I don't have any examples of a "defense letter", which is what you should send once you receive the packet and before the lawsuit. I do have an example of a "Defendant's Answer And Affirmative Defenses to Plaintiff's Complaint", which is what you file with the court as an answer to a lawsuit.
I don't feel comfortable posting that word for word, but basically they claimed they're innocent and cited everything you've read here: Fair use, they're a news organization, plaintiff doesn't own the images, plaintiff didn't put proper safeguards in place to protect the images, images were taken from another website and defendant relied on their good faith that the images weren't copyrighted, claims are barred by laches, estoppel, acquiescence, implied license (I don't know what this is, so I need to research it), barred by doctrine of "unclean hands", barred by "copyright misuse".
So basically, the defendant used every defense in the book. It should be noted that this was just an official response to the lawsuit. This hasn't gone to trial, so we don't know if these arguments will hold up, although I'd LOVE to see Sanders try to address all of these in a courtroom.
I don't feel comfortable posting that word for word, but basically they claimed they're innocent and cited everything you've read here: Fair use, they're a news organization, plaintiff doesn't own the images, plaintiff didn't put proper safeguards in place to protect the images, images were taken from another website and defendant relied on their good faith that the images weren't copyrighted, claims are barred by laches, estoppel, acquiescence, implied license (I don't know what this is, so I need to research it), barred by doctrine of "unclean hands", barred by "copyright misuse".
So basically, the defendant used every defense in the book. It should be noted that this was just an official response to the lawsuit. This hasn't gone to trial, so we don't know if these arguments will hold up, although I'd LOVE to see Sanders try to address all of these in a courtroom.