Ep 237: Scared by a Copyright Troll Letter? Here’s What To Do

“I told him not to pay a cent … and definitely not to shut his website down.”

What would you do if you got a scary letter using legal language, claiming you owed $700 for a photo on your website? In this episode, I share a true story about an old client who received one of these copyright trolling threats, and how we handled it. From sleuthing image origins to proving usage rights, this is one episode you’ll want to listen to if you’ve ever used photos online.

I ALSO TALKED ABOUT

• What copyright trolling is—and why it’s not quite a scam, but not ethical either.
• How to verify image licensing years after a website goes live.
• The steps to take if you receive a copyright infringement notice.
• Why immediately removing the image can neutralize most threats.
• How creating a simple image tracking spreadsheet could save hours of work later.
• The importance of demanding proof of ownership before taking any legal-sounding demand seriously.
• What to include in a response that shifts the burden back to the sender.

If you’ve ever published a photo on your website, you need to hear this. Tune in to protect yourself and your clients.

Get regular access to tips, techniques and advice from experts about growing your business:
👉 https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter/

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Wayback Machine: https://archive.org/web/

My newsletter is for people who need a way to make money from home so they can build a better life for themselves and their families:
👉 https://onlinebusinessliftoff.com/newsletter

_____________

Trudy Rankin is the host of the Online Business Launchpad Podcast and a seasoned digital strategist who helps people build sustainable, flexible businesses online. .

Affiliate Disclaimer: If you click on links on this page and then make a purchase, I may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you).  I am a proud affiliate of these resources because I use them in my own life and business.

TRANSCRIPT

Episode 237: Scared by a Copyright Troll Letter? Here’s What To Do with Trudy Rankin

[00:00:00] Trudy Rankin: I got a really panicked note from an old client very recently who has given me permission to share this with you.

[00:00:13] Trudy Rankin: And years ago I’d helped him get his website up and running when I was first starting my business. Uh, it was a really simple website, but it did the job and it’s been ticking away quietly ever since. Except that he’d just gotten a really formal and legal looking and scary looking letter that said basically that they represented some French news agency who claimed that they owned one of the photos on his website, and because they discovered this image.

[00:00:40] Trudy Rankin: They said that he now either had to prove that he had the legal right to use it or pay them well over $700.

[00:00:48] 

[00:01:00] Trudy Rankin: Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast. I’m your host, Trudy Rankin, and this podcast is for busy business owners who want a business that is going to let the support themselves and their families and have more choices in how they live their lives.

[00:01:15] Trudy Rankin: Now, when my old client got that letter demanding that he pay a lot of money. He immediately took the photo down, plus several others that were around it. And then after he did that, he suddenly started wondering whether or not it was actually a legitimate company that had written to him or whether it was a scam.

[00:01:33] Trudy Rankin: So he got in touch with me to let me know what was going on, and to ask if he should just shut his website down. And I immediately responded. I told him, do not pay the fee that they’re asking. And I also told him to definitely keep his website live and don’t shut it down, and that I’d go see if I could figure out what was going on.

[00:01:56] Trudy Rankin: And after a bit of research, it turns out that the letter he got [00:02:00] is considered a form of copyright trolling as in it, it’s sort of legit. But it’s done in a way that’s designed to scare people into paying even when the people may have a legal right to use a particular image. And after that happened, I have had other people tell me that they received similar letters and it was all about one of their own images that they had taken as a photographer.

[00:02:23] Trudy Rankin: So this copyright trolling type of a letter is not quite a scam, but it’s not necessarily ethical either. Because I understand the need to protect copyright. It’s the way they do it that’s objectionable. Now, I’m not gonna say who sent the letter. They’re based here in Australia. But the important thing is that they’re not lawyers.

[00:02:43] Trudy Rankin: So legally they can’t do much more than say, Hey, we think you’re violating our client’s copyright. Now, way back when I helped my client build his website, I was very aware of copyright and I had been extremely careful. To make sure that any photos used [00:03:00] were correctly licensed. Now, unfortunately, my client had gotten such a fright when they got this letter that he’d not only removed the photo from the website, he’d also deleted it, so he couldn’t show it to me.

[00:03:12] Trudy Rankin: So at first I didn’t know which image he was referring to, and I had to do some real sleuthing to find out which image this copyright trolling crowd was talking about. And I even tried using the Wayback machine website, which was great for showing the text on the old version of the website, but not the images.

[00:03:30] Trudy Rankin: However, I did eventually discover which image was in question, and once I did know which image this copyright trolling crowd was talking about, I went to work to try to resurrect the history of that photo purchase because once I saw it, I recognized it as one that I had purchased way back in 2011, and I’d already used it several times in my own business.

