I was wondering if anyone could offer some much needed advice.

 

We have a client who has a website displaying products that they sell. The website has been in existance for a couple of years, all images have been created by the client using SolidWorks and the website states at the bottom "copyright 2012".

 

It has come to our attention that another company has created a website and the images that they are using have been taken from our clients website.

 

We know who the website owner is and we know where the website is hosted but what I was wondering is, it the 'Copyright 2012' notice at the bottom of our clients page sufficient copyright notice for the images displayed on the page as well?

 

Hope that makes sense

You don't strictly need a copyright notice. If the images are unique and were created by someone, they own the copyright by default.

 

Send them a polite email, but if they don't take them down, you'll need to judge whether it's worth the legal fees to take further action.

 

You could also email their hosting provider, if it's a good one they'll take action too.

Yeah Mikes right; Copyright is opt-out. meaning everything is automatically covered unless otherwise advertised.

Thanks. I'm not sure I'd class the images as unique as they are of things like locks and door handles, etc. On the face of it, the images just look like stock images for the products, however, because the clients supplier doesn't provide such stock images, the client had to go to the expense of creating the 'stock images' in solidworks. The client has all the original solidworks files so can prove originality, etc.

I would send a polite email to the owners of the site asking them to replace the images - and if they didn't reply, I'd then contact their webhost.

 

But that's just me - I ain't rich enough to pay for all the legal fees.

Thanks. I'm not sure I'd class the images as unique as they are of things like locks and door handles, etc. On the face of it, the images just look like stock images for the products, however, because the clients supplier doesn't provide such stock images, the client had to go to the expense of creating the 'stock images' in solidworks. The client has all the original solidworks files so can prove originality, etc.

 

Doesn't matter if they look like every day objects, so long as their creation was unique and they didn't exist before hand then the creator of these images owns the copyright, get a nicely worded email over to the infringing site asking politely for them to either be removed or for them to shell out for the license to use them.

Thanks guys... Will pop the advice over to them