Looking at my server logs, I am seeing hits on my server from brandprotect, which is accessing all the images of cars on my website. The company deals with trademarks and copyright infringements. I don't think I am violating any laws, because the images I have are just thumbnail representations of the actual images, so are actually lower quality than the originals. This is similar to the image search in Google, whereby clicking on the image will take you to the website of the original image. Since the images are factual, rather than creative or artistic, I think I am covered under the 'Fair Use ' policies. Is this correct, or should I be worried?
They have already accessed the website, so I want to know what they could possibly do with the information they have already received.
What is your website about? Are the images from the automanufacturers or are they images of people's cars? Most of what I have heard about cases arising from systems like this brandprotect (though I've never heard of this particular company) is that the website gets contacted to remove the offending material. Depending on the content and intent of your site, they may not have a legal leg to stand on. However, they may request that you take down content any way. If you do get a letter or email, you might try contacting the company that hired them in the first place. After reviewing your site, they may decide to drop your case or they may provide you with a different set of images that would rather you use. I wouldn't worry about it unless you get a letter or email. To fully answer your question, in the US if you have infringing images on your website they can, charge you for the use of them, sue you for losses or damages, see that you are fined or even spend a little time in jail. Those are the possibilities, however, not all are likely. Jailtime, for example, is generally reserved for repeat or gross offenders or those that made a lot of money by fraudulently represented themselves as the company they were infringing. There are a lot of aspects to these type of things, and that is the best I can do with the limited information provided.
The images are taken from various auto websites, and afaik are not of peoples cars. My site section called FirstLook acts like a Digg for the auto industry. People submit links of articles of cars such a concepts, previews, etc, which people can vote and comment on. They also have the ability to upload a picture of the car from the article, which is only displayed as a thumbnail, and is linked to source article. So its similar to the pictures in Googles image search. Ah thx for that. I am in the UK, but the site is hosted in the USA. i doubt they will extradite me , but maybe they can tell my hosting company to shut the site down.
Since it is basically a review site and you are using only cited thumbnails, I don't think that you have much to worry about. Since it is a review site and these are product images, it should fall under fair use. Also, since the images are thumbnailed and cited, they would probably fall under the Perfect 10 v. Google case (though that ruling has only been applied to search engines at this point).