The copywriters at Webcopyplus blew it. And they admitted it. They searched for an image for a tourism piece and found what they were looking for in Google images. Then they downloaded the image and used it, assuming that since the image did not have a copyright notice it was “public domain” and this free to use.
They received a cease-and-desist letter from an attorney who was the rightful owner of the image, along with a demand for $4,000. Whoa! What Webcopyplus failed to realize is that the Berne Convention Implementation Act, a copyright act, states that copyrighted works no longer need a notice for protection.
So, what happened? After some legal letter-exchanging, Webcopyplus settled for the $4,000 demand. The moral of the story? Keep in mind that, just because it is on the Web, and just because it doesn’t say “copyrighted,” doesn’t mean you are free to use it. Webcopyplus’ axiom is “if its on the Internet and others wrote or created it, do not use it without permission.”
You can read Webcopyplus’ whole story, and get a list of copyright resources and stock photography sources here.
