Important Reminder on the Fair Use of Images and Photos

Published on: 19.10.2020

Dear members of the Entrepreneurship Campus and participants to the Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition 2020 or its previous editions,

We would like to call your attention to the images you have uploaded on the Entrepreneurship Campus platform.
Please, kindly make sure to double-check if the images you have shared or saved on our platform are used properly without causing copyright infringement.

We would like to remind all the users, who have uploaded an image on the platform to confirm that they are allowed to use the photos without breaking copyright law.
Please, note that under the Terms of Use, copyright infringements make the users subject to penalties. (see further below)

What to do?
This is not for you in case you have uploaded:
your photos or images that belong to you
you are provided a license or authorization that allows you to use the image accordingly (in any case make sure you are not misinterpreting the license agreements)

It is for you:
If you have uploaded an image found on the internet.

You should always assume that any image pulled off the internet is copyrighted. It is your responsibility to define if you can use it and how you can use it.
If you have done it, you should worry about it. Not checking the copyright information properly, misinterpreting the license, or using the image without permission could land you hefty penalties.
The image owners or companies that sell stock photos can easily find who has been using their photos without a license or authorization. They use online tools that track information embedded in the images to find who used them. The fact that an image might not have a copyright notice or watermark on it doesn’t mean that it free to use. It is still a legally copyrighted image.

Why it is important? 

This is important for you because, as a user that has created an account on the Entrepreneurship Campus you have agreed to the Terms of Use and Privacy Statement. More specifically, you have agreed to guarantee that all submitted content does not infringe valid law, especially criminal law, competition law, copyright law, trade mark, and other labeling laws and/or personal rights, and is free from rights owned by third parties. In addition, user content may not be racist, race-baiting, discriminatory, pornographic, insulting, defamatory, or offensive against accepted good morals in any other way, or, considering the character of the platform, inappropriate. Stiftung Entrepreneurship maintains the right to reject content entered by the user and/or to delete such content where it contravenes the above principles, valid law or accepted morals.
Moreover, the user pledges to release the Stiftung Entrepreneurship completely and unconditionally from any claims whatsoever resulting from obligations due to the culpable injury of the above-mentioned points. This release includes the responsibility for legal costs, especially lawyer costs in line with the German Lawyer Compensation Law (RVG) which regulates applicable legal fees.

In case you are not sure or if you find that unintentionally you have violated image copyright, please contact us at supp[email protected], to help you remove the image/s.

What to use instead?
Use your original photos or images that belong to you
Use public domain images or websites that provide free images. Make sure to check if they have license agreements and understand possible restrictions before uploading them on our platform.

Thank you for your understanding, and we hope you find this reminder helpful!