I need some advice because it seems I'm on the wrong side of an "unauthorized use of image" case...and they are expecting damages to be paid.

Firstly, this "unauthorized" use was unintentional. Basically, I thought I had satisfied the requirements by both crediting the content creator by name (in this case, for a stock image off of Flickr) as well as providing a hyperlink to the original content in a LinkedIn article I wrote in January 2016. The image URL itself, in the post, just referenced a LinkedIn location.

Secondly, is it possible for the person to change the rights and I could verify that? If I look at the original content on Flickr, it now says "All Rights Reserved". My issue is that I intentionally NEVER used those types of images. I used Wikipedia Commons, Pixabay, and all image searches were for either Free Images or perhaps "Some Rights Reserved" that allowed me to give proper attribution. These posts were all written for my employer, but under my LinkedIn ID, so I didn't have a budget to purchase any images. In all cases, I credited the original creator as well as provide a link to the original content.

So, over 8 years after writing this post, I get a letter from a Pixsy Case Management saying "pay up or we send you to the attorneys for the maximum prosecution/penalty under the law"...for an image that has been viewed 3,500 times at its original location.

Price to make this go away...about $1,000.

That seems pretty punitive, for my very small reading audience in 2016 and the number of views that image received cumulatively since its existence in 2010.

Even though I thought I was following the rules with credit/attribution/link to original content, I'm willing to pony up and pay if that is what I need to do. But is it worth pursuing to get a compromised price settlement?

I don't want to fight this, get found in the wrong because I missed some small step like linking to the actual Copyright Law, and then have to pay MORE out of pocket.

Thanks for any advice...thought I had checked the boxes - guess I shouud have stuck to analytics, software development, and running other consultants versus content creation.

Side note - kind of handy that #bitcoin is going parabolic. Of course, I'm still not selling the bitcoin. I'll pay from savings or do the Michael Saylor method of using an equity line at 6.99% to have more funds available for bitcoin to go to ∞.

#asknostr