Image rights review checklist: people, rights and evidence

People and authority

• Identify camera operator, editor, writer, producer
• Identify every recognizable person
• Confirm age and legal capacity
• Identify employer, client, agency, brand, publisher
• Verify who can sign
• Record present claimant and representative

• Identify the camera operator, editor, writer, and producer.
• Identify every recognizable person.
• Confirm age and legal capacity at relevant dates.
• Identify employer, client, agency, brand, publisher, and platform.
• Verify who can sign for each person or organization.
• Record the present claimant and requested role of any representative.

Ownership and documents

• Preserve original files and creation records
• Trace copyright from author through transfer
• Read licenses for rights, media, territory, term
• Read releases for purpose, identity, editing, withdrawal
• Review agency authority and amendments
• Separate copy ownership from copyright

• Preserve original files and creation records.
• Trace copyright from author through employment, assignment, or other transfer.
• Read licenses for rights, media, territory, term, exclusivity, sublicensing, and termination.
• Read releases for purpose, identity use, editing, advertising, approval, and withdrawal.
• Review agency authority and amendments.
• Separate ownership of a physical or digital copy from copyright.

Context and meaning

• Save exact page, caption, headline, tags, ad
• Record crops, composites, retouching, synthetic changes
• State whether use is editorial or promotional
• Identify audience, paid distribution, location, date
• Check private, medical, financial, child disclosures

• Save the exact page, caption, headline, tags, ad, product, and nearby claims.
• Record crops, composites, retouching, sequencing, and synthetic changes.
• State whether use is editorial, documentary, artistic, educational, internal, or promotional.
• Identify the target audience, paid distribution, location, and publication date.
• Check private, medical, sexual, financial, employment, political, child, and location disclosures.

• Copyrightprotected work, owner, challenged act, license, exception, registration, and remedy.
• Subject permissioncapture and use scope.
• Publicityrecognizable identity, commercial purpose, consent, exception, and jurisdiction.
• Privacycapture method, expectation, facts, audience, public interest, and recognized claim.
• Data protectioncontroller, purpose, basis, notice, recipients, security, retention, and rights.
• Defamationexact factual meaning, falsity, identification, publication, fault, harm, defense, and correction.
• Contractparties, clause, authority, breach, limitation, and remedy.
• Non-consensual intimate imagesthe federal civil action under 15 U.S.C. § 6851, state criminal and civil statutes such as California Civil Code § 1708.85, and the reporting routes set out below.

• Record exact page and media URLs, accounts, dates, and time zones.
• Keep one untouched lawful capture and labeled working copies.
• Save a dated public copy through the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine or archive.today, and keep the original file's embedded metadata.
• Match each claim to original, agreement, and publication evidence.
• Preserve report receipts, decisions, counter-notices, and corrections.
• Avoid speculative allegations and public attribution without proof.
• Restrict sensitive evidence access.

• Define removal, correction, credit, payment, access restriction, preservation, disclosure, or damages sought.
• Identify which recipient controls that remedy.
• Check limitation periods, contractual notice windows, appeal deadlines, and urgent-order requirements.
• Write down the specific clock for each claimthe statutory limitation period, the platform appeal window, and any contractual notice deadline.
• Consider defenses, exceptions, public interest, jurisdiction, and enforcement cost.
• Obtain qualified advice before signing legal declarations.

• Send a notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512, to the platform's designated agent: identify the copyrighted work, identify the material and where it sits, give contact details, state a good-faith belief that the use is unauthorized, and sign a statement under penalty of perjury that the notice is accurate and that you own the right or act for the owner.
• Look up the registered agent in the DMCA Designated Agent Directory before sending anything, so the notice reaches the person the service has actually named.
• Expect the platform to pass the notice to the uploader, who may file a counter-notice; the material can then go back up unless the dispute moves to court.
• Register the work with the U.S. Copyright Office, which is generally required before a US infringement suit can be filed.
• Use the platform's own reporting form for private or non-consensual material. Section 230, 47 U.S.C. § 230, shields platforms from liability for what users post, but it does not stop them from acting on a valid report.
• For intimate images, use Take It Down, run by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, or StopNCII.org, which creates a hash of the image on the person's own device so participating services can block it.
• Ask the platform and the search service that controls the page to remove or de-index it, and keep the case or ticket number for every report you file.