The Protection of Images in the Internet

The uprising of the electronic form of information distribution determined the necessity to improve the legal mechanics of protection of the right for the personal image, as well as the copyright for the images, distributed in the Internet. The characteristics, specific for digital images, such as the simplicity of copying, the identity of the original digital image to its copy, along with high velocity of information spreading in the Internet, made the spreading of digital images almost uncontrollable. In addition, the simplicity of changing of the content, presented on the websites in the Internet, makes proving of the infringement of the author’s rights as well as the person’s authorship itself very difficult in some cases. More than that, there are certain categories of images, which legal status remains unclear. One of the possible ways to prevent spreading of personal images, considered in the present research, is the “right to be forgotten” that was recently implemented into the Russian legislation. In respect of the images as the objects of copyright, technical measures, taken by the author before the publication of his work, were suggested as an effective to prevent the infringement of copyright. Rules of different popular websites were also studied during the present research. It was noticed that many rightholders chose free licensing, when it comes to the distribution of the results of the creative activity in the Internet. Terms of service of different social networks also possess a great value, when it comes to the distribution of images in the Internet. Such terms often contain the provisions about possible transition of users’ private information and of the objects of copyright to the third parties, as well as other terms that allow the website to use the information, located on it.