BACKGROUND:
These Rights Check API Terms (API Terms) apply when ImageRelease Ltd (we, us or our) gives your organisation access to the Rights Check API or a Site Integration. They form part of, and add to, our Terms & Conditions (Paid Subscribers) (the Subscriber Terms). Words defined in the Subscriber Terms have the same meaning here. Where these API Terms and the Subscriber Terms conflict on the Rights Check API or a Site Integration, these API Terms apply.
1. Definitions
Rights Ledger: | means the record, kept by our IR Protect service, of images registered through the Platform, each with its digital fingerprint and the rights recorded for it; |
Rights Check API: | means the interface through which your systems check images against the Rights Ledger and register images in it, described in the developer documentation at imagerelease.uk/api/ext/docs; |
Site Integration: | means software we provide that connects your website to the Rights Check API, such as the imageRelease package for Umbraco; |
API Key: | means a secret key we issue to your organisation for the Rights Check API, either a test key (for our test environment) or a live key; |
Registration: | means an image you register in the Rights Ledger through the Rights Check API or a Site Integration, with the source, Declaration, credit and references you send with it; |
Declaration: | means a statement about the rights to an image sent with a Registration: for example that the image is owned, used with the owner's permission or under an open licence, taken from a third-party feed, or that nothing is known about its rights. A Declaration is either a Recorder Declaration or an Uploader Declaration; |
Recorder Declaration: | means a Declaration your organisation makes itself, including one you apply as a default when an uploader gave no answer; and |
Uploader Declaration: | means the answer a person who uploaded an image to your website gave about their rights to it, which you pass on as their answer. |
2. Access
2.1 Access to the Rights Check API and Site Integrations is currently by invitation or on request: ask us at help@imagerelease.uk. We intend to make it part of our Unlimited plan, and from then on an Unlimited subscription will be needed to keep access. Any charge is agreed with you before access starts.
2.2 We issue API Keys to your organisation. Each key has a name, the permissions (scopes) it allows, a monthly allowance and a rate limit, and may have an expiry date.
2.3 Your use of the Rights Check API counts towards the allowances of your subscription plan, including the number of images you may register.
3. Keeping your keys secure
3.1 You must keep each API Key secret: store it only on your servers or in a secure secrets store, never in a web page, mobile app, public code repository or email.
3.2 You are responsible for everything done with your API Keys. Tell us straight away at help@imagerelease.uk if you think a key has been exposed; we will revoke it and issue a new one.
3.3 We may revoke or suspend an API Key at any time if we reasonably believe it has been exposed or misused, or to protect the Platform or other users. We will tell you when we do, unless that would itself harm security.
4. Using the Rights Check API
4.1 You may use the Rights Check API only to check images your organisation handles, and to register images on websites and systems your organisation operates, record when their use ends, and amend or revoke those Registrations.
4.2 You must not:
use the Rights Check API to build a copy of the Rights Ledger, or to find out about other organisations' images or rights beyond what a check returns;
send images or data you have no right to send to us;
send personal data the Rights Check API does not ask for: in particular, an uploader reference must be a reference you choose (such as a member number), never a person's name or email address;
try to get around rate limits or allowances, use more than one key to exceed them, or use another organisation's key;
interfere with or disrupt the Platform or the IR Protect service.
4.3 We may change the Rights Check API, add features and retire old versions. We will give you reasonable notice of any change that stops a working integration from working, except where a change is needed for security or by law.
5. Registrations and Declarations
5.1 A Registration records a Declaration about an image. Where the Rights Check API lets you mark a Declaration as a Recorder Declaration or an Uploader Declaration, you must mark it correctly, as the developer documentation describes; an answer you supply yourself, such as a default applied when the uploader gave none, is a Recorder Declaration. Until then, a Declaration sent with an uploader reference for a member of your website is treated as an Uploader Declaration, and any other Declaration as a Recorder Declaration.
