Copyright and Intellectual Property

Hi Pete,

As you rightly point out the copyright and IP is owned by your previous employer. You must therefore respond to all of their request to avoid further legal action. If they have requested that you destroy the work then you should probably do this.

Who ultimately owns the copyright and IP will depend on the terms of the contract between your previous employer and the car company. When companies commission work which has a copyright, IP element to it the ownership often passes to the company who commissioned the work. However it will depend entirely on the terms of the contact signed by the contracting parties. Even if you were to approach senior management I suspect that they would have to refer it back to their lawyers.

It may be better simply to remove the offending pictures, documents etc from your website as you do not own the copyright.

Gerard,

Thanks so much for the speedy reply. I have indeed taken down all material from my website and will not be showcasing it there in future.

The only remaining question I therefore have is am I legally required to respond to the email that requests that I delete/destroy all of the material? Obviously I am required to delete it, but am I obliged to actually write an email and confirm that I have done so?

Thanks again.

Hi Pete,

I cannot say for certain that as a matter of law you have to reply to the request from your former employer regarding the destruction of the material. I do not think that you have to reply. However to avoid the threat of legal action etc I would expect that they would like some form of undertaking from you that you will destroy the material. It may be better to simply reply confirming that it has been destroyed.

Thanks again Garard. There's been another development in my "case"!

I've been away for the last couple of days but decided today just to be done with the whole thing and delete everything and confirm so with my previous employer. However, before I had chance to do that I had an email on my phone from the legal representatives of my previous employer. They had drafted out a letter for me to sign and respond to, and I'm not so sure I want to sign it! Among the 8 points / requests is one saying that I agree to pay £500 within 7 days of signing the undertakings letter as a contribution to my previous employer's legal costs!! I couldn't believe it when I read it! 

Straight away I sent an email to my previous employer, stating in no uncertain terms that I have destroyed / deleted all information as requested, and trust that all requests have been answered in full and that I won't need to do anything else.

I'm still really worried about this £500 though. There's nothing in my contract about covering their legal fees, and it seems to me that they're just "trying it on" with me so that they don't have to pay the fees themselves. To be honest £500 is a lot of money to anybody, but when I'm still unemployed since leaving them 4 weeks ago I can't really spare a single penny!

So I guess my question is do I have to sign the form and pay the £500, or will simply responding and saying that I've completed all requests be enough to placate the matter?

Hi Pete,

It may well be that their solicitors are trying it on. As this stage I presume that they have not suffered any loss whatsoever other than supposedly incurring solicitors fees. I would suggest that you reply to the solicitors letter agreeing all of the points aside from the payment of their costs. I would also copy your former employer in on the letter. You should also make the point that you removed all of the infringing documents etc as soon as you were notified of the problem by your former employer.

I am not an expert in breach of copyright cases but if there is no clause in your contract regarding the penalties for copyright infringement and your former employer has not suffered a loss I do not believe that they are entitled to ask you to pay their legal costs. If this were taken to court by your former employer I believe that it would be dealt with by the small claims court and if the value of a claim is under £5,000.00 the claimaint is not entitled to claim his legal costs.

Hi Gerard,

Thanks again for getting back to me. It's refreshing to read that things may not be so bad after all for me! I have booked an appointment with a local solicitor who specialises in copyright and IP. He seems to be saying over the phone pretty much what you've said so far, so I'm going to see him this afternoon to see if I can get this all straightened out once and for all.

Thanks again for your help. I'll update on here as soon as I know anything.

Pete