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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Higbee, PicRights and Agence France Presse
« on: July 02, 2018, 06:28:08 PM »
We received a letter a few months back from PicRights with the standard boilerplate threats about copyright abuse and a demand for money. Given that the email had incorrect information, we assumed it was a scam, found this site and decided to ignore. We are [formerly] a small graphic design business that is now closed and have been for some time. The single image in question was an image that appeared on a deeper level page around 2015/16 and we cannot remember whether it came with the theme or was found on a free image portal. Regardless, the image was removed and subsequently, the site was hacked and lots of material was injected into the site, but what's more, the site is basically inactive as we are not taking clients and have no existing work.
We ignored several subsequent emails from PicRights, thinking again that it was a scam/extortion. Just recently, we received a very threatening email from the attorney Higbee, but searching these forums allowed us to see the exact same language everyone else dealing with this extortion has received. Now, just a couple days ago, two more emails; one from Higbee and another from a "Case Manager." Again, boilerplate language and escalating threats.
What we are confused by is the weird connection and association of these letters. First we received emails from Pic Rights that claimed to represent Agence France Presse, and now we're getting emails from Higbee saying his firm represents Agence France Press. And then there's the actual photographer? We are really confused. One set of letters is demanding one amount, Higbee's letters are -- not surprisingly -- asking for much more, with the threat upwards of hundreds of thousands -- for one image.
Our business is technically closed and basically there is no money left in it to pay any of these demands. But the question is... are these emails even legitimate when multiple outfits are claiming to represent the same "client"? And in doing research, the ultimate client seems to be Getty as we finally found the image after searching and searching on stock websites, and it turned up on the Getty website. I question the legitimacy of any of these emails as their are multiple parties claiming to represent the same client, and we're not even sure how Agence and Getty are related, if they even are. This reeks of extortion and harassment.
Any advice would be appreciated and helpful.
We ignored several subsequent emails from PicRights, thinking again that it was a scam/extortion. Just recently, we received a very threatening email from the attorney Higbee, but searching these forums allowed us to see the exact same language everyone else dealing with this extortion has received. Now, just a couple days ago, two more emails; one from Higbee and another from a "Case Manager." Again, boilerplate language and escalating threats.
What we are confused by is the weird connection and association of these letters. First we received emails from Pic Rights that claimed to represent Agence France Presse, and now we're getting emails from Higbee saying his firm represents Agence France Press. And then there's the actual photographer? We are really confused. One set of letters is demanding one amount, Higbee's letters are -- not surprisingly -- asking for much more, with the threat upwards of hundreds of thousands -- for one image.
Our business is technically closed and basically there is no money left in it to pay any of these demands. But the question is... are these emails even legitimate when multiple outfits are claiming to represent the same "client"? And in doing research, the ultimate client seems to be Getty as we finally found the image after searching and searching on stock websites, and it turned up on the Getty website. I question the legitimacy of any of these emails as their are multiple parties claiming to represent the same client, and we're not even sure how Agence and Getty are related, if they even are. This reeks of extortion and harassment.
Any advice would be appreciated and helpful.