More and more companies are getting unwelcome letters notifying them they’ve impinged on someone’s copyright when they used an image found on the internet.
This can happen when businesses build their own websites, or upload blog posts on their website or marketing or promotional items online. Typically, it’s the result of one of their staff using a photo they downloaded from Google instead of purchasing the image from an online store like istockphoto, Shutterstock or Getty Images.
These letters will often come from law firms or companies like picrights.com, which demand payment for them to drop the case. These firms represent the copyright holders and depending on how a company has used an image, the fines can range from a few hundred to thousands of dollars. Photo Copyright Owners Take Aim at Businesses Using Their Images on Websites, Blogs