In order to submit a case with Copytrack, you must first calculate and determine the fee we can demand from the unauthorized users. For this purpose, your licensing practice represents the legal basis for the calculation of your license fee or for the calculation of the damages to which you are entitled. If, for example, you normally license your images for 100 EUR for online use, we can only demand this amount from the opposing party. This is not a requirement of Copytrack, but a legal requirement in many EU countries. In court, for instance, we are obliged to prove your claim accordingly and must prove that you have incurred damages of the amount claimed. If other calculation methods are used in some countries outside the EU, we endeavour to implement these locally by our partners and have the claim evaluated in accordance with the local legal situation.
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In order to prove that a damage has occurred we use invoices from you for similar uses of your images. This is what we call proof of licensing practice. If we claim damages from a user of the image, we will ask you to submit invoices that give us a clear understanding of your normal licensing practice. It is important that both the type and duration of use are indicated on those invoices. This is the only way to ensure that the invoices provided can be later used in court.
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If you are concerned about disclosing the contact details of your customers, we can reassure you: The GDPR only applies to natural persons. So if your customers are legal entities, their data will not be subject to the provisions of the GDPR. Furthermore, we assure you that we will only use the documents sent to us to check your licensing practice and to prove it in court. Blackened invoices have only a very low evidential value in court because they do not show whether they are comparable with the concrete case. Therefore they cannot be used to demonstrate your licensing practice.
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If you do not normally sell your images and therefore cannot submit invoices, this is not a problem. Should this be the case, simply contact our Customer Support for advice.
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