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How to deal with Copyright Claims on photos?

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Kat9119:
I don’t know where I should seek out help for this one, but I’m trying here first.

So, I got an email two days ago from a woman that said:


--- Quote ---You have posted copyrighted photos of my home and business. Remove all of them at once.
They are posted here, and may be posted in other places on your site:

*Link to photo album* (now removed)

*signed with her name*
--- End quote ---

Pretty rude if you ask me. She makes it seem like I hid in her bushes, took pictures of her home and am plastering them all over the internet. That is not the case....

Now, the images in question...they are images of a movie filming location. Which happens apparently to be her own home which she rents out a lot to production companies to film there. The film was from the 80s, but as far as I understand she has rented it out NUMEROUS times.

The property, contact info, address, and photos are all on this California Film Commission website. The site has a disclaimer, which honestly, I don't know if I noticed when I reposted the photos, but I reused the images from the Film Commission website on my website two years ago almost to the day according to my FTP program. These images are also on this womans own personal site for the property, and at least 1-2 other fan sites (my competition, who she also ended up giving an interview to a few years back). The SAME exact photos.

We are just a little fan site, we get $ "gifts" to keep the site running for hosting fees and domain name fees. I do have google ads up and I do have amazon affiliate links - lets be honest, what site doesn't these days? But I don't make much at all from it and it all goes back into the site. I've had this website for 18 years, and have never had any copyright issues. Due to some evidence, I believe that the competition who interviewed this woman basically showed her that I had the images up and she's putting up a stink. He's doing the same sort of thing to other sites too. His site isn't even a year old, but he does have "connections" and is using them well to get on everyone's good side.

Quite frankly, fan sites pretty much run on copyrighted material. The movie site I run has two movie companies invovled and I know over the years I've dealt with both companies just emailing back and forth about random things dealing with the movie series. They've never once told me to remove any of their content from my site. I also have various images from tons of different magazines on my site. If this guy wants to keep reporting me, soon I'll have no site that I've devoted 18yrs of my life to. I also make sure to list my source on EVERY piece of material I use when I can. I started running this @ age 13 so, back then I wasn't as careful.

The disclaimer on the California Film Commission website states:


--- Quote ---DISCLAIMER: The above search results are for the sole purpose of research for the user. The images may be copyrighted by individuals and cannot be used without permission. The user has no authority to reproduce these images in anyway outside of the sole use of research
--- End quote ---


I take this to mean I can legally use these images as my site is for the preservation and research of a movie franchise. Am I wrong?

Going back to the matter at hand, now what should I do? Remove the images? Write her back asking for poof that she holds the copyrights to those images? I don't have $ to be sued for silly on location photos, but its the principal of the matter here. These images are on various other sites, and its ok, but not for my site? Sounds very fishy to me. I'm a fan site that has no lawyers working for me lol. So I can only provide my own response in return, but I want to do the right legal thing here.

Out of respect for the claim I've hidden the photos from site (they are still uploaded but PW protected so only I may see them, as to not lose stats and descriptions of them) and there is a message to users that there is a copyright claim in progress and the album will be reopend in 14 days pending the status of the claim. I was then going to email her today telling her that she has 14 days to prove with documentation that she in fact has a copyright to the photos.

So, does anyone know anything about this sort of stuff?

CoreISP:
The disclaimer states that the original owner of the pictures can hold copyright, and apparently, he/she does.
So, if said person asks you to remove the picture because he/she made those pictures, then yes: you do have to remove them.

It usually would be done by a DMCA way of filing it though.

Kat9119:

--- Quote from: CoreISP on June 24, 2012, 04:00:32 PM ---The disclaimer states that the original owner of the pictures can hold copyright, and apparently, he/she does.
So, if said person asks you to remove the picture because he/she made those pictures, then yes: you do have to remove them.

It usually would be done by a DMCA way of filing it though.

--- End quote ---

Then what is the purpose of saying "The user has no authority to reproduce these images in anyway outside of the sole use of research"?

I have now been told by another source, that my competition was asked to remove the photos after the woman got phone calls from fans of the movie series. Its not MY fault that she posts photos of her home which is her business on other sites WITH her email address, home address, and phone number. So, it sounds to me, like she doesn't wish to be associated at all with this specific movie but doesn't mind being associated with other movies. Not that she really owns the images (maybe she does, I have no idea). If I had a site about something else that was filmed there it would be ok. Just not a horror movie from the 80s. I'm assuming if I remove the photos, and leave the links to her site and the CA Film Commission website that she'll ask for those links to be removed, which I believe legally she can't ask me to do.

I don't mind taking the photos down, but not without proof. I won't be bullied for no reason. How would *I* go about checking if she has the copyright to these images? No where on her personal site does it say they are not to be reproduced. Aren't I within my right to keep the photos on the site till she proves that they are hers with some sort of documentation?

If I wrote to her telling her that I temporary took them down for 14 days, pending proof of said Copyright, would I get into legal trouble? For now all it is is some person claiming they hold the copyright. I could write to anyone claiming I owned the copyright to something too, but that doesn't make it legal.

Do you "own" the copyright to anything you take a photograph of without going down to an office and getting a written notice that you own a copyright to that? I mean, I really have no idea how this works.

CASMAN:
Assuming this is in the USA then just go to the library of congress and look for the copyright. On the other hand any picture taken is automatically copyrighted to the Photographer. She may not even be the one who took the pics. Unless she employed the phoyographer. Then the rights do belong to her fully. It is legal to post most any picture you take,,, or modify.
So just shop the image a bit. That will really burn her up and it is pretty much legal.  Unfortunatly I dont think this falls under reasearch. 

CoreISP:
"The user" means you... Not the copyright owner. You are the user of the website that has that disclaimer...
So, you violated the disclaimer :P

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