Expiration of 3 years - what exactly does it mean?

[Arryn]

Greetings, All. With the help of this forum and the advice contained herein, I am coming up on 3 years of first being contacted by LCS about a pic on my website. I went back and forth with LCS early in the process, but then went dark after clearly stating my case and asking questions, to which I never received a response and have not been contacted again. If luck holds, the waiting game will have paid off and 3 years will have passed.

But I have a question relative to what exactly it means for the 3-year limitation to expire. Does this mean I can never be contacted about this particular pic again by any company that represents this photographer? During these 3 years, LCS appears to have gone out of biz, and the photographer whose photo I used transferred their copyright enforcement efforts to PicRights (again, I only received correspondence from LCS, never PicRights). Does that make any difference? Maybe I got lucky with the transfer from one company to another and got lost in the shuffle?

In short, I'm asking what exactly the expiration of the 3 years means. Am I completely off the hook for this photo? Thank you!

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

LCS is a collection agency, is still in business and cannot "enforce copyright", they can only try to collect from you. If you told them this was a "claim" and not a debt, they are bound by government regulations to cease and desist and send the "claim" back to the client ( photographer, PicRights, etc...), which would explain why you never heard back from LCS.

I would suggest you keep any and all records from 3 yrs ago, in case someone comes out of the woodwork again (picrights), at that time you can politely or not so politely tell them to pound sand, as the 3 yrs SOL has expired...Once the 3 yrs. from the date of their first contact has come and gone, you will be in the clear, unless you continue to use the image, or other unlicensed images..

[Arryn]

Robert, thanks for your reply. I will definitely keep all records should PicRights or any other entity come after me. If I'm understanding correctly, it sounds as if no other case would stand if anyone tried to collect on the particular photo in question, be they PicRights or some other entity. LCS had their shot, and the statute was met.

I wish I knew what happened with my case, although I'll not complain. In my correspondence with them I didn't mention anything about a claim or debt, I simply tried to ask questions, many derived from this forum, such as how LCS arrived at their ridiculous figure. They sent one email response, I replied again, and that was it.

I searched for LCS and can't find hide nor hair of them; curious to know where you found them on the web. I went back to the email from 2015 and clicked on their weblink but it appears to be shut down. My guess is they folded or changed their business model, and the photographer changed over to PicRights, at which time perhaps my case got lost in the ether. Who knows. I'm probably not the only one affected.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

http://lcsfin.com/

[Arryn]

Sorry, the LCS I was referring to was License Compliance Services, which to my knowledge was an arm of Getty.

[Matthew Chan]

I think you are referring to the 3-year statute of limitations (not expiration).

Generally speaking, in layman terms, a plaintiff has up to 3 years to file a lawsuit from the date of discovery of an infringement. And if they don't do so, you could argue that it is too late to claim anything due to the statute of limitations.

However, that assumes you stopped using the image once you were notified. It doesn't mean you can continue infringing indefinitely just because someone doesn't file a lawsuit against you within 3 years.

In short, I'm asking what exactly the expiration of the 3 years means. Am I completely off the hook for this photo? Thank you!