A demand letter is a request for money. Nothing has been filed, nothing has been decided, and the figure in it is the sender’s opening position rather than a judgment. Take the picture down today, then check two things before you answer: who owns it, and when it was registered.

Take the photo down, then write everything down

Pull the image off every page it sits on. Check the gallery, the old blog posts, and the service pages you forgot about. Then save the letter, save the image file, and screenshot each page the way it looked.

Write down the date you removed it. If a web company built the site and picked that photo, ask them in writing, today, where it came from and whether they hold a license for it.

You cannot pull a photo off a site you cannot log into. If you are not sure whose name sits on the hosting and the admin account, run the five ownership checks first, then fix the access problem.

Why the numbers in the letter look so big

When a letter names a figure in the thousands, the number behind it comes from one part of the law, section 504(c) of Title 17 of the U.S. Code.

The official text is published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel at uscode.house.gov. Its Title 17 pages state that the text contains those laws in effect on August 25, 2026. Section 504(c) sets statutory damages at not less than $750 or more than $30,000 for any one work. If the owner proves the use was willful, a court may raise that to as much as $150,000. If the person using it proves they did not know, a court may drop it as low as $200.

Three things about those numbers. They are per work, not per page and not per visitor. They are what a court may award, not what a sender gets to pick in a letter. And a court has to award them, which means somebody has to file a case first.

This is not legal advice and it is not tax advice. A letter naming a number in the thousands is worth an hour with an attorney licensed in your own state, and your state bar can point you to one who handles copyright.

The registration date decides most of this

There is a catch in the law that the letter will not mention. Section 412 of the same title says no award of statutory damages or of attorney’s fees can be made for any infringement of copyright commenced after first publication of the work and before the effective date of its registration, unless registration is made within three months after the first publication of the work.

So the $750 to $30,000 range and the $150,000 ceiling only come into play if the photo was registered in time. If it was not, the owner is left asking for actual damages and any profits made from the use. For a single stock photo on a plumbing site, that is a much smaller conversation.

You can search the records yourself. The U.S. Copyright Office runs the Copyright Public Records System at publicrecords.copyright.gov. Its records page at copyright.gov/public-records/ lists that system as covering 1898 to 1945 and 1978 to the present. That page carries no update date.

Here is the limit on that check. Not finding a record does not prove there is none. The Copyright Office offers group registration for photographs, GRUPH for unpublished and GRPPH for published, on its page at copyright.gov/registration/photographs/, so one record can stand for a batch of images rather than name the single picture on your page. That page carries no update date. Treat an empty result as a question for your attorney, not as an answer.

One more line worth knowing. Section 401(d) says that where a copyright notice appeared on the published copy the defendant had access to, no weight is given to a defense of innocent infringement raised to reduce actual or statutory damages. The exception that section points to covers nonprofit schools, libraries, archives, and public broadcasting, not a contractor.

Which of those lines reaches your letter is a question for an attorney licensed where you work, not for a web company, and none of this is legal advice.

If the letter turns into a filed claim, it may not arrive from a federal court. There is a small claims route called the Copyright Claims Board, run by the U.S. Copyright Office at ccb.gov.

Its about page describes the Board as a tribunal located in the Copyright Office and a voluntary alternative to federal court, made up of three officers. It says monetary damages are capped at $30,000, that participation is voluntary, and that the filing fee is split into a first payment of $40 and a second payment of $60. That page carries no update date.

The law behind it sets tighter limits than a federal case. Section 1504(e) caps statutory damages at $15,000 for each work infringed when the work was registered in time. When it was not registered in time, the cap is $7,500 per work, or a total of $15,000 in any one proceeding. A party cannot recover more than $30,000 in total in a single proceeding, not counting attorney’s fees and costs. Under section 1506(z), a claim where the total damages sought do not exceed $5,000 can be decided by as few as one Copyright Claims Officer.

The clock is the part to put in your phone. Section 1506(i) gives a respondent 60 days from the date of service to opt out in writing. It says a proceeding is dismissed without prejudice if the respondent opts out in that window, and that if no opt-out notice arrives in time the proceeding is deemed active and the respondent is bound by the determination. The respondent page at ccb.gov says the claimant can still sue you in federal court. That page carries no update date.

Opting out is not a free pass, then. It can move the fight to a court where the ceilings are higher. Which way to go is a call for an attorney licensed in your state, not for a web company, and none of this is legal advice.

What nobody here can do for you

Straight answers on the limits:

  • No web company can tell you whether the claim is good or what to pay. That is a lawyer’s job.
  • Buying a new website does not settle a claim you already have. If a sales call turns your letter into a reason to sign a build this week, hang up.
  • Taking the photo down helps going forward. It does not undo the use that already happened.
  • There are no client stories to show you here. The only result published anywhere on this site is its own launch-day score of 100 on Google’s PageSpeed test, on desktop and on mobile.

What to do next, in order

  1. Remove the image everywhere today. Write down the date and list the pages it was on.
  2. Save the letter, the image file, and screenshots of those pages before the change.
  3. Email whoever built the site. Ask where the photo came from, who holds the license, and for a copy of the receipt.
  4. Search publicrecords.copyright.gov for the owner name and the title named in the letter.
  5. Send the letter to an attorney before you pay anything and before you write back. Do not argue the facts by email.
  6. If a Copyright Claims Board notice arrives, put the 60 day date on the calendar the same day it lands.

Then fix the source. Photos you took yourself, of your own trucks, your own crew, and your own finished jobs, do not arrive with somebody else’s license attached, they show a customer real work, and the only thing to watch is how much the full size files slow the page. If you do buy stock, keep the license file and the invoice in the same folder as the site logins.

Get the next contract to carry it in writing: the web company sources the images, holds the license, and hands over proof on request. That sits next to the question of who owns the code and the words on your site. If a rebuild is on the table anyway, swapping stock for your own photos is part of how a site gets built here.

Written by Galloping