We’re just going to let this sit here…
Perhaps the pixelated-out author of this odd little complaint is unaware of the fact that copyright infringement involving images registered with the U.S. Copyright Office allows for statutory damages of up to $30,000…or $150,00 if it can be demonstrated it was a willful act. It seems this letter shows willful intent.
Even if the image was not registered, a photographer can sue for damages if he or she can prove ownership of the image, which isn’t hard to do.
Maybe the lawyer he wrote about and contacted about this case understood the law well enough to give him a bit of schooling on this matter. Or, perhaps he found this article about another person who illegally used a $10 photo and had to pay $4,000 to the photographer. In any case, since this letter has been circulating for a couple of months and there has been no follow-up, we can hope the author realized his mistake.
If you know someone who thinks this is OK, send ’em here.
Meanwhile, Reddit commenters have had a field day with this. Advice to the photographer includes:
“Re-upload them with a huge watermark”
“This will never get old.”
“Just give him your phone number so his lawyer can contact you, lol.”
“I once read a gray hat SEO guy would purposefully upload images he knew people would hotlink and steal for the purpose of link building, then after a few months he’d do this .htaccess trick to turn all the images into a giant middle finger.”
“Boomerang Lawsuit!”
About the author of the letter:
“This is like a shoplifter threatening to sue because you have moved the stuff he keeps stealing to a different shelf and now he has to go ‘Look for them.'”
“I can only hope that he contacts his lawyer and gets massive consultation fees to just have the lawyer say ‘tough sh**’
“His lawyer is the first hit that comes up on Google.”
“His lawyer must love/hate him.”
