Posted by Walter Rowe on February 7, 2008 at 9:13 PM
Does the UK have any form of DMCA letter statutes like we have here in the US. In the US, the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) provides a means whereby we can write a letter to an ISP citing specific information regarding a known instance of copyright infringement and the ISP has to take down the infringing content or risk be held liable for contributing to the infringement.
Is there such an instrument in the UK? A friend here in the US found some of his images on a UK web site. He asked the ISP to remove them. They refused to do so. The ISP responded that the infringer is not using the images for commercial gain, that the photographer's watermark is in tact, and that the copyright infringer is providing a link to the photographer's web site.
The photographer still wants the image taken down, so he is looking for the proper means to legally request it whereby the ISP has to comply. He does not want to enlist the services of an attorney in the UK to get this accomplished.
Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated!
Posted by Walter Rowe on February 8, 2008 at 3:43 PM
You might want to post this on the UK/European chapter under Regional Forums.
Posted by Walter Rowe on February 9, 2008 at 4:21 PM
Thanks Anil. I happened to get my answer elsewhere. In a nutshell, there is no US DMCA letter equivalent in the UK, and there is no formal registrar for copyrights. When an image is captured, it is copyrighted. Period. Unlike in the US where registering your images offers you greater remedies in court, the UK offers no similar difference between registered and unregistered. All the protections and remedies the UK laws provide a copyright owner are available as soon as the work is created. And UK Fair Use laws are even more strict than in the US.
Here is the UK Intellectual Property Office web site: Click Here
Here is their statement regarding registration: Click Here
Posted by David Bostedo on February 9, 2008 at 6:20 PM
I'd be interested to hear what the UK ISP winds up doing with this Walter. Keep us posted!
Posted by Walter Rowe on February 17, 2008 at 10:18 PM
Latest update .. Does the UK have a legal instrument similar to the DMCA letter in the US? No. Is the ISP actually hosting the infringed content? No. It appears a blogger is running a script that uses the Flickr API to generate a gallery on his blog that contains the images my friend wants removed. There seems to be little recourse at this point except to either remove the images from Flickr, or to hire a UK attorney to work on my friend's behalf to pursue the problem in England.
What is interesting is that the user is violating the Terms and Conditions of their agreement with the ISP and the ISP initially said they would not remove the account or the images or the script. My friend has since sent them direct excerpts from their user agreement and asked again to have the information removed. I have not received any updates as to whether that was successful.
Discussion
5 repliesIs there such an instrument in the UK? A friend here in the US found some of his images on a UK web site. He asked the ISP to remove them. They refused to do so. The ISP responded that the infringer is not using the images for commercial gain, that the photographer's watermark is in tact, and that the copyright infringer is providing a link to the photographer's web site.
The photographer still wants the image taken down, so he is looking for the proper means to legally request it whereby the ISP has to comply. He does not want to enlist the services of an attorney in the UK to get this accomplished.
Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated!
You might want to post this on the UK/European chapter under Regional Forums.
Here is the UK Intellectual Property Office web site: Click Here
Here is their statement regarding registration: Click Here
What is interesting is that the user is violating the Terms and Conditions of their agreement with the ISP and the ISP initially said they would not remove the account or the images or the script. My friend has since sent them direct excerpts from their user agreement and asked again to have the information removed. I have not received any updates as to whether that was successful.