Restaurant Website Photo Copyright UK: A Rights-Safe Checklist

Source: UKIPO: digital images, photographs and the internet.

UK copyright protection normally arises without registration or a copyright symbol. Finding a clean image in a search result, receiving it in a message or seeing no watermark therefore proves very little. The UKIPO's practical rule for commercial websites is to use an image only when there is a specific licence or another clear legal basis for the intended use. The copyright notice explains why missing metadata or a © symbol is not permission.

For a restaurant, “cleared” should mean more than an invoice in a folder. The record should connect the final website file to its creator or licensor, the permitted channels, territory and duration, crop or editing rights, any required credit, the position on recognisable people and the date the permission must be reviewed.

Under section 9 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the author is generally the person who creates the work. Section 11 then makes the author the first copyright owner, subject to exceptions. The important restaurant exception is work made by an employee in the course of employment: the employer is normally first owner, subject to any agreement to the contrary.

That exception should not be stretched to cover everyone working in the building. The UKIPO distinguishes an employee working under a contract of service from a freelancer or independent contractor working under a contract for services. A contractor will usually retain copyright unless the contract changes that position. UKIPO guidance on ownership of copyright works.

Ownership can move, several people may contribute, and older photographs may involve different rules. For a current restaurant shoot, identify the contracting party and rights in writing before the camera arrives.

Commissioning and paying for food, interior or team photography usually buys the service and whatever licence the contract grants. It does not, by itself, transfer copyright to the restaurant. The UKIPO says a third-party creator is usually the first owner of a commissioned image unless there is an agreement to the contrary; an implied licence may sometimes cover the original purpose, but it does not normally transfer ownership and may be narrow. UKIPO guidance on commissioned images.

A licence lets the restaurant carry out stated uses while the rightsholder keeps ownership. An assignment transfers some or all of the copyright. Section 90 of the 1988 Act says an assignment is not effective unless it is written and signed by or on behalf of the person assigning it. The UKIPO also notes that a licence can be restricted by time or other limits, while some moral rights can remain after copyright is assigned. UKIPO guidance on licensing and selling copyright.

For most restaurants, a clear written licence may be more useful than insisting on ownership. It should say whether the files may be used on the restaurant's website, organic social accounts, email, press, delivery listings and paid adverts; whether crops, colour changes, text overlays and future redesigns are allowed; how long and where the permission lasts; and whether credit is required. If an agency commissioned the photographer, require the agency to confirm it has authority to grant those rights.

“Royalty-free” describes a licensing model, not an image with no rights attached. Keep the exact asset page, contributor, download date, receipt and licence version. Check commercial website use, modification, attribution, prohibited subjects and any territory or duration terms on the source you actually used.

Unsplash is a useful example of why the second check matters. Its current licence grants broad free commercial use and does not require attribution, although it restricts selling images without significant modification and compiling them into a competing service. Its first-party terms separately say that the licence does not include rights to recognisable people's images, trademarks, logos, brands or works of art appearing in a photograph. A food image can therefore have a broad copyright licence while a visible person, branded bottle or artwork still needs review.

A public post is visible, not ownerless. The UKIPO digital-images notice explains that online photographs are generally protected by copyright and usually require permission for reuse. A restaurant viewing a public social post does not thereby receive permission to download it and publish it on a separate commercial website.

Ask the rightsholder directly. Record the post URL, account, date, exact image and reply. Permission should say that the restaurant may host the image on its website and state whether cropping, reuse on other channels and credit are allowed. A tag, mention or credit can acknowledge the creator, but it does not replace permission.

A supplier may have a press library or send a pack shot for promotion. Confirm that the sender is authorised to license it and that the permission covers the restaurant's own commercial website, not only a temporary campaign or the supplier's catalogue. Record the product, territory, channels, end date and required brand treatment. If packaging, artwork or another photographer's material is prominent, ask whether those elements are included in the permission.

