Copyright Images for TYPO3

Missing image credits cost companies thousands of euros in claims every year

Stock photo agencies such as Getty Images, Adobe Stock and mauritius images systematically run web crawlers that search the internet for unlicensed or incorrectly credited images. In Germany, a missing credit line that the author or the license requires can trigger a formal warning letter with cost claims, known as an Abmahnung. Depending on the agency and the image, claims range from €500 to €5,000 per image. For a website with 200 stock photos, a single audit run by an agency can produce back-payment demands in the five figures. (US: There is no general statutory right to be credited for photos published online; claims usually concern unlicensed use, and the license terms decide whether a credit line is required.)

tgm_copyright organizes copyright labeling in TYPO3: the extension adds a copyright field to every image managed through FAL (File Abstraction Layer), outputs the notice below the image if desired and lists all image credits on one page, for example in the legal notice. Editors enter the text once in the file’s metadata; it can be overridden for individual uses of the image.

Corporate websites, publishers and public institutions are the typical users

The most common scenario is a corporate website with 100 to 500 images from different sources: in-house photos, stock images from Adobe Stock, press photos from clients, illustrations from freelancers. Each image comes with its own license requirements. Some require the photographer’s name (“Photo: Jane Smith”), others a source credit (“Source: Adobe Stock”), others just a copyright symbol. tgm_copyright stores the appropriate notice in the image’s copyright field and displays it in the configured format.

A second scenario is publishers and media houses. A regional newspaper publishes 30 to 50 images a day. Photographers deliver their images with embedded IPTC data. tgm_copyright does not read this data; the newsroom enters the credit once in the image’s metadata. After that, “Photo: [photographer’s name]” appears under the image wherever it is used, without anyone having to type the credit again for every article.

Third scenario: public institutions that use Creative Commons images. CC licenses require correct attribution (author, license type, link to the license). In tgm_copyright, the attribution is stored as text in the copyright field and appears below the image and in the list of all image credits; your own Fluid template can add a link to the license.

The architecture builds on FAL metadata, TypoScript and two plugins

tgm_copyright adds a “copyright” field to the sys_file_metadata and sys_file_reference tables. In a file’s metadata, the entry applies to every use of the image; in the file reference, that is, the individual use, it can be overridden, just like the title or description. The extension does not read metadata from the image file (IPTC, EXIF).

In the frontend, the extension can output the notice below every image via TypoScript (constant showCopyright); in custom Fluid templates, it is available as a property of the file reference. On top of that come two plugins: a list of all images with copyright, including a link to the page where each one is used, and an image sitemap for Google. Styling is controlled through CSS classes, so the copyright notice matches the design of the website.

In the extension settings, the copyright field of file references can be made mandatory; the extension itself labels this feature as experimental.

Most problems stem from missing metadata and overlay placement

The dominant problem is images without a copyright entry. Many images end up in TYPO3 without a credit, and the extension does not generate a notice by itself. The fix: establish a workflow in which the editorial team enters the rights holder at upload, and switch on the mandatory field for file references. Alternatively, a TYPO3 backend module that lists all images without a copyright entry and prompts editors to fill in the gaps.

Second problem: notices that hide parts of the image. If you use your own template to lay the notice over the image as an overlay, it can easily cover the face or the product name on portrait photos. The fix: stick with the output below the image that tgm_copyright provides out of the box, and use an overlay only where the subject leaves room for it.

Third issue: images from other extensions. The list of all image credits and the image sitemap pick up images from pages and content elements automatically; images from other extensions such as news only appear once their table, together with a detail page, is entered in the TypoScript configuration. The fix: for every extension with images of its own, check whether it is configured there.

Version 3.3.3 covers TYPO3 v12, version 4.0.0 covers v13

tgm_copyright relies on the FAL API, which is stable in the TYPO3 core. Under v12, the extension runs in version 3.3.3. For v13, tgm_copyright 4.0.0 moved its plugin to a content type of its own (CType) and removed the TCEforms wrapper from its FlexForm; an upgrade wizard converts existing plugins. Gosign recommends an image audit with every TYPO3 upgrade: check every image on the website to confirm that copyright notices display correctly, and fill in any missing attributions.