Got a Copyright Demand Letter Over An Image On Your Website? What To Do Next.
Most image demand letters are negotiable, and some are not worth what they ask. Here is how to tell the difference before you pay, ignore, or reply.
Written by
Breck Kadaba
Intellectual Property & Entertainment
Breck helps business owners and creators protect their brands, content, and creative work through copyright, trademark, and entertainment transactions.
Key takeaways
Don't ignore the letter, and don't pay it the same day. Take the image down, save evidence of how you used it, and then check whether the claim holds up.
Giving the photographer credit, finding the image on Google, or having a web designer who picked it does not give you a license. What matters is whether the owner gave permission.
The letter's leverage depends mostly on one fact: whether the image was registered in time. If it was not, the owner generally cannot recover statutory damages or attorney's fees, and the claim is usually worth about a reasonable license fee.
You can look up registrations yourself for free in the Copyright Office's public records system.
Some claims now arrive as a Copyright Claims Board notice instead of a letter. You have 60 days from service to opt out, and if you let that deadline pass you can end up bound by a judgment of up to $30,000.
On this page
A small business owner opens an email with the subject line "Unauthorized use of copyrighted image." It shows a screenshot of a website post from three years ago, with the photo circled, and asks for $2,500 within 14 days. The owner doesn't remember picking the photo. A freelancer built the site, and the image came from a search engine.
Letters like this are common, and they are built to get paid fast. Many of them describe a real infringement. Very few are worth what they ask. The right response depends on facts you can check yourself in an afternoon, and on a couple of deadlines you cannot miss.
Who sends these letters and how they found you
Most letters come from licensing agencies or law firms, not the photographer. Some agencies work for large photo and news libraries. PicRights, for example, pursues claims for the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. Other services sign up independent photographers and take a share of whatever they collect. A few law firms handle this kind of work in bulk.
They found you with software. These services run automated reverse-image searches across the web and flag every match they cannot tie to a license. That is why the image in the letter is often years old, sits on a page you forgot about, or stays reachable at its direct file URL after you removed it from the page.
A letter from a volume operation is not a lawsuit. It is still a real claim. The sender may escalate to the Copyright Claims Board or federal court, and you don't want to find out whether they will by ignoring it.
The first 48 hours
Do these first:
Save the evidence. Screenshot the page and note its URL, the date the image was posted, and how many visitors saw it. Keep any record of where the image came from, like a stock receipt, a designer's invoice, or an email.
Then take it down. Remove the image from the page, delete the file from your server, and clear your site's cache and CDN. Taking it down doesn't erase past liability. It does stop the clock on ongoing use and shows good faith.
Put the deadlines on your calendar. Note the response date in the letter. If what you received is a Copyright Claims Board notice, note the 60-day opt-out deadline too.
Avoid these:
Don't pay right away. The first number is an opening offer.
Don't admit anything in writing. A short reply saying you are looking into it and have removed the image is enough.
Don't ignore it. Silence doesn't make a real claim go away, and it can lead to a default decision.
Is the claim valid?
Before you negotiate, ask five questions. Each one can shrink the claim or end it.
1. Does the sender actually own or represent the image? Ask for proof: the name of the photographer, a registration number, and the agency's authority to act. A legitimate claimant can produce these. Some letters rely on your not asking.
2. Did you have a license? Look for a stock-site receipt, a subscription that covered the image, a designer's contract that included licensed assets, or a Creative Commons license whose terms you followed. Crediting the photographer or linking back does not count as a license. Neither does finding the image through a search engine.
3. Is the image registered, and when? Search the Copyright Office's public records system by the photographer's name. The registration date matters more than whether a registration exists. See the next section for why.
4. Is the claim too old? A lawsuit must be filed within three years of when the claim accrued. Most courts start that clock when the owner discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the use, not when you posted it. The Supreme Court declined in 2025 to disturb that rule, so an old post is not automatically safe.
5. Is there a defense? A few uses may be defensible:
Fair use can apply to commentary, criticism, or news reporting about the image itself. It rarely covers a stock photo used to decorate a website post.
Embedding may not infringe. In the Ninth Circuit, displaying an image through an embed that lives on someone else's server is not a "display" by you. Other courts have not all agreed, so this depends on where you are.
Content your users uploaded, such as reviews or forum posts, may fall under the DMCA safe harbor if you have set it up properly. It does not cover images you or your team posted.
What the claim is actually worth
Registration timing decides the range. Statutory damages and attorney's fees are available only if the image was registered before your use began, or within three months of first publication. If it was not, the owner can recover only actual damages, which for a single photo is usually close to what a license would have cost.
Not registered in time, federal court: Actual damages and your profits from the use, often near a normal license fee. Attorney's fees: not available.
Registered in time, federal court: $750 to $30,000 per work in statutory damages. As low as $200 if you infringed innocently, and up to $150,000 if willfully. Attorney's fees: available to the winner, at the court's discretion.
Copyright Claims Board: Up to $15,000 per work if registered in time, or $7,500 per work and $15,000 total if not. $30,000 cap per case. Attorney's fees: each side pays its own, except for bad-faith conduct.
The innocent-infringer floor has a catch. If a copyright notice appeared on the copy you took, a court gives no weight to an innocence defense.
US owners must register before suing. A US owner generally cannot file in federal court until the Copyright Office registers the work. An owner can register after finding your use, but a late registration still rules out statutory damages and fees for that use. Foreign works, such as many news-agency photos, can be sued on without registering. The same timing rule for statutory damages still applies to them.
The Copyright Claims Board is the realistic threat for small claims. It is a voluntary small-claims tribunal inside the Copyright Office, and filing there costs the claimant little. If you are served and do nothing within 60 days, the case moves forward, and the Board can issue a binding decision that you can challenge only on narrow grounds. If you opt out in time, the claimant has to decide whether a federal lawsuit is worth it.
Your options: pay, negotiate, dispute, or ignore
Pay when the claim is valid, the image was registered in time, and the demand is close to a fair number. Get a written release first. It should cover every use of the image, past and present, on every site and channel.
Negotiate in most other cases. Ask for proof of ownership and registration. Then counter with a figure tied to what a license for your use would actually have cost: one small web image, for a small audience, for a limited time. Unregistered and late-registered images usually settle for a fraction of the first demand.
Dispute when you have a license, the sender cannot prove ownership, or a defense clearly applies. Send your proof, ask the sender to withdraw the claim, and keep the exchange in writing.
Ignoring the letter is a bet, not a strategy. Many senders never follow up. A registered owner with a strong claim can still file in federal court, and an ignored Copyright Claims Board notice can turn into a binding decision. A short, noncommittal reply costs almost nothing.
Bring in a lawyer when the demand is more than a few thousand dollars, several images are involved, the image was registered in time, or you've been served with a lawsuit or Board notice. Many attorneys can review a letter for a flat fee.
Preventing the next one
Assume one letter means more are coming. The same scan that found one image may find others on your site.
Audit your site. Run your images through a reverse-image search. Anything you can't tie to a license, a photo you took, or a free-license source whose terms you followed should be replaced.
Keep license records. Save stock receipts and license terms somewhere you will still find them years from now. Your license may be the only proof you have.
Use sources with clear terms. Paid stock, your own photos, and images you commission come with clear rights. "Free" image sites differ in what they allow, so read their terms.
Put it in your vendor contracts. Agencies and freelancers who build your site or content should promise the images are licensed, hand over the license records, and agree to cover you if they are not. Our trademark and copyright guide [internal link TK] explains why that written agreement matters.
Brief your team. Anyone who posts to your website or social accounts should know that an image found online is not free to use just because it is easy to download.
