Old salon keeping staff photos on new page?!

[Nicci206]

Hi ladies
This is a tricky one. 3 of us all used to rent a table/room in a salon and supplied all our own stock etc.
we all worked under the one salon name and had a fb page and Instagram page we would share photos on.
the owner has now sold the salon, us 3 have stopped renting there and someone else has taken over, changed the name and set up new social media for it.
the salon owner we worked with has kept the 2 pages running, changed them into her own name as she’s now working from home and kept all the photos of our work on the pages.
we politely asked her if she would take our photos off as there’s no photo credits to each of us to say who did it, or any tags. She’s flatly refused and said she won’t remove them!
can she do that? It’s false representation that the page is now her name and her address but 90% of all posts on both pages are the 3 of ours work!
She removed us all from admin as the pages without asking us if we wanted anything taken off or needed anything and didn’t notify us of this happening.
Thanks

 

[BannerPenguin]

It's illegal. It's copyright infringement. You could get a solicitor to send a cease and desist. Depends how far you want to take it. Clearly it sounds like you won't get anywhere asking nicely.

You could get a solicitor to draft a cease and desist and that if she continues to use your images she will be charge £X per photo, per month for exclusive licensed use and then you could chase the debt as it accrues.

A solicitor will give proper legal advice and the best solution to move forward. Normally a strongly worded letter will do the trick.

 

[Bel's Gels]

I know this doesn't help you atm but you should always add a logo to any photo you put on the internet if you don't want it copied, or reproduced.

I realise its hard when you have a client in front of you and you want to just quickly add it to social media pages.
If I was put In this position I would never add photos of my work to a salon page. Rather I would edit the photo and add my logo/business name then either upload it onto the salon page or add to your own business page and put this link/share to the salon page. Watermarks can be great for this as well.
Make sure you put the logo/name in a place on the photo that makes it difficult to edit as well.

 

[Nicci206]

Yes we realise this now but didn’t know she would keep all of our photos and advertise them as her own! Why would she want to keep what’s not hers, we’re baffled by it really!

 

[TheDuchess]

This is illegal and you can take her to Court - however a solicitors letter explaining that what she is doing is illegal may well be sufficient. You could share the cost of a solicitors “cease and desist” letter between you. The law is quite clear and her insurance will probably have a legal advice line she can ring - they’ll explain that she’s in the wrong,

There are 2 offences here 1) breech of copyright (as long as you weren’t her employee) and 2) Passing off someone else’s work as her own for commercial gain.

Passing off someone else’s work as your own deceives customers into coming to your business instead of your competitor’s, AND damages the reputation of the person whose work you have passed off as your own.

If your work is displayed elsewhere it suggests that anyone can do work to the same standard. It makes it harder for you to set rates which reflect your expertise, because the value of your experience is undermined

You need to collect your evidence. 1) Make sure that you have screen shots of your texts or emails complaining about your work on her Facebook page showing the dates and time that you brought this to her attention. 2) You need screen shots of your work on her page. Get the link URL as well .

In the meantime you can remind her that you own the copyright of your photos. Because you own the copyright, you can charge her for using your photos. You can write to her (snail mail) by signed for delivery and keep your receipt. Say that you want her to remove your work from her Facebook Page and for every day after xxxdate you will charge her £50 per day per photo (or whatever). You can follow this up a week later with an invoice and a screen shot of each photo.

Because she is infringing your copyright, you also need to notify Facebook. You need to give them details of each photo that needs removing and complain that she is “passing off” your business as her own. Have a read up on their info pages

Explain that you were all individual business owners working from a shared address, marketing work through one shared page and that the business has ceased to trade. Make sure you have your work displayed on your Facebook pages and specifically mention her use of photos in your gallery. Explain that when you all went your separate ways you retained both the goodwill of your own client base and copyright to your photos of your work.

My husband has a small online shop selling car parts. A few years ago someone belonging to a club selling spares to their members set up a Facebook page using my husbands business name. Facebook closed it down after we complained the club was passing off their spares service as my husband’s business.

good luck.