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Our advice?
You've got two choices, neither of them particularly fun, but both of them are a whole lot better than continuing to infringe someone's lawful copyright and leaving yourself open for a truly catastrophic lawsuit:
Stop using the images. Right now. If you have them on your website, take them down. Now. If you've used them in an ad, stop running the ad. If you've used them in a brochure, stop distributing the brochure.
Will that "cure" the infringement?
No. If you shoplift a pair of gloves from a store and stop using them, you've still shoplifted. If you've already used images you didn't pay for, but you stop using them, you've still used them in the past, without permission and without payment. That's infringement of copyright, already done, and you're not going to get that toothpaste back in the tube.
But it's a start.
Now go do what's necessary to purchase the rights to the images from whomever you got them in the first place, and make sure you purchase a license that covers whatever use you were making of them.
If they are royalty-free images, there are set, fixed prices. Purchase the images. Fast.
If they are rights managed images, you have a little bigger problem, but not insurmountable. You'll need to phone the agency and negotiate a fee that covers the way you want to use the images.
Will that cure the infringement?
No. You've already broken the law by using them in the first place, and the fact is that if the owner of the copyright finds out about it, even if you purchase a license later, you have still infringed their copyright previously, before you did the right thing and purchased the license, and they can come after you for it.
Why, then, should you potentially "alert" the copyright owner to the prior infringement by getting in touch with them now to purchase the rights?
Two reasons:
Firstly, it's the lesser of evils. If you don't do what you can to mitigate the situation, and if you do get caught, the recovery the agency seeks will be merciless.
Secondly, it's the right thing to do. And this is one of those happy instances where the right thing is also the practical thing. Why? Because agencies want to encourage people to do the right thing, not hammer them for it.
Look, we're not going to give you any guarantees on the behavior of other agencies, and don't tell anyone we told you this, but the fact is that IF you have stolen images in the past, but IF you do the right thing now and purchase a license for them, you've got a very good chance of "skating" on it. If an agency is going to "get tough" and spend a lot of time and energy proving a point (and recovering a bunch of money) they are much more likely to focus on the people who don't do the "right thing" than those who do, even if it's a little belatedly.
But again, we can't give you any guarantees, and please remember, we're not the ones who stole the images: you are. We're just trying to give you some avenues to redemption here...
Of course, you do have a third option, and that is simply to continue to use the pictures, infringe someone's lawful copyright, and hope for the best. Before doing so, we recommend re-reading two sections of this document:
Are you going to get caught?
What are the penalties if you're caught?
And one final thing, for emphasis: If you're thinking you're too "small potatoes" for your infringement to get anyone's attention or to warrant their taking action on it, please go back to The Four Biggest Mistakes in Thinking You Can Make and pay special attention to number four ...
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