Claim over 80000 yuan! Visual China just responded that the photos they took were accused of infringing on Images | China | related | sales | authorization | involved | photographer | images

On August 15, Dai Jianfeng, a star photographer, wrote: "I received a phone call from Visual China today, saying that my official account used 173 of their photos in infringement, and I had to pay them more than 80000 yuan! When I opened the content, I found that these so-called 'infringing photos' were actually my own works."

On the afternoon of the 15th, Dai Jianfeng introduced to Red Star News that he found that 173 photos sent by Vision China had been taken continuously over the past decade. Some of them had been published on his official account and microblog, but the works on the social platform were watermarked and not high-definition. Previously, some of his works had also collaborated with foreign library websites, but he never collaborated with Visual China and did not upload photos to Visual China's library.

▲ Screenshot of Dai Jianfeng's post

According to the email screenshot provided by Dai Jianfeng, Vision China said: "Recently, we found through monitoring that in the use of your WeChat official account and website, 173 visual works with copyright related rights were used without authorization. After comparison and verification in our copyright management system, no authorization record of the above visual content has been found."

▲ Visual China email screenshot provided by respondents

Dai Jianfeng introduced that Visual China has provided him with two solutions, with a deadline of August 18th for a reply. The first is cooperation between both parties. He will purchase the copyright material package from the Visual China Material Library website, with a purchase quantity of no less than the number of used images. The unit price of each image is 300 yuan, and the cooperation period is one year. After the cooperation agreement is signed, the previous responsibility for using images can be directly exempted. The second option is for both parties to reach a settlement, and he will pay Visual China for 173 images, each costing 500 yuan, for a total of 86500 yuan.

Dai Jianfeng expressed confusion, "I don't know how my work became the copyright of Visual China, and I have to compensate for it. It's the first time I've encountered it in over a decade."

Dai Jianfeng introduced that he had authorized his works to be used by a friend company, and the friend company also reported receiving a phone call from Visual China, which also demanded compensation from Visual China. What he wants to know is, where did Visual China obtain his photos for sale, how many companies have been sued with his photos, and how much profit has it earned?

Red Star News reporters noticed that Dai Jianfeng's related visual works have options for "trial download" and "purchase consultation" on the official website of Visual China. After clicking on the trial download, a registration page will pop up, showing that new users can obtain one year of use and download permission by registering, with 30 images per month. In addition, the official website shows that the source of the image author is Jeff Dai/Stocktrek Images/Getty Creative, and Dai Jianfeng confirms that Jeff Dai is his English name. The Red Star News reporter noticed that a Getty authorization letter was also included in the Visual China email.

▲ Related visual works on the official website of Visual China

On the afternoon of the 15th, a Red Star News reporter consulted with the staff related to visual China's image supply. They explained that providing images to visual China can be done by uploading works through web and mobile platforms, checking "I want to provide images", and waiting for subsequent review. In addition, before submitting the work to the Visual China Library for sale, both parties will sign relevant agreements to define their rights and obligations. The sources of the images are generally individuals and corporate institutions, and the webpage indicates that "it is necessary to ensure that the uploaded works on the platform are my original works, otherwise I will bear the consequences.".

As for how to verify whether a work is original, the staff explained that originality needs to be self certified by the author. "At present, it is not possible to verify originality as we are not a copyright company, and we will not verify the originality of copyright by using specific works, even works of tens of millions. However, we will make an agreement with the supplier to ensure that the provided works are my original."

In response to the photographer's self accusation that his work was uploaded to Visual China without his authorization and was demanded compensation, the staff suggested that the photographer can send screenshots of the original format files of the involved works to Visual China's email for self verification of originality, and relevant departments will conduct two-way copyright verification in the future.

According to Jiupai News, the founder of Visual China, Chai Jijun, responded to the incident by stating that it was a misunderstanding and had contacted the photographer.

Visual China Response

Just now, @ Vision China responded that regarding the copyright image issue between our company and photographer @ Jeff's Star Journey on Weibo, our company attaches great importance to it, understands the situation as soon as possible, and has already contacted the parties involved.

After preliminary verification, it was found that the involved images were authorized by the photographer to be sold in the image library Stocktrek Images, which in turn authorized Getty Images to sell the relevant images. As the exclusive partner of Getty Images in Chinese Mainland, Vision China has complete sales rights including related pictures, and the sales authorization chain of related pictures is clear and complete.

We will continue to communicate with the photographer and handle any misunderstandings properly.

Red Star News reporter Cai Xiaoyi and Wang Han

Comprehensive: Visual China