Most small business websites carry photos from several places. Some you took yourself. Some a photographer took for you. Some came from a friend, a supplier, a stock library or the old website, and nobody remembers which.
This page helps you sort them. It explains who owns a photo under UK law, what permission to use one looks like, and how long the protection lasts.
This page is general information about the law in the United Kingdom. It is not legal advice. The rules in other countries are different. If you have a real dispute or a contract to sign, ask a solicitor.
How Bernard helps
Bernard cannot decide who owns a photo. Only you know where a picture came from. What Bernard does is keep your answer with the photo, and act on it.
- Today, every photo has a record card. In your media library, each photo carries who owns it, whether they must be credited, what the licence allows and when it expires, plus every page that uses it. Tell your assistant what you remember and it fills the card in. It also reads any credit or copyright line already inside the file, as evidence for you to confirm (am I allowed to use this photo?).
- Today, unknown is counted, not hidden. Every photo starts as "rights unknown", including the ones you upload yourself, and the library shows how many there are.
- Today, an uncleared photo does not go live. If a photo's licence has expired, or its terms say it is not cleared for the web, Bernard holds it back when you publish (why can't I publish this photo?).
- Today, your name goes into your own photos. Tell your assistant which photos are yours. For those photos, Bernard writes your name and copyright line into the copies it stores from then on. A photo whose rights are unknown gets nothing written (your name stays with your photos).
- Coming: the library itself will ask one question about each photo: Mine, Licensed, Stock or From a client, or Not sure yet. Bernard never assumes the answer.
The rest of this page explains the law behind those answers.
Copyright starts when you make the work
Copyright is the right to decide who may copy and share a piece of work. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 names a photograph as an artistic work, so a photo can have copyright.
You do not have to do anything to get it. GOV.UK says that you get copyright protection automatically, that you do not have to apply or pay a fee, and that there is no register of copyright works in the UK. The work must be your own original work.
Who owns a photo
There are three common answers.
- The person who made it. The Act says the author is the person who creates the work and that the author is the first owner of the copyright.
- The employer, for an employee's work. When an employee makes a photo in the course of the job, the employer is the first owner, unless an agreement says otherwise.
- The photographer, for a commission, unless the contract says otherwise. The Act has no rule that gives copyright to the person who pays. So the photographer stays the first owner. To pass copyright to someone else, the law needs a written assignment, signed by the owner.
The third case surprises many owners. If you paid a photographer for your shop photos, you may not own them. You probably have permission to use them. What that permission covers depends on what you agreed. If it is not written down, ask the photographer now, while it is easy.
The same question applies when a friend takes the photos, or when a web designer supplied them with your old site.
Permission is called a licence
A licence is permission from the owner. Without permission, copying or sharing the work is an infringement, unless a legal exception applies.
A licence can be broad or narrow. It can say where you may use the photo, for how long and for what. A stock library licence is one example. A line in a photographer's invoice is another. Licences, credit lines and "all rights reserved": what they really do explains the common kinds and what each one lets you do.
Keep the licence with the photo. In a year, you will not remember where a picture came from. In Bernard, that place is the photo's record card: paste the licence email or receipt into a chat and ask your assistant to record it.
How long copyright lasts
For most photographs and artworks, copyright lasts until 70 years after the end of the calendar year in which the author dies. GOV.UK gives the same period for artistic work. Some older works and some other kinds of work follow different rules, so check before you rely on a date for a very old picture.
For a small business this has a simple result. Almost every photo you find online still belongs to someone.
The copyright line is optional
A line such as "© 2026 Jane Smith" tells people who to ask. It does not create the copyright. GOV.UK says that whether you mark the work or not does not affect the level of protection you have. So a copyright line helps people find you, and you do not lose your rights if you leave it off.
A quick check for your own site
Go through your photos and put each one in one of these groups. They are the same groups the Bernard library is getting:
- Mine. I took it, or my business owns it in writing.
- Licensed. I have permission, and I know where it is written down.
- Stock. It came from a stock library under its licence.
- From a client or supplier. Somebody gave it to me to use.
- Not sure. I need to find out.
The fifth group is the one to work on. For each "not sure" photo, find the source and the permission, or replace the photo. Before you replace one, ask your assistant where it is used, so no page is left with a gap.
Bernard also protects you in a quieter way. When you upload a photo or move your site in, it removes the hidden location, camera serial number and camera owner name from the file. What your photos say about you explains why. If someone has already copied one of your photos, read Someone copied my work. How do I prove it is mine?.
Your next step in Bernard
Open a chat with your assistant and ask: "Show me the photos on my site whose rights are unknown, and help me record whose each one is." It goes through them a few at a time and writes down what you say. Recording an answer does not change your live pages.
Bernard is an AI-assisted website and marketing platform for small businesses. He builds a new site or moves an existing one, keeps it fast and readable to search and AI tools, and looks after it. Once measuring is on, he reads your numbers each week and suggests what to do next, with a button that does it. On the Nautilus Medium and Nautilus Large plans he also plans your marketing every six weeks and drafts your posts, emails and pages. Everything lands on a draft you approve. One flat price per site.
See what Bernard would do with your business. Already have a website? Paste its address and he measures it up, free, and shows you the new place before you decide anything. Starting from nothing? Tell him what you are building.
Questions people ask
- Do I have to register my photos to own the copyright?
- Not in the UK. GOV.UK says you get copyright protection automatically, you do not have to apply or pay a fee, and there is no register of copyright works in the UK. Other countries have their own rules. This is general information, not legal advice.
- I paid a photographer. Do I own the pictures?
- Not automatically. Under UK law the person who makes the work is the first owner, unless an employee made it in the course of the job or an agreement says something different. To pass copyright to you, the law needs a written assignment signed by the owner. You may still have permission to use the pictures. What that covers depends on what you agreed, so check the agreement or ask a solicitor.
- How long does copyright in a photo last?
- For most photographs and artworks in the UK, until 70 years after the end of the year in which the maker dies. Some older works and some other kinds of work follow different rules.