Free of charge does not mean free of rules: The license terms of Creative Commons images ask for a reasonable author's attribution when using these images on a website. Now a German Court has shed
Free of charge does not mean free of rules: The license terms of Creative Commons images ask for a reasonable author's attribution when using these images on a website. Now a German Court has shed light on the question of what a reasonable attribution exactly is.
A photographer did not laugh when he saw a German travel website using his picture of a famous German comedian to promote an offer of a weekend trip. The Court granted the photographer a cease-and-desist order and compensation for lack of reasonable attribution.
Sites like Wikipedia or Flickr provide a large number of professionally shot photos under a royalty free Creative Commons license. Using these images on commercial websites has become increasingly popular in recent years. The fact that the use of the images is "free", however, does not protect website owners against legal action. If such an image is not properly attributed to the author, there is a risk of receiving a warning letter and being ordered to pay damages.
In the present case the website owner had taken the comedian's image from Wikipedia where the photographer had uploaded it under a Creative Commons license. The attribution to the photographer was embedded into the code of the defendant's website but only became visible when the website visitor hovered the mouse directly over the image for a few seconds. The Court held that the website owner did not comply with the Creative Commons license requirements because the name of the author was not provided in a "reasonable" manner.
Attribution must work on all devices
According to the German Court, an attribution that is only visible on hovering the mouse over the image does not comply with the Creative Commons license because it is not certain that the website visitor will see the author's name. Further, the Court argued that users of mobile devices cannot access the author information at all.
For lack of attribution the Court also granted compensation to the photographer in spite of the fact that the he had decided to make the image available under a Creative Commons license. In this regard the Court ruled that the photographer wanted to grant a free license only if all conditions of the license, including the attribution were met.
A photographer did not laugh when he saw a German travel website using his picture of a famous German comedian to promote an offer of a weekend trip. The Court granted the photographer a cease-and-desist order and compensation for lack of reasonable attribution.
Sites like Wikipedia or Flickr provide a large number of professionally shot photos under a royalty free Creative Commons license. Using these images on commercial websites has become increasingly popular in recent years. The fact that the use of the images is "free", however, does not protect website owners against legal action. If such an image is not properly attributed to the author, there is a risk of receiving a warning letter and being ordered to pay damages.
In the present case the website owner had taken the comedian's image from Wikipedia where the photographer had uploaded it under a Creative Commons license. The attribution to the photographer was embedded into the code of the defendant's website but only became visible when the website visitor hovered the mouse directly over the image for a few seconds. The Court held that the website owner did not comply with the Creative Commons license requirements because the name of the author was not provided in a "reasonable" manner.
Attribution must work on all devices
According to the German Court, an attribution that is only visible on hovering the mouse over the image does not comply with the Creative Commons license because it is not certain that the website visitor will see the author's name. Further, the Court argued that users of mobile devices cannot access the author information at all.
For lack of attribution the Court also granted compensation to the photographer in spite of the fact that the he had decided to make the image available under a Creative Commons license. In this regard the Court ruled that the photographer wanted to grant a free license only if all conditions of the license, including the attribution were met.