Issue 9_FOCUS from the AOP_September 2025 - Flipbook - Page 8
In terms of the financial side of business & legal
support, the year to date has so far seen about
£65,000 in monies recovered for Accredited
Photographer (and a couple of Associate) members as
either; compensation for unlicensed use of work,
whether it is usage extending past the agreed period,
or whether it’s a new, unlicensed use; or the successful
recovery of unpaid invoices.
All of this has been achieved without the need for
court proceedings or without it costing those members
anything additional!
WETRANSFER (STILL!) TAKE A LICENCE
TO USE OVER YOUR WORK
Many people have been using the file transfer
platform, WeTransfer, happily for many years. A little
while ago. around the beginning of August (one might
be cynical enough to believe that the holiday period is
a great time to do this!), WeTransfer amended their
Terms of Service ('ToS') to the consternation of many.
Initially, the concern was about WeTransfer using their
users' work for generative-AI training purposes,
something that gets frequent traction online these
days, and WeTransfer tried to placate those voices that
were raising concerns by promising not to use their
users' work in this way.
WeTransfer stated that;
"Legal terms can be long to navigate, so here are the
most important bits concerning your content: With
WeTransfer...
Your content belongs to you
Your content isn't used to train AI
Your content isn't sold to third parties"
All well and good, but the issue is not so much that the
poor user cannot possibly be expected to understand
the legalese used in most ToS, but that despite
WeTransfer doubling down on its amended terms, two
clauses remain in place, which are of great concern to
us.
Nick Dunmur
Head of Business and Legal
Association of Photographers
Firstly, clause 6.3 states that;
AOP BUSINESS & LEGAL
RECOVERED MONIES FOR AOP MEMBERS
"6.3. License to WeTransfer. In order to
allow us to operate, provide you with, and
improve the Service and our technologies,
we must obtain from you certain rights
related to Content that is covered by
intellectual property rights. You hereby
grant us a royalty-free license to use your Content for the
purposes of operating, developing, and improving the
Service, all in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie
Policy." (our italics for emphasis, and there is nothing in
the Privacy & Cookie Policy that reassures us.)
If that were not bad enough, further, clause 6.4 states
that;
"6.4. License to Others. You hereby grant other users a
license to access, view, and use your Content, as enabled
by one or more features of the Service." (again, our italics
for emphasis.)
The reason this is deeply concerning is that anyone
using the platform to transfer files that are the subject
of an exclusive licence (i.e., many, if not most,
professional photographers, is in breach of the terms
of that exclusivity through the use of the WeTransfer
platform! This is outside the scope of what a file
transfer platform should be doing, and indeed, from
research into the alternatives, we could not find any
that did the same.
Our advice is to move away from using WeTransfer, for
the reasons outlined above. There are plenty of good
alternatives that have solid ToS that respect your work
and do not take rights over it. Platforms like Smash,
Picdrop and WeSendIt are all legitimate alternatives.
