Wrong People To Try To Scam
Some company (or supposedly) just sent a FedEx that came to my supervisor.
The enclosed letter and three photos said that we were violating the company's copyright by using the enclosed photos and that they owned the photos.
Two were images of bacon-wrapped items that were done during my current supervisor's time and she recognized the photographer. Both were found in our collection of Photo CDs that were directly from the photographer and had our company's name on them. Heh.
Oh, the third? That was the funniest. I recognized it immediately. The recipe and image predate the webside. Heck, predate most of the web. They were from my very first boss and the recipe was in a database that was created before 1997. The 3 1/2 disk of the recipes that I have is from 1997, but the recipe is an early number so possibly is from the early 1990's. The photo? Yeah, the photo is on a transparency. No-one and I mean no-one uses transparencies anymore. So BOOM
The bad thing is that this "company" is apparently sending out FedEx notices to several places - freelance writers and the like - that have used our photos demanding money for the use. What they don't know is that we have fought much bigger fish than them. Heck one fight was over a decade. Besides having physical proof that we own (and freely let folks use) the images, we have darn good lawyers if they want to try anything.
I seriously think people underestimate what a commodity group is. Usually they think we are hicks at best. What they don't realize is that we are under the USDA jursdiction.