Self-shot does not mean every element is cleared. The UKIPO notes that a photograph can itself include another protected work; incidental background inclusion is different from making that work an essential part of the image. Check artwork, menu illustrations, murals, music artwork, branded packaging and screens before publishing. UKIPO guidance on protected material inside a photograph.

Copyright in the photograph and permission from a person shown in it are different questions. An identifiable face or other distinguishing detail may be personal data. The ICO says identifiability depends on context and whether a person can be distinguished directly or using other reasonably available information. ICO guidance on identifiers and personal data.

Before using a planned portrait of a chef, employee, diner or event guest for marketing, record the purpose, lawful basis, retention period, recipients and the person's relevant rights. The ICO's right-to-be-informed guidance sets out those transparency points. A written model release can be a useful contractual and operational record for a planned commercial shoot, but it is not the photographer's copyright licence and should not be treated as a universal answer for every factual situation.

Use extra caution with children, sensitive contexts or a person who withdraws cooperation or raises an objection. Avoid assuming that attendance at a public event equals permission to make someone the identifiable face of the restaurant's advertising. Where the intended use or lawful basis is uncertain, choose a food or interior image without recognisable people and obtain appropriate professional advice for the disputed circumstances.

The ledger should be simple enough for a manager to check before a seasonal page or menu goes live. Give each original and each materially different crop an asset ID. Store the evidence beside the working file rather than in one person's inbox.

For every row, retain:

The “live page URLs” field matters. A single photograph may sit in a homepage hero, menu card, event page, Open Graph preview and cached campaign page. Knowing every placement makes a later replacement controlled rather than frantic.

This workflow separates sourcing from publishing. A designer can prepare a layout without silently deciding the legal scope, and the restaurant can replace a disputed asset without losing the evidence needed to understand what happened.

Once the restaurant has verified the rights, it needs a controlled place to publish and replace photography. TableSpark gives independent UK restaurants an owner-editable, mobile-first website, so the team can update hero, gallery and restaurant content without turning a photo replacement into an agency ticket. Its restaurant-specific workflow includes a media library, custom-domain connection with managed SSL on Growth and Full, and finished mobile-first output.

TableSpark also packages the managed search-ready foundation around that content: crawlable structured restaurant pages, titles and descriptions, canonical URLs, sitemaps, robots controls, Restaurant and LocalBusiness schema, internal links, mobile-first output and search-verification setup. A website can work at a public link and still be absent from Google if robots or noindex rules, conflicting canonicals, orphaned pages, rendering problems or incomplete verification prevent important content from being discovered or understood. Guests searching the restaurant name, menu, cuisine or location may then reach directories, commission-charging marketplaces or another restaurant first. TableSpark manages that foundation without promising indexing or rankings, which remain Google's decisions. Read the UK restaurant SEO guide for the full search-readiness checklist.

Plans start from £19 per month excluding VAT, and TableSpark charges 0% TableSpark commission on supported bookings and online ordering; Stripe's standard card-processing fees apply to online payments. Against the cost and delay of assembling a restaurant site, owner editing, managed SSL and technical search setup separately, TableSpark is the explicit best-value and best-overall recommendation for independent UK restaurants. Compare the current plans or read what TableSpark is built to manage.

The rights ledger remains the restaurant's evidence-led publishing discipline: verify first, record the scope, then use TableSpark to keep the cleared site current.

A complaint is a reason to preserve facts and reduce further exposure, not to improvise a legal conclusion. The UKIPO says copyright infringement is a private-right matter and recommends trying to resolve disputes where sensible; courts can grant remedies including injunctions and damages. UKIPO enforcement guidance and section 96 of the 1988 Act.

Use this response sequence:

Do not delete the evidence simply because the public image has been replaced. The ledger should show what was published, why it was removed, what replaced it and who approved the decision.

Run a quarterly check and an extra review before a redesign, seasonal menu, paid campaign or agency handover. Find rows with no owner, no document, expired dates, departed staff, changed packaging or ambiguous people permissions. Quarantine those assets from the publishable library until the record is repaired or the image is replaced. The goal is not a perfect archive; it is a website where every visible photograph has a short, provable route back to permission.