Image: Shutterstock
My curiosity was piqued by the email that popped up in my inbox. “DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice”. Should I open it or ignore it? I took the plunge. Immediately my sphincter puckered, and a frisson went down my spine as I read it was from one Alicia Weber, Trademark Attorney, with Nationwide Legal Services in Austin, TX. She stated that she represented the Intellectual Property division of Claude AI UK and Nationwide Legal had identified an image belonging to their client on this very blog. If I did not take specified action within 5 business days, legal proceedings would be undertaken against me under DMCA Section 512(c) guidelines. What had I done? As one might expect for a copyright blog, I strive to be meticulously careful and to follow the copyright rules, but images can be tricky. I have found that the safest thing is to make your own, or license one from a service like Shutterstock. However on occasion, when Shutterstock does not have what I want, I have resorted to using a Creative Commons (CC) image off the web, being careful to comply with its terms.
Complying with usage terms is really important for works covered by CC licences, as the Independent Journal Review, a US news website, has just learned. In a recent case, the website used a photograph offered through a Creative Commons licence by photographer Larry Philpot, but failed to attribute the work to the author as required by the terms of the licence. There was no requirement to pay for using the photo, just to provide attribution in the correct format. The law firm blog that discussed this case does not say what the damages were, but there have been a number of cases where users who did not comply with the full terms of a Creative Commons licence have found themselves sued for, and sometimes paying out, substantial sums. There is even a “business model”, if you can describe it as such, that consists of putting out images on the web covered by a complicated CC licence, such as the original CC 2.0 licence, and then going after users for statutory damages for willful infringement if even the slightest mistake is made in attribution. This practice is commonly referred to as “copyright trolling”. While I am not passing judgment one way or the other, this website claims that the plaintiff in the Independent Journal Review case fits that description, although in that case the attribution requirements did not seem to me to be particularly onerous.
But back to Nationwide Legal Services of Austin, TX. Did I make an error of attribution? Since the image I used was licensed from Shutterstock, and was indicated as such on the blogpost, clearly not. What then was the problem? According to the complaint, this blog post of mine used an image belonging to Claude AI. To wit, this image.
But wait (as the TV ads say), it is clearly not the same image. Yes, it has some superficial similarities to the one I licensed from Shutterstock. Both have an image of a robot holding a logo outlined in red, although not the same robot. In the case of the image I used, the robot is holding the internationally recognized symbol for copyright, ©. See above. The robot in the Claude AI image appears to be holding a stylized image of a Euro. How could the two have been confused? Did any human actually look at these two images and compare them? If so, they would have seen that they are clearly different. Did one take inspiration from the other? I don’t know, but Claude AI’s image could just as easily have been based on the one offered by Shutterstock or vice versa. So, what happened?
More than likely the supposed match between the two was identified by an AI powered web crawler that scanned thousands of images on the web and then compared them to images held in Claude AI’s repertoire, but apparently no one bothered to actually verify the match. It was easier to simply send out an (automated?) letter demanding action. In this case, although the legal language was threatening, the demand was not for money. All that was asked was that I credit the company by adding a direct and clickable hyperlink to https://claudeai.uk/, either beneath the image or in the footer of the page. This link leads to a webpage that proudly proclaims, “Maximizing Efficiency with Claude AI: The Future of Workplace Automation”. Claude AI is touted as “an artificial intelligence-powered platform that can automate various tasks in the workplace.”
Like identifying infringing images and sending legal notices?
Well, No-one said AI was perfect.
I politely responded to Ms. Weber, pointing out the discrepancy. So far, I have not heard back. I hope I don’t.
© Hugh Stephens, 2024. All Rights Reserved.
