to be paid for and you will almost certainly get a bill from one of the payment from one of the image suppliers that has all the legal backing that it possibly needs. You will get a bill further down the line and it will probably be for thousands of pounds, not for hundreds, not for tens, but for thousands of pounds.
(08:14) And they do this because the photographers need to be paid. Photography is a skill. Photography is an art. And they don’t take these images for the benefit of their their own health. They do it because they need to be paid for it. And in reality, the photographers themselves don’t get paid a lot of money. It’s the image licensing sites that take the the lion’s share of it all.
(08:34) In some cases, all of it, but they still need to be paid. So, do not take images you find on the web. do not upload them to your website because you will almost certainly receive a fine for it and it is not something that is just going to go away. It is not something that is just going to go away. So, I hope that’s been useful.
(08:52) I hope that’s been a great tip for you. If you enjoyed it, leave me a review on the website, leave me a review on YouTube, leave me a review on the podcast, and I will catch you on the next podcast.
