Copyright or con?

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   Nell Roseposted 4 months ago

   About ten years ago I put a picture on a hub. It was from public domain.i received a copyright threat from the owner through a German solicitor. They are demanding money out of me! I explained about public domain, ten years ago, etc. I just got a reply demanding 300 pounds! I told them I think it's a con. But what if they keep pursuing it?

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      theraggededgeposted 4 months agoin reply to this

      Delete it immediately and find an alternative. Unless you can find the original showing the PD license.
      
      And don't engage with them again.

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         Nell Roseposted 4 months agoin reply to this

         I will do, thank you. I think I was just tired, and felt guilty as we get so many people stealing our hubs. stupid me. Thanks again.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 4 months ago

   It depends on the specific image in question whether they have a case or not. As you don't give the specifics, it's impossible to give a specific answer.
   
   However, I suspect that it's a con. I don't know how they assessed the three hundred pounds cost but they may think that some people will hand over the money rather than pay for a solicitor, which would be expensive.
   
   If it is a con, you might've been better just to ignore them rather than engaging in a conversation with them.

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      Nell Roseposted 4 months agoin reply to this

      Thanks Paul, yes I have no idea why I fell for it this time. I am usually so darn careful.

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3. 85

   RoadMonkeyposted 4 months ago

   I got exactly the same some months ago. German solicitor. I wrote back and said it was public domain etc and wasn't paying. They asked me for all the camera information, date, RAW, etc. Of course I did not have that. But I did a little digging. The person who was named on the letter as the "owner" of the picture lives in London. You can find his address from Companies house in London. It appears he makes a living out of this kind of scam. I wrote back and mentioned I could see he lived in London and asked for proof that he owned the picture, the exact kind of proof they were asking me for, RAW, EXIF, all photo data etc. They said they didn't need to provide data as the claim letter was the proof he owned it! But I never got any more back from them. However, I did delete the photo. But the funny thing was, although I did not tell them this, that photo was in the Wayback machine on the long dead files of an old company. I used tineye to look online for it and there it was!

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      Nell Roseposted 4 months agoin reply to this

      Yes, it seems that this was the same one! I did fall for it, because after having loads of my hubs stolen, I felt sorry for the guy! obviously I have banned his email now, and reported it. but I feel such an idiot for being nice. I got scammed last year on facebook. someone stole my page, and my bank account because I used it to boost my books.Facebook shut down my page, and believed I was the scammer! I couldn't access my bank and lost money! I had to change my bank account. disgusted at facebook.

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      Nell Roseposted 4 months agoin reply to this

      Forgot to say, can you give me his name please? I would like to write back and have a word with them, lol!

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4. 94

   eugbugposted 4 months ago

   I got an email from someone who said that they were subject to legal action for using one of my images. They gave details of the law firm who were involved, which had a website with the profiles of all the legal people who worked there, complete with mugshots and details of their experience. The thing is, I created the image. I reverse searched the profile photos of the so called legal people and they belonged to people on LinkedIn.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 4 months ago

   I believe that virtually all the legal demand messages are fishing scams. They send them out to hundreds/thousands of people in the hope that a tiny percentage respond. They then work on the small number of responders to extract payments.
   
   If you only use images that you own or are public domain, AI-generated, etc., and clearly label them with the relevant copyright details and a link where appropriate then you have nothing to worry about.

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   RoadMonkeyposted 4 months ago

   Hi Nell, only just seeing your question now about who wrote to you and claimed you owed copyright fees. They wanted to charge me £1500. The company was called copytrack.com. They were based in Germany, however, the English used was native speaker level, so they may have been using an English speaker or they may have been based in the Uk. I am copying here one of the replies I sent to them: "This reminds me of the spiv trying to sell London Bridge to a tourist. Do you have proof that your client owns this? RAW data, EXIF, etc. You cannot just turn round, find a photo online and claim someone else owns it! Prove they own it. It is not for me to prove that someone owns an image they have said is theirs, it is for the complainant to prove that the image is theirs and that it was theirs back in 2014.Do you have proof you work on behalf of medical images? The complainant's company is NOT a photography company, unless he has misdescribed it. It is shown as "Other IT service activities". Does this include finding images online that look like other images?"
   I was pretty miffed at them, as you can see.

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