What to do when you get a copyright letter about an image on your website.

What to do first, in order

The letter is usually from a stock library such as Getty Images, from a photographer, from an agency that tracks images on photographers' behalf, or from a law firm. Whoever sent it, work through the same steps:

• Read the whole letter and note any deadline.
• Do not click links or open attachments until you have checked who sent it.
• Find the image on your site, and every other place you used it.
• Look for your licence, invoice or written permission.
• Take the image down everywhere, and keep a record of what was there.
• Then decide whether to pay, negotiate or dispute, with an adviser if the sum matters to the business.

If you reply before you have advice, keep it short and factual: you have received the letter, you are looking into it and you have removed the image. Arguments can wait until you know the facts.

Check the letter is real

Fake copyright letters copy the style of real ones, to get you to click a link, open a file or pay. A genuine claim normally names the image, shows where it appeared on your site with a screenshot or an address, says when it was found and names the rights holder.

Check the sender yourself. Find the company's website through your own search, not through the link in the email, and contact it there to confirm the reference number. Never open an attachment from an unknown sender that claims to be the evidence.

German law shows what a real warning letter should contain. Under the German Copyright Act, a warning must name the rights holder when a representative sends it, describe the infringement precisely, break down the money claimed into damages and costs, and say whether the cease-and-desist undertaking it asks you to sign goes well beyond the infringement. A warning that does not meet these requirements is invalid. Elsewhere the details differ, but a letter that is vague on any of these points deserves extra care.

Find the image and your records

• The page and the file: search your website's media library for the file name, and check old pages, blog posts and landing pages too.
• Every other copy: your Google Business Profile photos, social posts, ads, PDFs and email newsletters.
• When it went up: your site's revision history, or the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, which keeps dated copies of many public pages.
• Who added it: you, a member of staff, your web designer, a theme's demo image left in place, or a plugin.
• The licence: a stock account's download history, an invoice, an email from the photographer, or the terms of a free photo site as they stood when you downloaded.

A licence only helps if it covers this use: the right image, the right kind of use, the right business and the right dates. A licence your designer bought in their own name for another client may not cover your site, and a licence for print may not cover the web.

For product photos taken from a supplier's or manufacturer's site, the permission, if there is one, may be in the supplier agreement, so an online store should look there before it replies.

Take it down properly

Removing the image stops the use going on. It does not undo the past use the letter is about, but there is no reason to let it continue while you decide.

• Delete it from the media library as well as the page, so the file itself is gone.
• Clear any cached copies, and check that the image's own address no longer loads.
• Remove it from your Google Business Profile, social posts, ads and PDFs.
• Replace it with a photo you own or have licensed, so the page still works.
• Keep dated screenshots of the page as it was, for your records and your adviser.

If you have a licence

Reply with the licence or invoice, the image it covers and where you used it, and ask the sender to confirm in writing that the claim is closed. Keep the reply factual and keep a copy.

If the licence covers the image but not the way you used it, such as a licence for one website used on three, or for one year used for five, talk to your adviser before you reply. That is a different conversation from having no licence at all.

How US claims work

• Registration matters. For a US work, a claimant must register it with the Copyright Office before suing in federal court. Statutory damages and attorney's fees are not available for infringement that began before registration, unless the work was registered within three months of first publication.
• Statutory damages are assessed per work, within a range set by law, instead of proven losses. A court can raise the award for wilful infringement, and lower it for someone who was not aware and had no reason to believe they were infringing.
• Not knowing does not make the use lawful. At most it can lower the award.
• Smaller claims can go to the Copyright Claims Board, an alternative to federal court within the Copyright Office. Neither side needs a lawyer there. If you are served with a claim, you have sixty days to opt out, after which the claimant can still sue in federal court. Ignoring a served claim can lead to a determination against you that is enforceable in court.

This is why the registration date of the photo and the date you first used it are the first two things an adviser will ask about. A letter that does not say whether the photo is registered leaves out the fact that matters most.

How claims differ in the UK and Europe

There is no registration step. In the UK, copyright protection is automatic and there is no register of copyright works, and EU countries also protect photos without registration. A European claim does not depend on dates at the copyright office.

