Anyone Know Anything About Intellectual Property?

Letter sent to the council today. All we can do now is await their response....

 

Send them a bill for the design work. £500 perhaps? That's actually quite modest for graphic design work.

Can you prove you did it? Perhaps its on an email originating from you?

If all you want is an acknowledgement, I'd still send them a bill, and when they refuse to pay, just tell them that you'll take it to the small claims court to recover costs for services provided, as they have implicitly agreed to your terms by using your work. You can always not really take action or let them off at the last minute, at your leisure, but ask yourself this. If you ripped them off, if you refused to pay your council tax for half a year, how lenient would they be?

 

And if the council offer evidence in court that it was an honest mistake, and they withdraw the image from future documents, and the court accepts that then you will be out of pocket. It is rare for costs to be granted in such cases ... but it can happen.

Why is everyone rushing for "sue them" before actually checking if there are any mitigating circumstances? Something seriously wrong in society if the first course of action is to see if one can benefit from someone else's mistake. One thing for sure: the court will take a very dim view of using legal redress without first having tried to resolve the "dispute" (which it hasn't even yet become) amicably.

 

No need to actually sue. Its my experience that simply demonstrating that you know how to is enough to make people sit up and listen. Without that, the standard response from any council will be to simply fob you off.

 

Sorry C1, but I find it extraordinary that without even enquiring of them why they have breached copyright you assume that they will fob you off and tar all councils with such a broad brush. Even if you are right (and I am not doubting it) the first action of issuing them, or even just threatening them, with a writ seems extraordinary to me.

Yeah, until the day when someone is completely innocent, challenges you, and you get slapped with costs for wasting the court's time ...

 

I have quite a number of copies, from the original physical drawings, electronic files etc to other leaflets which have me credited as the creator, these are even still in circulation and it wouldn't suprise me that the council don't have a few copies of these themselves. There are no emails of this from me as this was handed over via a flash drive nearly 2 years ago.

I'm not after money, only acknowlegement for the work I've done and an apology for the upset it has caused me. Although I did say in my letter that I would "consider pursuing damages" and if the council want to pay me off then I wouldn't turn it down.

 

You are clearly missing my point. I am saying that you threaten to take action, and indicate that you know the process, but do not actually submit the case to the court and therefore incur no costs.

Of course it is always wise to give them one chance to be reasonable first, not least because it will help your case if it does go to court, but when they fob you off, then you tell them that unless successful resolution has been reached within 7 days, you will submit the case to court. It is at this point where you advise that as it is a low value and simple case, you will use the online small claims procedure at the government's Money Claim website ( https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome )

Of course it is extremely unlikely to come to that, as at this point someone will usually take the time to listen to you. I should point out that I've made such threats many times in many disputes, yet never once had to actually do it. I guess there is a first time for everything though, in which case the cost for a claim up to £1000 is only £70 (or £50 for upto £1000), and you get that back if you win, and if you lose, well, fun always has a price.

Back to my earlier question though, would the council have any hesitation in going to court if it was the individual that ripped them off? From experience I would say not. Councils take the approach that if there is even a vague possibility that they are right, they register the case. A few times, acting either for myself or for others, I have had to do some swift talking to the council to make them believe that they would lose if they insisted on going to court (in the best example, it was when my mam got a council tax demand for over 3 years of unpaid council tax on her 500+ acre country estate - I researched it, the estate was not even in our council's boundary, and in any case, my mam lives in a little terraced house that she inherited, and lives off her meagre cleaner's wage).

 

Sledgehammer and nut are the two words which are now springing to mind. Sorry Jane I'm not belittling your work but I am trying to see what problem all of this thread is solving.
I understand you are annoyed, even angry and that is understandable but will some of the suggestions here make you less so?

What do you want; is it just an acknowledgement ? Then ask for it - I presume you did that in your letter. Is it payment? Is it future work? Going in too strongly is more likely to meet resistance and less likely to achieve either of those. I think you need to know what you want more than what others think you may want.

I noticed in one post that you also said they'd "doctored" it, that could mean that they would claim it wasn't your work anyway especially as it was a map rather than an illustration/photograph. You started off by saying you wanted a little acknowledgement and that you have suffered stress recently. Now you seem to be being encouraged to look for much more, especially taking on a situation which is bound to increase your stress level.

I do think you would be better advised to look for a compromise than a head-on conflict. Good luck whichever way it goes though.

 

When I created this thread I only wanted an appology and recognition by both the council and the charity in question. The charity in question are very conscoius of copyright and won't use stock images off of the internet for example to advertise events etc for fear of infringements and they should have known this with my map as well, they had credited me in the past but not this time round which I think is unfair.

I have had a think about what you said and will not activily pursue damages. I just wanted to kick up a stink and if that means firing off empty threats then so be it. If the council decide to pay me damages then I will accept them. That's what I meant. I'm not only contacting the council but also the charity who I created the map for to point out what had happened and how upset I am about it. I have no desire to claim damages from them and again only kick up a stink.

The map I drew out was 100% created by me. No other map exists of the site, as there were no paths, roads etc present and so they had no choice but to use it. I would say also it's more of an illustration than a map as there was very little infomation on it. It's certainly something I haven't copied from google or anything. What the council did when I say doctored was to draw a walking route over the top of it.

I think I will just post up what they have done wrong as some people are probably picturing a ordanance survey map, rather than an illustration which I believe it is. Although I will let you guys be the judge.

 

This is the map I created. The image on the left is the original file I still have on my computer, print screened. The leaflet on the right is the leaflet I picked up that the council printed off.

All the text, symbols etc are my own workings but the red route is not. Which is what I mean by doctoring. The doctoring doesn't bother me as much as the fact I wasn't credited for the image.

I can't be bothered to be annoymous about the charity anymore btw.

 

For future reference you can snail-mail an original to yourself (or perhaps a 3rd party, such as accountant / lawyer who would be happy to hold it for you ... but of course at some point they are likely to need to charge for a service ...). Make sure the postmark date is clear, and that you use the type of envelop that cannot easily be opened and retrospectively adjusted!!

Of course that approach requires that, in advance!, you know that you might need to prove date of origination. You are clearly an artist, so maybe you will think that this does sound worthwhile to you as you go about creating things? A photo of a carving could similarly be "recorded" as to the date you first created it.

Might be worth a google to see how other artists protect their copyright / designs. At a more formal level you can Register a Design [patent] with the Patent Office, but its a costly process; however, if you are ever planning to market a design you have made it would be worth considering. Note that you must keep the design secret until you have filed the application (otherwise the application will be rejected), so if you think that may be necessary at any time make sure you get anyone who you show it to [until you have filed the application] to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement (you can write that yourself).

Absolutely agree, and they may well. But my point is that assuming that they will, before they actually do so, is the wrong initial approach.

Tricky for them (business is the same, for example employees who have non-compete clauses in their contract so they can't just walk out having been poached by a rival). Unless you enforce the rules then everyone will abuse them ... judging where you then draw the line between the needy and the fraudsters is always going to be a bone of contention.

So should the council and everyone else be ... the main problem that I have with this is that you have had to spot it, yourself, in order to take action. Gawd knows how many breaches of Copyright go unnoticed :(