The Internet is a not a free source of material, as a home improvements company found recently to its cost.

When the company used photographs which belonged to another company on its website, it was sued by the firm whose images had been used. Although the offending company replaced the images using ‘stock’ images at a cost of £300, the fact that it had reasonable grounds for believing that using the first set of images would infringe the copyright of another firm meant that additional penalties applied and it was ordered to pay £6,000 in additional damages.