Complaint about the Department of Health
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Failure to ensure that accurate information about copyright was provided on a website
Background to the complaint
In 2003 a charity (the charity), whose aim is to provide accurate information and advice to drug users, made use of some photographic material that they found on a website sponsored by the Department of Health (the Department). On the website, it was stated that all material was Crown copyright unless otherwise stated and that Crown copyright material could be used without charge for health promotion purposes. There was no indication that the photographs were not Crown copyright. The charity used some of those photographs on their own website.
The charity were later approached by a photographer who claimed copyright of the photographs, asked for payment of £5,098.83 and subsequently issued court proceedings.
The charity approached both the Department and the Central Office of Information. The charity were referred to copyright information on the website and were told that this was a matter between them and the photographer, and it was suggested that they might wish to seek legal advice. The charity subsequently paid the fee, settling out of court with the photographer.
Complaint to the Department
In October 2006 the charity made a formal complaint to the Department, which replied in November and said that, although they accepted that the charity had mistakenly believed the images they used were Crown copyright, they could not take responsibility for that. They also referred to the copyright statement on the website from which the images had been taken.
The charity made a further complaint, asserting that nothing on the website had indicated that the images they had used were not Crown copyright and that some of the copyright information had been added more recently.
In January 2007 the Department replied and said that the website use statement had been on the site since October 2003 (except for a period in February to March 2006 when it had been inadvertently removed). They maintained that they had no legal liability and that it had been the charity’s responsibility to contact the website to establish the copyright status of the images. The Department apologised for ‘gaps’ in their communications with the charity during 2006. The charity wrote again to the Department, restating their position and subsequently asked for a meeting to discuss the issue. The Department said that they had provided all of the information they could and told the charity that they could make a complaint to the Ombudsman.
What we investigated
In March 2007 the charity’s complaint was referred to the Ombudsman. We investigated the charity’s complaint that the Department failed to ensure that accurate information about copyright was provided on a website that they sponsored. The charity said that, as a result, they had incurred costs of £5,098.83.
The purpose of our investigation was not to determine whether the Department had any legal liability in this matter but to decide whether they had been maladministrative. As part of our investigation we obtained an archived 2003 version of the website from which the charity had taken the images for use on their own website.
What our investigation found
We found that the 2003 version of the website said that material was Crown copyright unless otherwise indicated and that such material could be reproduced free of charge. None of the photographs were labelled or captioned to indicate that they were not Crown copyright. In contrast, the current version of the website does carry warnings that no material should be used without prior approval and indications of the copyright owner of all photographs.
We found that the charity had carefully checked the copyright position on the website. If the website had properly reflected the position and thus alerted them to the fact that the photographs were not Crown copyright, they would have checked further and obtained the relevant permissions or decided not to use the photographs.
We found that the Department had been maladministrative by providing incorrect and misleading information about copyright. This had caused the charity to incur the photographer’s fees of £5,098.83 for use of his copyrighted material.
Our investigation, which concluded in December 2007, upheld the charity’s complaint.
Outcome
As a result of our recommendations the Department apologised to the charity and refunded an amount equivalent to the photographer’s fees.
Principles for Remedy
The Principles for Remedy were not referred to in our report but this case summary serves to illustrate the following Principle:
- ‘Putting things right’ (offering a remedy that returns the complainant to the position that they would have been in were it not for the maladministration).
