Got a settlement! :)

About a month ago by total coincidence I discovered that a us based company (not gonna name or the city they are based on) used one of my picture for their web site and ran a national magazine add without my permission. So after contacting an attorney and a few back and forth emails we came to an agreement.
Me and the two models who are in the picture all got a little something.
Very happy about it.
Just wanted to share that with the good folks here.

Congrats. Do you have any idea how/where they got ahold of your photo?

Good for you! Would you care to say how many zeros were in that payment?

congrats....

Yeah, we need gossipy details. How did they get your photo? Was it registered? How did you find out they were using it? Did they have an attitude about it, or were they apologetic? How much did they offer you, and how much did you eventually settle for?

Glad to hear it. Now I can drop this in the column tabulating small steps toward restoring my faith in humanity.

Thanks everybody. One of the models in the picture saw it in the magazine add and she told me about it.

They were very apologetic. At first blamed the web designer, saying that they thought she copyrighted the image.
Anywho...after a few emails we made a take it or leave it offer for $3k and they accepted it. And that is only for the damages not for licensing the image for further use. We did offer to license it them because image went perfect with their business but they said no. I guess they rather use the picture illegally instead of legally. Lol.

awesomeshots wrote in post #17736426
Thanks everybody. One of the models in the picture saw it in the magazine add and she told me about it.

They were very apologetic. At first blamed the web designer, saying that they thought she copyrighted the image.
Anywho...after a few emails we made a take it or leave it offer for $3k and they accepted it. And that is only for the damages not for licensing the image for further use. We did offer to license it them because image went perfect with their business but they said no. I guess they rather use the picture illegally instead of legally. Lol.

Did they remove your watermark as well?

Nope. They left my watermark on the picture because they thought leaving it there would give me the credit and give them rights to use for their site and the add.

They left a watermark on a photo for a national magazine ad?

No watermark was only on their website not the magazine add.

awesomeshots wrote in post #17736563
No watermark was only on their website not the magazine add.

So that might be why they paid up so fast. Removing the watermark is a separate issue to © violations & you don't need to have registered the image, so the penalties might have reached $25,000.
From Carolyn E Wright's blog:

Wow $25k eh?! I should've ask for more lol.

awesomeshots wrote in post #17736724
Wow $25k eh?! I should've ask for more lol.

Did you have a lawyer?

Good to see you got a result.