Hi Jordon,

For many years before I got into the website business, I was a commercial photographer.

This is a bit of a long winded answer to the general issue of copyright in the UK.

In 1988 a new copyright act came into law, if memory serves me right it was the Design & Patents Act 1988. UK law.

I see that you are in Northern Ireland, so I think that you will be covered.

Now here's the important bit. It's both a criminal and civil offence to use copyright material, a photo is automatically the copyright of the photographer (unless he works for something like a newspaper).

If somebody uses your photo, without your permission, or payment, they are in breach of your copyrights. It's up to you if you want to enforce your rights.

If you want to stop somebody using an image online, the best way would be to inform them, their hosting company and maybe even their ISP that they are all party to a breach of your copyrights.

Under the criminal aspect they would all have the potential to be guilty. If you think of it as a stolen product. Somebody has stolen your image, they then use it via a hosting company and ISP as part of the criminal act. Like a guy in a pub selling a stolen CD player to the barman, who then sells it to his friend. They are all part of the crime.

In the past I was owed money for some photos by a company that went bust. Months later a 'new' business was set up (the same business really). I asked them to pay for the photo, they told me to get lost as they were a limited company. I called trading standards in, they got the police involved, the directors of the business were all charged with breach of copyright.

Then they remembered my telephone number. The end result was I was paid, plus and extra £500 for unauthorised use. And as I kept in criminal (don't go via a lawyer - use the police or trading standards), it cost me nothing.

So the law is on your side, it's up to you if you want to enforce matters.

One other point (as this comes up) you do not need to have a copyright notice on your images - although this can help.

The only thing you may need to do, is provide proof that it is your photograph.


Regards,

Robert