A European letter may ask for a fee for the period of use plus the sender's costs. A German one may also ask you to sign a cease-and-desist undertaking with a contractual penalty, which German copyright law expects to be offered before a court case. The undertaking binds you for the future, so read it with an adviser before you sign, especially if it reaches beyond the image in question.

In the UK, a court can award additional damages where an infringement was flagrant, so carrying on after a letter arrives is the worst choice there too.

A first reply you can adapt

If the deadline is close and you have not yet spoken to an adviser, a holding reply buys time without giving anything away:

• "Thank you for your letter of 3 March, reference 48213, about an image on our website. We have removed the image from our site while we look into this. We are checking our records for any licence and will reply in full by 24 March. Please send us the date your client first published the photograph and, if it is a US work, its copyright registration number and date."

It confirms you received the letter, shows the image is gone, sets your own date and asks for the two facts a US claim turns on. It admits nothing and argues nothing. Send it by email, keep a copy, and diary the date you gave.

One letter, worked through

A family dental practice in Ohio receives a letter about a photo of a smiling patient on its teeth whitening page. The practice manager works through it:

• She finds the agency's website through a search, calls the number listed there and confirms the reference is real.
• The site's revision history shows the photo was added in 2021 by a previous web designer. The practice's own stock account has no record of it.
• She removes the photo from the page, the media library and an old social post, and replaces it with a photo of the practice's own treatment room.
• She emails the former designer, who has no licence on file. Their contract has no promise about images and no indemnity.
• Before replying in full, she asks the practice's adviser, who wants the registration date and the date of first publication. The holding reply above asks for both.

Whether the practice pays, negotiates or disputes now depends on those dates and on the adviser's view. What it does not depend on is luck: the records she gathered in the first hour are the case either way. A dental clinic or any other practice with patient photos should also check that every photo of a real patient comes with that patient's written consent.

Pay, negotiate or dispute

• Pay, when the claim is real, the use was yours and the sum is close to what a licence would have cost. Ask for a written release that covers the past use in exchange for payment.
• Negotiate, when the claim is real but the sum looks high. Set out the facts: which page, how long the image was up, that it is now removed, and any licence you held. Make a written offer.
• Dispute, when you have a licence, the sender cannot show they hold the rights, the use was not yours or the letter does not identify the work. Say why, with the evidence.

Whatever you choose, get the outcome in writing and keep it with the image record. Ask an adviser before you sign anything that binds you for the future, or if the sum would hurt the business.

Who pays when your designer added the image

The letter goes to the business whose website shows the image, because that business is the one using it. Whether your designer, an agency or a former member of staff should bear the cost is a matter between you and them, and the answer is in your contract.

Ask the designer for the licence first: they may have one. If they cannot produce it, look in the contract for a promise that the images they supplied were properly licensed, and for an indemnity, a promise to cover your costs if a claim arises. What to check in a web design contract explains those clauses before you sign the next one.

If the site is due a rebuild anyway, a website redesign is the moment to replace every image whose source nobody can prove.

Stop the next letter

A letter is far easier to answer when every image on the site has a known source. A few habits keep it that way:

• Keep an image record: file name, where it came from, the licence or permission, the date and who added it. A spreadsheet is enough.
• Use your own photos where you can. When we build a website, we ask for real photos of your premises, team and work at full size, and suggest booking a photographer before the build if you have none.
• Buy stock under the business's own account, so the licence is in your name and the download history is yours.
• Check old pages and blog posts once a year for images nobody can account for.

Choosing images that are safe to use, from stock licences to Creative Commons credits and supplier photos, is covered in which images you can use on your website. AI images bring questions of their own, covered in AI-generated images on a business website.

Mistakes to avoid

• Ignoring the letter.
• Paying through a link in an email you have not checked.
• Removing the image from the page but leaving it in the media library, a PDF or an ad.
• Deleting your records along with the image.
• Signing an undertaking that covers more than the image, without advice.
• Arguing that you found it on Google. That explains how the image got there and gives you no right to use it.
• Assuming the designer's mistake is the designer's bill.

If the problem runs the other way and someone has copied your photos or text, see what to do when someone copies your website.

This is general information, not legal advice. Copyright claims turn on facts such as licences, ownership and dates, and the law differs between countries. Ask an adviser before you pay, refuse or sign.