We are helping firms with content and websites, which embraces imagery, videos, e-guides, presentations, webinars and more.

Since the beginning of 2024 we have become aware of more and more firms facing a barrage of copyright infringement claims, mainly, but not exclusively from one London-based claims management firm.

This firm is clearly using sophisticated “AI bots” to scour the internet, locating images and photographs, aligned to contact details, and then piecing this together to send standard infringement notices, claiming various sums of money from the user.

Prior to 2024 we had encountered one such claim, since the beginning of 2024 there have been dozens and this is growing fast.

No.

It is likely that millions of images, photographs and pieces of content and other material are being used innocently by firms all over the world without the full copyright protection.

Whilst it is not a scam, there are some highly dubious aspects to the approach being taken by the claims management firms, and we will outline some of these.

The fact is that it is not just millions of pieces of content, but probably millions of firms, across the world in this position.

The chances are you will first off get an email. It is not in the firm’s interests to incur the costs of letters. That email may well be into an enquiry in box.

That email will set out the infringement claim.

Technically, unless you can provide proof you have the copyright, you will probably have liability (but again, this is not legal advice, merely our understanding).

Providing proof of legitimate usage can be exceptionally difficult, even when you or a third-party has used a central stock image.

However, if you act to remove the offending image/photograph/material, you should stop the liability in its tracks. But you will remain liable for your past usage.

That liability is likely to be damages based on the licence fee you should have paid. As so many images were part of (or available through) a library, this fair value price can be exceptionally difficult to assess.

This is where the legal position gets tricky, as the reality is that if the claim proceeded into court, what would the award be? And as there is no evidence any of this type of claims management claim rarely, if ever, ending up in court, there is limited detail to know what the liability is.

We believe in many cases it will be lower than £100, as the image (or material) rarely produces any significant gain or profit for the firm that has used it.

The position starts to get tricky for firms, in all cases we have seen to date, as claims tend to be in the region of £300-£700, we have seen some more than this, but most are in this sweet spot.

As soon as you take legal advice, you will almost certainly be told the claim is technically valid. To defend it with solicitor help is going to cost you more than the claim being made.

So, there is no point, apart from the principle of the matter, in mounting a legal defence with representation.

Clearly if the claim or claims is/are way in excess of this, the position may be different.

However, the claims management firm have the claim at a beautifully positioned level to deter from facing professionally supported resistance.

The next well-positioned aspect is that to try and deal with this yourself, you now need to start engaging, by replying to the claim.

This will probably start a chain of communication and will be difficult, so you might start to get into a few hours of work, and if you are a busy person, with a decent business income, you may value your time in £100s/hour, so you start to think now whether it is simpler just to pay up and move on.

Not only might you may be able to negotiate the claim downwards, which we have seen work 100% of the time,  but you could get this down to a fraction of the figure. However this has to be balanced against the time it will take. For example if you get a claim for £459 for use of an image, and you start responding, negotiating, you could get this down to £100. However if that takes you two hours and you value your time at £200/hour, are you any better off?

Likewise, do you know the best negotiating stance and wording? (We do!!)

Then there is another problem…….

The trend we are beginning to see is that the first claim, however it ends being resolved, is just the first one. It appears that most firms are unlikely to have one offending piece of copyright (possible but unlikely).

So, we have firms that we are helping who are receiving multiple claims, but they tend to be staggered. And as this is obviously a wonderful business model for the claims firm(s), based on AI automation, then they will keep going and escalating.

We would suggest the big picture is this:

For 20 years approximately, there was somewhat of a Wild West approach to the development of material, websites, video, guides and so on, where most copyright was taken care of by big central “libraries” and/or content providers used Google and simply referenced very light or low-level copyright protection, if any at all. And throughout this period general usage presented no problem, even if breaching copyright. There was no real way the owners of the copyright could police this, and then AI bots are developed, and like a team of billions of private detectives, they can go out and find all the offending images etc.

So we go from a position where no-one cared if you went 32 miles per hour in a 30 mile an hour zone, to a position where you are now stopped and fined for doing so.

When claims are made, part of the infringement rectification is to stop using the content, or to carry on using it but to pay the appropriate fee.

The claims management firm does not seem to like this option, as it often gives away the true value, which can be significantly lower than the claim being made, which presumably includes their inflated fee.

However, given the widespread practice and the availability of copyright protected alternatives, in most cases, it would seem this is a fair position and the image/photo/material should be taken down.

So, this is as much as trying to efficiently and successfully manage the claims management firm, as opposed to the claim itself, which cannot be done without uncommercial legal costs being incurred.

We suggest the following:

1. Firstly, and immediately, remove or replace the offending bit of material.
2. Treat each case individually, and in some cases this will involve negotiating down to – maybe – something well below £100. We know how to do this, and have good experience of getting this sorted. In other cases, there may be standard resistance emails which can take the claim down entirely.
3. Stop further claims by getting a comprehensive review of your entire public facing material, on anything you have which includes potential copyright infringement. We assess that many sites, documents, and more hold either non-copyrighted content of some sort, or have difficult to prove copyright material. This is a sensible prevention measure and can act as a fail safe against many future problems. This review can sweep up other factors, especially given how much material is dated.

We can support all three of these steps, and rather than paying, say, £500 in claims, you may be able to get our support for less than this and also the claim taken away, plus the overall review to protect against future claims.