Attention when downloading and using photos

For this reason, I would also like to refer here in the blog a brief reference to the so-called Cordoba decision of the European Court of Justice last August. The latter had decided on the submission of the Federal Court of Justice that a photo of a professional photographer that can be freely downloaded on a travel portal cannot simply be reused simply because the download of the photo is not protected by technical means. The ECJ decision was one of the few cases in which the Court did NOT agree with the Advocate General’s Opinion. The latter had recently taken the view that no new target audience would be reached at the time of re-publication and that there would therefore be no communication to the public. However, the ECJ held that the case-law of the Framing judgments Svensson and BestWater cannot be applied to the present case.

As a result of the re-upload, there was a copyright infringement. With the so-called “hotlinking”, as the insertion of a photo directly from another server, the ECJ probably sees this circumstance further differently, although it should be noted that this probably prevents many platforms anyway.

If you find an image on the Internet, whether with or without copyright, with or without a license, you simply should not use this image on your own blog or a similar platform. Just because a photo is not protected from download by technical means (if this is effectively possible at all), does not mean that a photo has not been licensed only for a specific and/or limited purpose, for example, and that the photographer (or often the photo agency) cannot defend itself against unauthorized uses.

It is irrelevant whether you are acting commercially or purely privately. Only the amount of the warning costs would be limited in the case of a purely private act. In these cases, however, there are also claims for a license fee, the amount of which was recently decided by the Federal Court of Justice.

If so, really only photos from real stock platforms should be used, which clearly disclose the license terms. And then a proof of these license terms should be stored. I have written something about this in this article.

Author: Marian Härtel

Marian Härtel ist Rechtsanwalt und Fachanwalt für IT-Recht mit einer über 25-jährigen Erfahrung als Unternehmer und Berater in den Bereichen Games, E-Sport, Blockchain, SaaS und Künstliche Intelligenz. Seine Beratungsschwerpunkte umfassen neben dem IT-Recht insbesondere das Urheberrecht, Medienrecht sowie Wettbewerbsrecht. Er betreut schwerpunktmäßig Start-ups, Agenturen und Influencer, die er in strategischen Fragen, komplexen Vertragsangelegenheiten sowie bei Investitionsprojekten begleitet. Dabei zeichnet sich seine Beratung durch einen interdisziplinären Ansatz aus, der juristische Expertise und langjährige unternehmerische Erfahrung miteinander verbindet. Ziel seiner Tätigkeit ist stets, Mandanten praxisorientierte Lösungen anzubieten und rechtlich fundierte Unterstützung bei der Umsetzung innovativer Geschäftsmodelle zu gewährleisten.