Image Copyright and Web Design

Fairly recently parliament passed the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act which, amongst other things, relates to the use of photographs and other images on websites. Many photographers appear to be up in arms as it allows for the use of orphan images after a search for the ownership of the original. I'm not a photographer so am not fully au fait with the arguments around this but there seems to be a few key points.

1. A number of popular platforms strip out the meta data of photos that identify the originator making it more difficult for them to claim ownership and some of these platforms claim ownership of any image uploaded.
2. It opens up the way for more activity by trawling copyright lawyers - Getty Images are notorious for this and there is some evidence that they are claiming huge payments for the use of images that were used long before they were owned by Getty Images. It seems that big corporations and lawyers benefit but not the photographer.
3. There are instances of copyrighted images being distributed in free libraries of images.
4. The new law does require a "diligent search" of any orphan image to determine ownership - Google Image search does allow a search by image so that is a big help for anyone who is unsure and should provide some protection for the real owner

I would welcome the views of any photographers or lawyers on this as it seems fairly complex.

So what does it mean for web developers and designers? Well, we have to be careful. We have three main sources for the images we use on a website: our clients, stock image libraries and images we produce ourselves whether they be photos or derivatives of the first two where we have edited them and/or added to them. The biggest danger we have in all this is images supplied by clients, fairly recently we have had a client contact us saying they have had the Getty Images letter and requesting where the image came from. Our answer was honest and probably not what they wanted to hear - they supplied it themselves.

This raises an important issue in that when the site was made a few years ago, we didn't get confirmation that they had permission to use or were the owners of the supplied images. We have now put procedures in place to get our clients to confirm images they supply are their own or they have permission to use them either from the originator or via a suitable license. All images we use ourselves are used with permission and usually purchased specifically for the website we are creating. It is one of the reasons a legitimate web agency is more expensive than someone knocking out websites from their bedroom and stealing images!

So what is Tad Web Solutions up to? In between lots of meetings we are working on websites for a new recycling company, a soft play hire company, a magazine, a university project in Canada (oh yes we are now exporters!), a plumber, an EPC company, a wedding car company and some social media strategy development for Epigem, a high-tech company at Kirkleatham. A bit busy then especially as much of my time has been spent on a white label project which for obvious reasons we can't tell you about.

All of those are ongoing next week plus lots of meetings including Wednesday's BNI meeting where I have to step into my role properly as part of the leadership team - we had or first proper meeting last week with 40+ referrals passed in week one which was a cracking start. So second meeting this week plus leadership training and a members' day on Fri. I've also got a meeting with representatives of Cleveland Police regarding a project we're working on and a meeting with a couple of people I've worked with in the past with a view to creating a new joint venture which has a lot of potential and I'm rather excited about (but more on that when it happens).

Monday sees an early finish and a trip to Durham Uni with Matt who has already got an offer to do Physics plus a bursary every year if he puts them 1st on his UCAS form - really proud of him.