For the last several years, my wife has had a blog where she posts sporadically. I would say she has well south of a 100 readers; it has mainly just been a fun way to communicate with friends.
About a year ago, she posted a short piece about the Kentucky Derby, and included a photo of a horse race she had retrieved from an Internet search. The photo was a pretty generic-looking shot, and it didn't have any obvious data about the photographer, so she didn't realize it was copyrighted.
Last spring she began receiving notices from Pic Rights claiming copyright infringement and demanding payment of $625.
After the first letter, the post was removed, and we sent Pic Rights a letter explaining our position that our usage of the image was covered under the Fair Use Section 107 of the Copyright Act.
Several months later, we began getting demand letters from Higbee, insisting on $1563 to "settle the case."
My instinct is to block and ignore them. I know they are making their living by picking on people who don't have the resources to fight back, and I don't want to give them a victory.
If anyone out there has dealt with Higbee successfully and has any advice, please let me know.
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similar problem
For the last several years, my wife has had a blog where she posts sporadically. I would say she has well south of a 100 readers; it has mainly just been a fun way to communicate with friends.
About a year ago, she posted a short piece about the Kentucky Derby, and included a photo of a horse race she had retrieved from an Internet search. The photo was a pretty generic-looking shot, and it didn't have any obvious data about the photographer, so she didn't realize it was copyrighted.
Last spring she began receiving notices from Pic Rights claiming copyright infringement and demanding payment of $625.
After the first letter, the post was removed, and we sent Pic Rights a letter explaining our position that our usage of the image was covered under the Fair Use Section 107 of the Copyright Act.
Several months later, we began getting demand letters from Higbee, insisting on $1563 to "settle the case."
My instinct is to block and ignore them. I know they are making their living by picking on people who don't have the resources to fight back, and I don't want to give them a victory.
If anyone out there has dealt with Higbee successfully and has any advice, please let me know.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by director101.
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