| MAY 1, 2025 -- In early March, Winchester Grange received a registered letter from a (legitimate) law firm in Florida. The letter was entitled “Settlement Communication” and demanded a payment of $30,000 to their client within fourteen days of receipt.
The letter went into painful detail about how Winchester Grange had violated the U.S. Copyright Act by publishing a photo of sweet potatoes on a social media post promoting a monthly Grange meeting program about... sweet potatoes.
For those of you not versed in the popular acts of less than honest people... there is a practice called “phishing” which is defined as:
“The fraudulent practice of sending emails or other messages purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.”
In our case a law firm with a very shady reputation scans the internet for organizations that may be easily scared into paying the money they demand. Fortunately, Winchester Grange purchased the image in question from Adobe Stock and has the receipt and the license for the use of the image in question.
You might be wondering how Winchester Grange knows this is fraud. We don’t know for certain but have the ability to wait them out as we have a solid defense with our receipt and license for the image in question.
Ultimately, we believe this is a scam and have not heard from them again after more than a month and a half.
There is, however, a very important lesson to take away from this experience. DO NOT lift images from websites or otherwise republish images you don’t own or have a license to publish or use on any social media or in printed form on posters, newsletters, etc.
The penalties for stealing images can be very stiff and really not worth the risk. Legitimate copyright holders scan websites, social media postings, etc. constantly looking for misuse of their work.
As many of you know, I work in the printing industry. A customer of the company I work for was sued by one of these companies after his wife had used part of one of their images in his new business logo that was emblazoned on his food truck, apparel and coffee cups. It was a very expensive mistake.
Most of the images used in the Connecticut Granger are either submitted by Grangers or are purchased from online image brokers (like the image above).
It might cost a little bit to purchase that perfect photo or graphic but it’s worth every penny to be worry free.
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