5.2 You are responsible for your Recorder Declarations being accurate.
5.3 For Uploader Declarations, you are responsible for:
(a) asking the uploader about their rights to the image clearly and fairly, without suggesting an answer or pre-selecting one that claims rights;
(b) passing on their answer as they gave it, as an Uploader Declaration;
(c) keeping a reference that lets you identify the uploader for as long as the Registration is in the Rights Ledger, so that a claim about the image can be traced to them;
(d) acting on a notice that a Registration is wrong or infringes someone's rights within 5 working days, by updating, ending or revoking it, and removing the image from your website where the notice is upheld;
(e) having terms with the people who upload to your website that make each uploader responsible for their answer; and
(f) if a claim is made against us about a Registration, giving us reasonable help to deal with it, including identifying the uploader from their reference, to us or to the claimant, where the law allows.
If you meet (a) to (f), you are not responsible to us for whether an uploader's answer is true. This does not change any responsibility you have to anyone else under the law, for example as the publisher of the image.
5.4 A Declaration is a claim, not something we check. We never present a Declaration sent through the Rights Check API or a Site Integration as issued or confirmed by the rights holder, and where a check result says who made a Declaration, it describes an Uploader Declaration as made by an uploader and not verified. Other organisations who check a registered image will see that it is registered and, for an open licence, the licence and source given; they will not see uploader references or your other private details.
5.5 When an image stops being used on your website, record that its use has ended where the Rights Check API provides for it; until then, revoke its Registration. Otherwise, revoke a Registration only if it was made by mistake or you no longer stand by its Declaration. Site Integrations can do this for you.
5.6 If we are told that a Registration is wrong or infringes someone else's rights, we may suspend or revoke it while we look into it, and we will tell you.
6. Check results
6.1 A check compares an image with the Rights Ledger using digital fingerprints and, where present, Content Credentials (C2PA). It tells you what the Rights Ledger records about matching images. It is not legal advice, and it does not guarantee that you may, or may not, use an image.
6.2 Matching by fingerprint is very reliable but not perfect. A match may occasionally be wrong, and an image that is not in the Rights Ledger may still belong to someone. You should review weak matches and use your own judgement, particularly before relying on a result to refuse or remove content.
7. Privacy and personal data
7.1 Images you send for checking are compared with the Rights Ledger and then discarded, except as described in our Privacy Notice.
7.2 For Registrations, you are the controller of the personal data and we are your processor, under our Data Processing Addendum. You must tell the people who upload to your website that their uploads are registered in the Rights Ledger with a reference and, where they gave one, their answer about the rights, recorded as theirs; suggested wording is in the Privacy section of our developer documentation at imagerelease.uk/api/ext/docs.
7.3 We log each call to the Rights Check API (time, key, outcome and calling IP address) to keep the service secure and to support you, and delete these logs after 180 days.
8. Availability, suspension and ending access
8.1 We aim to keep the Rights Check API available but do not guarantee that it will be uninterrupted or error-free. Planned maintenance will be kept short and, where we can, announced in advance.
8.2 We may suspend your access if you breach these API Terms, if your subscription lapses or no longer includes the Rights Check API, or if needed to protect the Platform.
8.3 If your subscription no longer includes the Rights Check API, you can no longer register images, but your existing Registrations stay in the Rights Ledger as your organisation's record, and you can still revoke them: ask us at help@imagerelease.uk and we will revoke them for you.
8.4 If you close your account, we erase your Registrations or remove everything in them that identifies your organisation, as set out in the Data Processing Addendum, unless you ask us to keep them for a period you agree with us.
9. Liability
9.1 The limits on our liability in section 14 of the Subscriber Terms apply to the Rights Check API and Site Integrations. In particular, we are not liable for decisions you make on the strength of a check result or a Declaration made by you or your uploaders.
9.2 You will indemnify us, as set out in section 15 of the Subscriber Terms, against claims arising from (a) your Recorder Declarations, (b) your not meeting section 5.3, or (c) any other breach of these API Terms. You do not need to indemnify us against a claim that arises only because an Uploader Declaration was untrue, where you met section 5.3.
10. Changes to these API Terms
We may update these API Terms from time to time. We will give you at least 30 days' notice of any change that reduces your rights, by email or on the Platform.
These API Terms were last updated on 14 October 2026.