The European Court of Justice has determined that a website must get permission from the copyright owner of an image before it can use the picture itself – even if that photo or illustration is readily available elsewhere.

That may seem like an obvious conclusion, however, the official advice delivered to the Euro court by its general advocate argued otherwise, with disagreement centered around the legal definition of what represents a "new public" when it comes to publication.

The question asked of the ECJ was: "Whether the concept of 'communication to the public' covers the posting on a website of a photograph which has been previously published on another website without any restrictions preventing it from being downloaded and with the consent of the copyright holder."

The court ruled on Tuesday that yes, it does. And that has huge implications for anyone in charge of a website.

[...] The implications are huge: it will embolden copyright holders to demand payment from any website that hosts their images. And that could potentially force millions of websites to take down all their pictures if they are hit repeatedly with payment demands.

It will also mean that every website – even school websites – will have to make sure that they only post images that they have permission to post. And pretty much everyone is going to have to reeducate themselves about what is and is not allowable online.