Belief that copyright permission has been granted is no defence to infringement of copyright if no valid permission was, in fact, given. This was the finding in the Patents County Court case Hoffman v Drug Abuse Resistance Education (UK) Ltd (DARE) (Neutral Citation Number: [2012] EWPCC 2). The case concerned photographs copied from a Government sponsored website and used without permission. This means that colleges and universities which employ web designers must ensure permission has been granted for use of images on their websites. It is also provides insight as to how damages are likely to be calculated in such cases (£10,000 in this case).
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