A photo was posted on our forum - which as the forum owners ...

A photo was posted on our forum - which as the forum owners we were not aware of; posts are not moderated prior to being posted. The owner of the photo contacted us and we took the photo down within the hour. They are now saying that they will be claiming 'substantial damages' from us because the photo was on our discussion forum. Surely this is unreasonable?

Unless it affected any sales, there are no punitive damages to be dealt with. Actual penalties for the use will be determined in the respective court.

What was the use of the photo, and was it just in the album?


Upon further evaluation of the nature of this post, it does not apply to US copyright laws, and does not involve this board.

It was posted on the Discussion Forum - as an image to illustrate a point the poster was making; the post wasn't about the photo as such. The discussion forum is for a local community, i.e a particular geographic area.

I can't see how it would affect sales of the person who owned the photograph.

Thanks for your reply.

This guy has not sent us a claim for £2000 - and saying he will be taking us to court if it's not paid in 14 days.

A bit of Googling found the following:

"The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 – only allows for recovery of the fee that you would have charged had the publisher asked for and bought a licence in the proper way."

Which I guess is what he is trying to do. However we didn't publishing the photograph - a member of our Discussion posted the photograph on our website discussion forum without our knowledge.

"it’s a criminal offence knowingly to publish copyright photographs without permission. Which is no help to us at all. A criminal case has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the publisher knew the image was copyright AND knew they didn’t have a licence."

Which I guess he is not trying to do - as we don't fulfill any of these crteria.

I meant, he has 'now' sent us a claim.

Sounds like this is an issue for another board...not this one. Based on the post, you are not dealing with US copyright laws. I know nothing of the laws in Europe.

It is never a safe bet to post another's image without prior authorization whether copyright notifications are given with the picture or not. If the agrieved party is legally able to sue for the use of the picture, then it sounds like he will be doing just that. Might be better to try and work out something with him, or just pay the money.