I have a cheeky fcker and not sure where to go from here

[theoldtrout01876]

Dh has done architectural photography, on the side, for many years. Since the whole pandemic thing and not knowing if his job is coming back, he has decided to look into actually doing this full time. He got quite a lot of work through word of mouth, had stuff published in fancy magazines etc.

He is a major hater of social media but today get himself an Instagram and Facebook account for his photography business.

Instagram instantly throws up all these business names he should connect with. He recognises one of the names so goes to check out their website as they never mentioned being a photographer when he had dealings with them a few years ago.

This woman has a whole section of her site dedicated to a particular photo shoot that she is claiming she did. They are all my DHs pictures. He went and did the shoot for her to put on her blog about 8 years ago. He never sold the rights to them, she never took them.

What do you do under these circumstance?

Get legal advice and send her a solicitor’s letter telling her to take the ohotos down?

I would have a solicitor send her a letter demanding that the pictures are removed immediately. From now on, your husband needs to have contracts with each and every client that state he owns all rights to the photos. Did he have a contract with this woman?

Make sure he water marks all his photos to prevent this happening again, including going back over all his old photos.
Not sure how to do this though.
Plus legal advice

Your husband owns the copyright of his work and as such he can insist she removes the photos from all sources - internet, leaflets, books etc. If she doesn't seek legal advice. This link may help:

www.gov.uk/copyright

Badly typed: if she doesn't, seek legal advice!

She’s one cheeky fucker.
Yes to a letter. If you aren’t flush, google U.K. copyright and intellectual property law etc and he should send a formal letter advising her that if she doesn’t remove all his photographs on receipt If the letter; and publish an acknowledgment on her website that the photographs of X, formerly posted as being hers, should have been attributed to him, he will seek legal redress through civil proceedings.

I loathe that sort of thing, it is so dishonest.

Send her a bill for the use of his work, backdated to when they were first used, if you can find out, and keep a copy for proof.

woah, solicitors letters? surely you would just ask her to take them down first!

We are in the US so the UK laws wont work. Something similar happened years ago when he saw an architectural magazine at the supermarket with his pictures on the cover. He contacted them and the quietly send him an apology and many hundreds of dollars. The home owner hed taken the pictures for put them into the magazine and said they were his.

Its just where this is a "small business" web page, Im not sure how to proceed. My daughter has suggested reporting to Instagram but where he has literally just started he doesnt want to do anything that will potentially cause him issues.

The kicker is he didnt actually charge the woman as she had a really good worthy cause story after the were done and he felt bad for the poor thing trying her best to make a buck. She paid for the airbnb that we stayed in when we went to take them as it was too far away for a day trip

He is waiting to see her reaction now he has followed her on Instagram and Facebook. Ill probably decide on future action by her response

US copyright laws state that the photographer owns the copyright from the moment of creation, and that copyright can only be void with the express permission of the artist, and that must be done in writing.

Legal letter. Using them in a blog could be an honest misunderstanding or not thinking....claiming she took the photos is not a mistake.

Legal letter. He needs to protect his work if he’s going to do this more.