Absorbing blame?

[w_daisy]

I maintain a personal webpage as a hobby. About a year ago, as a favor to a friend, I designed a simple homepage for a client of theirs for a nominal sum of money.  It's for a small business and the page is barely more than their brand and logos, the offending picture, summary of services, and some contact information.  I made the mistake of using that one image off of Google without researching the source of it, and now Getty has mailed said client one of these so-called "love letters," with a cease-and-desist and claim of $1200.  The offending image was taken down immediately.

Now, I feel awful about the whole thing. I don't want to strain any more business relations between my friend and their client. Is it possible for me to absorb the blame and deal with this crap, instead of the client?  Preferably with me dealing with the letter writing and potential litigation instead of coughing up $1200 to them to give to a shady company.

[Matthew Chan]

It never hurts to try. However, other web designers have tried to accept responsibility on their clients behalf with little success.  Essentially, they are trying to punish the website owner. And if the website owner wants recourse, they go after the web designer.

What might make your friend/client happy is if you offered to hire Oscar on their behalf.  The letters will then absolutely stop. Essentially, you pay the legal fee for your client. Your client will ultimately be in control but if they give you permission to Oscar to be "in the loop", you will have more control over it than you do now.

As of now, you get the privilege of painfully watching your friend get harassed. You will have to decide if $195 is worth it or not for you.

Matthew

[Oscar Michelen]

Good advice from Matt