Sample Letters to My Copyright Infringers, from Credit Requests to Payment Demands
Because you asked, these are real letters I have sent to people found using my photographs inappropriately, ranging from “The standard DMCA takedown” to “The repeat commercial offender payment demand letter.”
1. The standard DMCA takedown
I send about a dozen of these per week, usually to the web hosts of small pest control companies. Legally, these are supposed to be directed at the company running the web server, but I try to cc the site owner if I can find their email address.
This letter is a Notice of Infringement as authorized in § 512(c) of the U.S. Copyright Law under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The infringing material appears on the Service for which you are the designated agent.
The disputed content is a photograph of a bullet ant:
[link to infringing URL]
My original, copyright-protected work is here:
http://www.alexanderwild.com/Ants/Taxonomic-List-of-Ant-Genera/Paraponera/i-bLMBrgD
Please remove these files from your servers at your earliest convenience. Alternately, that image may be licensed for continued commercial use for US $95.
I have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by myself, the copyright owner. I hereby state, under penalty of perjury, that the above information in this email is accurate and that I am the copyright owner.
Thanks for your time,
/s/
Alexander Wild
www.alexanderwild.com
[address, email, & phone contact]
2. The credit-me-please letter
I sometimes send a gentler notice to people running personal blogs and webpages asking for credit, rather than removal.
Hello. I am the photographer who took a number of the photographs you are using on your beekeeping blog, [blog title]. Although I appreciate that you like my photographs enough to share them, I require that non-commercial uses of my images be accompanied by an appropriate photo credit and a link back to the source image on my website. While I’m not generally concerned by non-commercial use of my work, uncredited uses like those on your blog are a source of downstream commercial infringements that can become a problem, and adding a simple credit helps prevent these.
The images in question are these:
[URL 1, URL 2, etc.]
My original work is here:
http://www.alexanderwild.com/Insects/Stories/Honey-Bees/i-wJq9Jgn/A
http://www.alexanderwild.com/Insects/Stories/Honey-Bees/i-pFBwTK4/A
I would appreciate it if you could add a credit (“Image © Alex Wild”, or similar) to the photo caption, as well as a link back to my source image. If the images are not appropriately credited, I may send a takedown notice to your web host and the images will be removed automatically.
Thanks,
Alex Wild
www.alexanderwild.com
...As strict as I am about my photo copyrights, I don’t feel particular ownership over these letters. If you have encountered your own infringers, feel free to use these as templates. Consider them open source.
