Introduction
When I started this blog nearly 2 years ago, I KNEW I couldn’t just randomly find a picture from Google Image and put it on my blog, but figured I’d be so small that it wouldn’t ever be a problem. About a year ago, once I started to get some hits, I stopped using random images and filtered Google Images to only show images that are free to use. I knew I needed to go back through all my old blog posts and delete the old images, but got too lazy to do it. Sure enough, procrastinating did me in.
Stupid cartoon
I got an email the other day about an image I had used on a post from July 2015. It was a cartoon image that wasn’t even relevant to the post. Here’s a snippet of the email (bolding mine):
Dear Business Owner,
As an introduction, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx provides copyright compliance services to third-party content owners, including yyyyyyyyyyy. xxxxxxx has noticed that the following imagery represented by yyyyyyyyy has been displayed on your website. yyyyyyyyyyyyy has been unable to find a license for this usage of the imagery by your company.
At the end of this message, we’ve attached a visual of the imagery and its use on your website.
Our goal in contacting you is to identify an active license for this use, if one exists. If you do not have an active license for the use of this imagery, we request that you remove the imagery from your website and contact us.
Please be aware that removal of the imagery will not resolve this issue. We do require payment of a settlement for past usage of the imagery at issue.
Paying the fee
When I first read the email, my first thought was, “PPHHHHHHUUUUUUUU…….” I had read others who had to pay over a thousand dollars for the same type of incident. I went to the post, deleted the picture, and then embraced for the worst. I clicked on the payment screen. It turns out the fine was only ~$12. HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF!
Of course I went back to all posts and deleted any and all images that weren’t mine. Bye bye cute puppy and kitten photos. Bye bye NFL pic of the GB-SEA hail mary pass. Bye bye Taylor Swift picture (that would kill me if she sued me.)
Lessons Learned
If you have a blog, big or small, you may want to go delete any commercial images. You can see this blog post on finding free photos for your blog. On the bright side, I feel like this is a blogging milestone – when you’ve gotten big enough to be fined for using random images.
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It’s so easy to search for images these days that you can’t escape someone eventually finding out. On the other hand how do you really know that this was legit. I could have set up such a website and sent you the email with just a little knowledge that this would likely be a protected image. Just wondering.
Yes, the yyyyyyyyy URL was valid and looked like a stock photo site offering licensed images for about $12 a pop.
If you didn’t pay $12, what are their options? Initiating a lawsuit isn’t cheap ($400 in federal court just for filing fee). Is there a way to recover attorney’s fees under the copyright statute?
Not sure. Probably would have lawyered up and made me pay their attorney fees.
In America you pay your own attorneys unless there is a statute stating otherwise. For copyright infringement, the fee-shifting statutes says a judge “may”, in its discretion shift attorneys fees (whereas in other circumstances the fee shifting is concrete). That is a big risk to take to initiate a lawsuit over $12. If I was the corporate counsel I wouldn’t recommend it.
Great Point. Thank you. I’m glad you were able to get off easy. Any good tools to sweep your site to know which images have to go?
Oren, what made me delay this was I thought I’d have to go through every post. I then realized after the fine that I can just go to my image library (assuming you added images to WP and not linking,) and deleted any images that had a remote chance of getting me fined.
I use Blogger not WP 🙁
Phew! Only $12 or so? Coulda been a lot worse! I’ve a couple friends that got caught up with and they did *not* get off that cheap. Good lesson to learn AND to pass on!
Yeah I know. I got off pretty easy compared to stories I’ve heard.
Not just blogs! Any commercial use of unlicensed images! I harp on this for work presentations all the time.
Very true. I could see the commercial use getting a much more massive fine.