Web Designer Copyright: Who Pays for Bad Images?

You hired a web designer to build your website. A few months later, you receive a letter from Getty Images, CopyTrack or Picright demanding payment for images on your website that you did not choose, did not source and did not know were unlicensed.

Who is legally responsible, you or the designer?

This is one of the most common compliance problems Dutch small business websites face. You can scan your website for copyright and compliance risks to get an early warning before a claim letter arrives.

The Short Answer: You Are Primarily Liable to the Rights Holder

Under the Auteurswet (Dutch Copyright Act), the person who publishes a copyrighted work without authorisation is the infringer. Article 1 of the Auteurswet grants the author the exclusive right to publish and reproduce their work. In copyright law, the "publisher" of a website is the entity that operates and controls it: you, the website owner.

The rights holder (the photographer or their agency) does not care about your internal arrangement with a web designer. They will pursue you as the website operator. This is the primary liability: you are responsible for the content on your website, regardless of who created it.

The fact that a web designer provided the images without a licence does not eliminate your liability to the rights holder. However, it does give you the basis for a secondary claim against the web designer for breach of contract.

Your Claim Against the Web Designer

The web designer delivered a website to you. Implicitly (or explicitly in a contract) they warranted that the delivery would be fit for its purpose and free from defects. A website with unlicensed images:

1. Is not fit for its purpose. A website that exposes you to copyright claims is defective
2. May constitute wanprestatie (non-performance/breach) under Article 6:74 BW
3. May trigger your right to claim damages. The copyright settlement cost you paid is a damage directly caused by the designer's breach

Legal basis: Under Article 7:17 BW (conformity), a delivered product must possess the properties that the buyer could reasonably expect. For a commercial website, the buyer can reasonably expect that it does not infringe third-party intellectual property rights.

What you can claim:

• The copyright settlement amount you paid
• Legal costs if you incurred them
• Any consequential damages (e.g., if the claim resulted in your website being taken down and you lost revenue)

What Your Contract Should Say

If you are about to hire a web designer, or renegotiating terms, include these provisions.

Intellectual property warranty clause

Include language along these lines:

"The Designer warrants that all content, images, fonts, code and other materials incorporated into the deliverables are either original works of the Designer, properly licensed for the purpose and scope of the project or clearly identified as requiring the Client to obtain separate licensing. The Designer shall provide documentation of any third-party licences upon request."

Indemnification clause

"The Designer shall indemnify the Client against any claims, costs, damages and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from any claim that the deliverables, or any part thereof, infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party, to the extent such claim arises from materials provided by the Designer."

IP transfer clause

If the designer creates original images for you:

"Upon full payment, all intellectual property rights in original works created by the Designer specifically for this project are transferred to the Client."

Common Scenarios and Who Bears the Risk

Scenario 1: Designer used stock photos without a licence or with a wrong-scope licence

Designer's liability: High. The designer made a professional decision to use images they were not authorised to use. In the Netherlands, professional web designers are expected to know copyright law as part of their profession.

Your recourse: Strong claim for reimbursement of the settlement amount, plus costs.

Scenario 2: Designer used images from a stock site but the licence did not cover commercial use

Designer's liability: High. A "personal use" or "editorial use" licence does not cover commercial website use. Professional designers should know this.

Your recourse: Strong claim, as above.

Scenario 3: Designer purchased a licence in their own name, not transferred to you

Some stock photo agencies allow licence transfer, others do not. If a designer purchased a licence in their name and the licence is not transferable, your website may be using the image unlawfully even though someone paid for a licence.

Designer's liability: Medium. The designer should have ensured the licence was usable for your website. They may have an obligation to resolve this (purchase a transferable licence, provide you with the original licence documentation or refund the settlement cost).

Your recourse: Depends on whether the contract addressed licence ownership. If not, argue that the spirit of the contract was to deliver a legally operable website.

