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What is a good work process in Fair Licensing?

This article will suggest a good daily process in working with Fair Licensing. See it as a starting point for designing your own process.

A good daily routine in Fair Licensing ensures that

  1. important interactions with infringers in already active cases are taken care of
  2. a high volume of new cases can be activated without compromising the quality of interactions with infringers

The key rule therefore is:

First work on active cases and only then create new cases.


Processing of Cases in Fair Licensing

All the steps outlined here are performed within portal.fairlicensing.com.

In all the below steps please note that there may be an overlap when applying filters. A case with unread emails may at the same time have a license uploaded. In each step look at the case in its entirety.


  1. Process Unmapped Emails
    Navigate to "Unmappd Emails" to see a list of incoming emails that could not be automatically mapped to a case.

    Failure to map an email to a case can occur, if the incoming message does not contain the case ID of the case. This is sometimes the case when an infringer sends a message to your Fair Licensing email address that is not a response to a message you sent out.

    Manually map the emails from the list to cases.

    Note that there may be messages that do not belong to any case and can be deleted, such as spam received on your Fair Licensing email address.

  2. Process Unread Emails

    In "Active" cases apply the "Unread Emails" filter. In each case look at the unread email(s) in the "Case Activities" section of the case.

    You may respond to the email or decide not to respond. In any case you need to make a decision about whether to reactivate email automations for the case as any incoming email pauses the delivery of any scheduled reminder messages.

    Think of it this way: If the incoming message from the infringer changes nothing about the claim, you will likely want to re-activate email automations. If, for example, the infringer says they will search for a license they possess and will upload the license within the next few days, you may want to pause the automated delivery of emails and instead set a reminder by using the "Set Reminder" button that will ensure you revisit the case in a few days to check for the license. If no license has been uploaded you may choose to reactivate the automated delivery of email reminders to the infringer.

  3. Check for Uploaded Licenses

    In "Active" cases apply the "Uploaded Licenses" filter.

    The license uploaded by the infringer is displayed in the respective case. Check the license and confirm or reject it. 

    If you have set up an event triggered email for the "licenses validated" event in the Email Flow assigned to the case, this email will automatically be sent upon accepting a license. Likewise, if you have set up an event triggered email for the "licenses rejected" event in the Email Flow assigned to the case, this email will automatically be sent upon rejecting a license.

    If all infringements in the case have a confirmed license the case will be closed.

    Note that uploading a license pauses all email automations for the case. If you want to continue sending automated reminders to the infringer after rejecting a license, you will have to reactivate email automations.

  4. Check for Overdue Reminders
     
    In "Active" cases apply the "Overdue Reminders" filter.

    Reminders here mean the reminders you set up for yourself using the "Set Reminder" function and not the reminders emails that are sent to the infringers. 

    Perform the action that the reminder was about. Afterwards delete the reminder. You may also choose to set up a follow-up reminder.

    As the setting of a reminder often happens in a situation where you have decided to pause or keep paused the automatic delivery of email reminders to the infringer, always check if you want to re-activate email automations after processing the reminder

  5. Check for Failed Emails

    In "Active" cases apply the "Failed Emails" filter.

    If the delivery of an email to the infringer failed the case will appear in this section. In the Case Activities section of the respective case check for the failed email and try to identify the reason for the delivery failure.

    If the email delivery failed because of a malformed or non-existing email address you may correct this in the "Website Owner Contact Info" section of the case.

    Afterwards resend the failed messages and re-activate any paused automations.

  6. Check for Failed Payments

    In "Active" cases apply the "Failed Payments" filter.

    If a case had a failed payment attempt you may want to reach out to the infringer to point to the issue.

    Check the article "How can I resolve payment issues experienced by infringers?" to learn how you can identify the cause of the failed payment. It may be valuable to inform the infringer about the cause of failure.

  7. Check for Paused Scheduled Mails

    In "Active" cases apply the "Paused Scheduled Emails" filter.

    In the above steps you have reactivated the delivery of scheduled reminders to the infringer when applicable. It is easy to forget this step. Here you may now review all cases with paused scheduled emails and double-check, if you want to reactivate the delivery of scheduled emails for any of them.

  8. Activate Cases in Standby

    As a last step, when all already active cases have been taken care of, you activate those cases that may be waiting in the "Standby" status.

    Set up the case including correctly including setting the right license fees.

    It is good practice to review the "Website Owner Contact Info" before activating the case.

Processing of Findings in the Search Portal


Only once you have processed all cases in the Fair Licensing system as described above, it is time to go to the search portal at portal.pixray.com to vet new findings and create new cases to be transferred to the Fair Licensing system. Communicating with infringers should always take preference over creating more cases as the likelihood of successfully closing a case is very high, if there is communication with the infringer. By prioritizing work in Fair Licensing over creation of new cases you ensure that you never have more open cases in Fair Licensing than you're able to keep up with.

We will not go into depth of how to turn findings into cases in the search portal as this process will differ heavily from customer setup to customer setup.

Review the domains in your inbox and determine if

  1. the domain is a subscription customer or not (if so: whitelist the domain and move to the next domain)
  2. the domain shall not be pursued for other reasons, i.e. because by your internal guidelines you do not want to pursue cases against kindergartens, schools or churches (if so: whitelist the domain and move to the next domain)
  3. the newly discovered pictures on the domain may or may not be used, i.e. because licenses for the individual picture exist or the picture is a handout (if so: mark the picture as "legal" and move to the next picture of the domain or the next domain, if there are no more "new" pictures for that domain)

If at this stage the domain is not whitelisted and there are pictures in the "new" section that may not be used, you may consider creating a case to be processed by clicking the "Create Case with new findings" button.

The decision to create and pursue a case through Fair Licensing is entirely your responsibility.