Higbee copyright letter

[Ryzen]

Happy Holidays! Very glad that I found this site.

I operate a non-profit news website. Recently I received a letter from Higbee alleging copyright infringement and asking to settle for $6750. The image in question is in the first link below. I clipped the first image from the Youtube video, which combines 3 photos together. Higbee is representing the photographer who shot the right photo in the combo image, as shown in the second link. In the Higbee letter, he showed proof of the registration with the US Copyright Office.

When I clipped the picture from Youtube, I had checked that other websites had the exact same picture and not one showed the image credit, eg. third link. My website has Google Ads but this article generated less than $2. I don't have thousands of dollars to pay this settlement. Please help!

1)
2) https://nypost.com/2017/04/12/judge-washes-up-dead-along-the-hudson-river/
3) http://www.communityvoiceks.com/news/national_news/questions-persist-in-death-of-prominent-new-york-judge/article_6fbb21f0-2c71-11e7-81a6-235732886b61.html

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

Get educated on "Fair Use", if your site is a news site, and the image in question was used for reporting you may qualify and Higbee would have no case.. Also I believe there is case law mentioned in the forum somewhere, in regards to youtube screen shots of even video clips not meeting infringement criteria.. He'dd be a fool to pursue this, and if i were you I wouldn't worry to much about it.  I'll see if I can find the info about youtube screenshots and post the link.