[00:03:52] Trudy Rankin: Now the bad news was that 2011 was a very long time ago and I wasn’t able to find a receipt for it. [00:04:00] But the good news was that I was able to locate the actual platform where I’d gotten the original photo and the photo was on there, and I was able to identify the photographer who, according to the platform, still had ownership rights.

[00:04:13] Trudy Rankin: And after a little bit more research, I was able to go back to my client. And explain what was happening and what to do next, and he was so angry at what had happened that he wanted me to share this story and information with you so that you don’t get caught out if it happens to you or one of your clients.

[00:04:31] Trudy Rankin: So I started out by telling him where the image had come from, both the platform and who the photographer was, and I provided proof and I explained that back when I sourced it late in 2011, this platform was widely used for images with a variety of licensing options. Some of them were creative commons, some of them required attribution, and some of them were available with permission directly from the photographer.

[00:04:56] Trudy Rankin: And at the time, I attained images on the basis of the license terms [00:05:00] that were published or provided, but I no longer have the original correspondence or license record, which meant that we couldn’t confirm or deny the exact license details from 14 years ago, and that is completely normal for older web projects.

[00:05:15] Trudy Rankin: The second thing I did was I also reassured him that he had done the right thing and immediately taking down the image while we did our research, because the research that I’ve done about this type of trolling says that this one step of taking down the image will by itself resolve the overwhelming majority of these notices, assuming that you can’t prove ownership rights or usage rights, and in a real copyright challenge, i.e. not a dodgy one like this one, removal is exactly what they ask for when a license can’t be immediately verified.

[00:05:46] Trudy Rankin: Then the third thing I did was I noted that the letter he received was not from a law firm. This particular copyright trolling business sends out automated enforcement notices on behalf of agencies and the [00:06:00] agency they were representing weren’t even the guy who took the photo. So it wasn’t a legal claim, and they couldn’t take him to court.

[00:06:08] Trudy Rankin: They couldn’t take my client to court. Their goal was simply to ask whether a license exists and hopefully scare him into paying. So then I reassured him that he was under no obligation to pay anything at this point. And that’s because they hadn’t presented any evidence of ownership, no evidence of damages, and they hadn’t made any type of legal claim.

[00:06:29] Trudy Rankin: So paying anything now would not be a smart thing to do, and totally unnecessary. And then the fifth thing that I explained was that the correct next step was simply to go back to this crowd and ask them to substantiate their claim of ownership. And this is standard practice and does not admit any liability on his part.

[00:06:49] Trudy Rankin: It simply places the burden back on them, which is where legally belongs to prove ownership. So he would be challenging their claim and say something like, thank you for your [00:07:00] message. The image identified has been removed from our website.

[00:07:03] Trudy Rankin: Please provide documentation showing proof of ownership, chain of title, and confirmation that your client holds exclusive rights to the specific version of the image referenced. Once received, we will review and respond. And that’s basically what he did. And this is all part of the process that is recommended in instances like this.

[00:07:25] Trudy Rankin: And my understanding is based on my research that they usually don’t pursue the matter further. And lastly, I made sure he understood that there was no need to remove anything else from his site right now, and that there shouldn’t be a problem with the remaining images. Also, that if he still felt uncomfortable about them, um, that if he’d like me to review them again for his peace of mind, I would do that.

[00:07:47] Trudy Rankin: And I also reminded him that if he was still worried about getting another letter that he could use his own photos to replace what was there. He’s a good photographer and actually has some lovely photos. And by this stage he’d calmed down a bit and he was [00:08:00] so annoyed with these people for what they’d done and how much they’d scared him, that he was more than ready to stand up to them and fight if they decided to take things any further.

[00:08:10] Trudy Rankin: And as I reflected on what had happened, I realized that if I had done just one thing when I first helped him build his website, I could have saved myself all that time it took to research what was going on and to track down that image. And I could have saved him the stress of having to be afraid that he didn’t have the ownership rights, or the usage rights and that one thing was, is that if I had created a simple spreadsheet that listed every image on my client’s website, plus the date of purchase, who I purchased it from, what the usage rights were, plus a link to the invoice, that spreadsheet would still be sitting there with all that info in it, even all those years later after I’d built the website. And it would’ve only taken a minute to find the spreadsheet and then tell that copyright trolling crowd just to go take a flying leap.[00:09:00] 

[00:09:00] Trudy Rankin: So if you have a website or you build websites for clients and you don’t already have a spreadsheet or a system that tracks usage rights for the images on those websites, I highly recommend that you put one in place because you never know when it will save your bacon.

[00:09:16] Trudy Rankin: So I hope that was helpful. If so, please share it with someone else that you think it will help, and I hope you have a wonderful week.

[00:09:23]