Scenario 4: You instructed the designer to use a specific image from the internet

Your liability: High. If you specifically instructed the designer to use an image and the designer complied, you bear more responsibility for the resulting infringement. The designer may argue they relied on your instruction. A professional designer should have flagged the risk, but if they did and you overruled them, your claim against the designer is weaker.

Designer's liability: Lower, but the designer arguably had a duty to warn you that the image required a licence.

Scenario 5: Client supplied all images to the designer

Designer's liability: Low or none. If you provided the images, you are responsible for ensuring you have the rights to use them. The designer is not generally responsible for the provenance of content supplied by the client.

Your liability: Full. If you supplied images you did not own or have a licence for, you are directly responsible.

How Dutch Courts Handle These Cases

Dutch courts apply the Auteurswet consistently. The website operator is liable to the rights holder, full stop. That has been the settled position in Dutch copyright law for well over a decade. What varies is the amount of damages and whether the website owner can recover costs from the designer.

A few cases illustrate how this plays out in practice.

Unlicensed product photos, website operator pays. In a 2022 case at Rechtbank Amsterdam (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2022:441), the court found that a company had published unlicensed product photographs on its website. The court awarded €3,500 in damages to the rights holder and ordered the defendant to pay more than €12,000 in legal costs. The origin of the images, whether placed by the website owner or a designer, did not affect the primary liability of the operator.

Web agency claims copyright on its own work. In Vendic v. Meubelplaats (Rechtbank Overijssel, 2020), a web agency tried to claim copyright over a website design it had built for a client. The court rejected the claim. The design was not creative enough to qualify for protection. The agency ended up paying over €15,000 in legal costs. This case is a useful reminder that not everything a designer creates is automatically protected, but it also shows the cost of getting into a dispute with your designer.

The enforcement landscape in the Netherlands. Organisations such as CopyTrack, Picright and the ANP (Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau) actively monitor Dutch websites for unlicensed image use and send thousands of demand letters each year. Courts in the Netherlands have handled a high volume of these cases. While rights holders do sometimes lose on procedural grounds (for example, failing to prove they actually own the rights), the underlying liability of the website operator is rarely in dispute. If the image was on your website and you did not have a licence, you will generally owe something.

What to Do Now: Practical Steps

If you have already received a copyright claim and believe your web designer is responsible:

1. Do not ignore the claim. The rights holder will pursue you regardless of the designer dispute
2. Settle the claim. Paying and getting a settlement agreement is usually faster and cheaper than fighting in court while also pursuing the designer
3. Document everything. Screenshots of the designer's delivery, your contract, email communications about the images used
4. Contact the designer. In writing, inform them of the claim and demand that they cover the settlement cost. This preserves your rights and may result in the designer settling directly.
5. If the designer refuses, consult a lawyer about your contractual claim. If the amount is below €25,000, the Kantonrechter (district court) handles these cases relatively quickly and without mandatory legal representation.
6. For amounts under €5,000, consider consumer dispute resolution (though professional relationships are often excluded from Geschillencommissies) or a lawyer's letter to push the designer toward a negotiated settlement.

Protecting Yourself for Future Projects

Before signing:

• Ask the designer to confirm in writing that they will only use licensed assets
• Request that licence documentation for all images, fonts and third-party assets be delivered with the project
• Include the intellectual property warranty clause above

At delivery:

• Request a list of all third-party assets used (images, icons, fonts, code libraries)
• For each, confirm the licence and who holds it

After launch:

• Run an image reverse search (Google Lens, TinEye) on your website's images to check if they appear on rights-holder databases
• Run a periodic compliance scan. CopyTrack and Picright actively monitor Dutch websites, and catching a problem yourself is far cheaper than receiving a demand letter. Scan your website now to check for known risk signals.

For guidance on responding to specific claim letters, see our CopyTrack/Picright guide and Getty Images letter guide.

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This article is technical analysis, not legal advice. Consult a lawyer for advice specific to your situation.