Brand Protection & Content Protection
-Takedown Guides-
Adobe Stock
Adobe Copyright Protection
A Guide To The Adobe Stock Copyright Webform
Adobe Stock – the digital stock photography and graphics platform from Adobe. Adobe Stock has over 60 million images, videos and 3D graphics available to download royalty free. Part of this number comes from Adobe’s purchase of Fotolia in 2015 as Adobe continued to push towards a cloud-based business model. Adobe Stock focuses on a subscription model, whereby subscribers get access to a specified number of licenses per month to obtain new images or videos. Users can choose to purchase one-off license packs which contain a specified number of licenses. Adobe Stock competes with other stock image catalogues including Unsplash, Getty Images and Alamy. Due to integration with other Adobe software, vectors and graphics form a larger proportion of the catalogue in comparison to stock platform rivals.
Adobe allows any owner of images, graphics or videos to upload to Adobe Stock to sell content. As such, the practice of infringers scraping the internet for images which are then uploaded to stock platforms to generate income blights the platform. Infringers configure crawlers to download images from social media networks such as Instagram, art specific platforms such as DeviantArt and other platforms which use images such as Wikipedia. Artists and photographers must ensure to monitor all stock platforms for unauthorised commercial distribution of their works.
The focus of this guide is how-to submit a copyright infringement notice to Adobe through the “Report a Copyright or Trademark Problem” webform. The webform includes the Adobe products Behance, Fotolia, Adobe Stock, Creative Cloud and also has an other option. The streamline process is extremely efficient for IPR owner – the entire reporting process is simplified to remove any unnecessary reporting burdens which are common on other webforms. The steps below cover Behance (Adobe’s portfolio platform), Adobe Stock (Adobe’s stock images platform) and Fotolia (now merged with Adobe Stock). Adobe is extremely responsive to takedown requests, typically removing the item in around 24 hours of notification. Mass-scale infringers are banned from the platform entirely to reduce platform abuse. To start the copyright report process, click here.
Report a Copyright or Trademark Problem
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The first section requires the reporter to select whether the dispute concerns a trademark or copyright claim. The reporter must then select the relevant platform. Unfortunately, given the design of the webform only one Adobe service can be selected in a given notice, therefore to report an infringement which occurs on both Behance and Stock requires the submission of two separate forms. Once both options have been completed, the form will generate the next section.
Which type of report are you submitting?
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The reporter should select “DMCA Takedown Notification”, which then generates the next section of the webform. The reporter must be either the copyright owner or an authorised representative – with the webform asking a potential third-party reporter to inform the copyright owner of the infringement and direct them to the webform to submit the notification. Personal and contact information is required, the information requested does not differ whether the reporter is the owner or a third-party. This further helps to simply the report process. It is advised to use a specific reporting email account as the information may be provided to the infringer.
Copyright information
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Both boxes in this section must be completed to ensure the notice can be properly processed. In the first box the reporter can either provide a URL or a description of the “copyrighted material that you own”, it is advisable to provide a URL from any social network, online portfolio or website owned by the copyright holder which includes a date. A short description regarding the works and date created is advisable to include to assist with the procedure. In the second box, the URL of the infringing content must be included; multiple URLs can be included in this box, put each URL on a new line. The reporter should include URLs infringing one copyright protected work at a time to avoid confusion in the complaint handling process. The URL must specifically direct to the infringing content, rather than an index page.
Required Statements
Three checkboxes are required to be ticked. Submitting a notice for copyright infringement has serious legal consequences and therefore it is advised to read the statements carefully. By ticking the boxes the reporter agrees that the use of the copyright protected work is not authorised, the reporter is liable under the penalty of perjury that the information is accurate and that Adobe will provide the infringer with a copy of the notice.
Sign & Submit
The final step is for the reporter to type their name into the signature box to electronically sign the copyright infringement submission. The webform also advises the reporter to contact an attorney if they are unsure about the submission. Once ready, click “Submit” and the intellectual property infringement takedown notice is sent for Adobe to remove the infringing image, pending review.