I actually paid the $10, I feel that if someone is complaining that you violated their copyright, but agree to sell you a license for $10, then they can't claim you owe them $5,000 in damages.
To show the nonsense of Higbee, I did answer the call from one of their "staff". I told them that I bought a license. They checked with Youngson and said that I bought the license for them after their initial claim. They still wanted to negotiate a settlement.
I asked the staff member if they were an attorney and of course, they denied that they were and claimed they never said they were one. I said that I knew by the way they communicated and their understanding of the law, they clearly weren't an attorney.
I told them that when it came to a settlement, I demanded money from Youngson for breach of my licensing agreement. Needless to say, I haven't heard back.
My comments inline...
I received one of these Higbee demand letters in February 2017 through a website I run. At first, I was a little nervous and then I Googled and came out to this site. I'm a lawyer and I knew things were fishy before even coming to this great resource.
Welcome, glad to have you here!
1. I found it odd that they sent a demand through regular mail. Usually, in important legal papers, I at least use tracking.
In the "old" days (pre-2012), almost everything we saw was through regular mail but then gradually we began seeing copyright claim emails which has almost become the norm today. I estimate there are literally thousands of copyright claims each year. It is all based on most people's legal ignorance. The emails are generally as effective as sending a snail-mail letter.
2. The $5,000 demand bears in no relationship to any damages that Youngson could have for a page that maybe had 200 views on it. I deleted the photo after I got the initial paperwork.
Absolutely correct The $5K number is made up and arbitrary. We see that number for most people.
3. The whole honeypot scam of labeling the photos for reuse in Google Images when it should be labeled as commercial or reuse with modification since you have to attribute or pay the license.
The Nick Youngson website operation is so shoddy and the wording and disclosures are so bad, I didn't even know it was his website until another victim reported his findings and it compelled me to give a closer look. He promotes his "free images" so hard that people are falling for it left and right and put into a "gotcha" situation.
4. The whole license fee of $10. How can he demand $5,000 in damages when he'll sell the picture for $10?
That is correct. It is far above even the $750 minimum statutory damages assuming he even registers his images.
5. The whole licensing thing is a scam because if you pay the $10, Youngson provides no licensing agreement. When does it start, when does it end? Will he still claim damages from someone who bought a license from him.
I have not heard from anyone paying the $10. Did you pay $10? Is that what you are saying?
6. The people calling you on the phones aren't lawyers. Anyone who ever went to law school would understand their demands aren't reasonable.
Yup, the people on the phones are generally low-level hourly clerks. They do the grunt work.
7. Higbee hasn't sued on this because it would expose the Honeypot scam. There is more money in getting $500 to $1250 settlements from companies who don't know better or don't want to hire an attorney than filing an actual lawsuit.
That is what I have been saying. I rarely call anything a "honeypot" scheme because most victims got their images from Google Images and any number of places. But with Nick Youngson, he promotes "free" images with crappy disclosures, then nails people for making dumb mistakes on giving credit.
I ignored the calls and I've ignored the threats that they are forwarding this to their litigation team. It's 6 months later. If they wanted to sue me, they would have already.
I agree with you that people should not return calls. In fact, people should save the voice messages. I am interested in hearing more of them. I disagree with you on the rationale of their not filing a lawsuit within 6 months. Many copyright lawsuits are filed between Years 2 & 3 when it becomes clear that months-long efforts to settle have been exhausted. IN particular, Nick Youngson filing a lawsuit is currently unlikely because of the way he operated. His active promotion of "free" images and lack of clear disclosures is a big problem in my view.