When Insurance Isn’t the Optimal Risk Management Approach

On March 14, 2024, I made a blog post titled “Do You Have The Right Kind of Insurance?” The article was initiated by an email I received through my website from a professional photographer who claimed that one of his photographs was posted on my website without his permission. I was told that, to stop the legal process that had already begun for copyright infringement, I should deposit bitcoin or ethereum funds in a crypto wallet address.

The email smelled intensely of being a scam, so I started to investigate the claim. First, I determined that the photographer was indeed a real person and, according to one news account, he had actually (and successfully) sued someone for copyright infringement. So, I contacted the photographer and forwarded the email to him.

Literally within minutes, he responded with, “Sorry…we are both victims of ‘phishing.’ Anything that requests payment via bitcoins is going to be a scam.”

In my blog post, I said, “I have photos on my website, but they are either license-free images provided through the WordPress platform or, in a few instances, photos for which I received express permission to reproduce.” What I learned recently is that using “license-free” or “royalty-free” images is not a guarantee of immunity from a copyright infringement claim.

On May 23 of this year, I received an email from someone at PicRights International Inc. alleging that I had posted an image owned by Agence France-Presse (AFP). They asked for proof that I had licensed a photo of five penguins that was copyrighted by AFP. If I could not produce such proof, they demanded that I remove the image immediately from my website AND pay, via credit card or PayPal, $534 for the past use of the image on a blog post titled “Insurance Is NOT a Commodity…Real Life Example #2,146: Acquired Autos.”

So, as before, I initiated my own investigation and found that PicRights had initiated such actions against a lot of people, based on information I found in a Google search. One individual claimed he refused to pay and was hit with a lawsuit that cost him $7,000 in attorney fees to settle. The information I found led me to believe this might be a legitimate claim.

PicRights is a Canadian-based firm that provides licensing compliance services to intellectual property owners. AFP is a French International news agency with locations around the world. So, the organizations involved in this matter appeared to be legitimate. The email was also very detailed and included attachments and links for resolving the claim. In addition, several days later I received a hard copy of the email in the form of a letter that was dated May 21, 2025. So, along with other information I had gathered, I concluded that this was not a scam but rather a real claim for copyright infringement because I had not licensed the image from AFP.

Over the years, I have published literally thousands of articles, seminar manuals, and six books. I have never deliberately and knowingly included any copyrighted material without express permission. Sometimes, others have allowed me to use their material gratis with an attribution, such as some photos in my book “20/20 Vision: Why Insurance Doesn’t Cover the COVID 19 Pandemic.” In other instances, I’ve actually paid to reproduce images.

For example, in my book “Presentation Skills for the ‘Unprofessional’ Speaker,” I included several cartoons for which I paid a fee to reproduce.

In a string of correspondence with the representative from PicRights, I explained that any unlicensed use of the AFP photo was unintentional on my part. I knew that was immaterial from a legal standpoint, but I was looking for a little sympathy. And, not only was my misuse innocent, but I also had reason to believe it was permissible.

WordPress’s website touts the benefit of royalty-free images from Unsplash, Pixaby, Pexel, and other sources that change over time. What I discovered that meant was that I don’t have to pay WordPress, Unsplash, Pixabay, etc., for such images but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to pay someone else if a copyrighted image is posted on one of the sources. This isn’t clear in the terms and conditions on both the WordPress or Unsplash websites.

I contacted both WordPress and Unsplash multiple times and never got a response from either of them. In addition, the name of the person who submitted the photo to Unsplash was shown on their website and I tracked her down. According to the short bio on Unsplash, she is a professional wildlife photographer that has traveled the world. She told me via email that this was HER photo, but when I told her that PicRights disputed that, she never responded to subsequent emails.

I made a final appeal to PicRights, again explaining that I myself had been the past victim of people deliberately taking presentations I had made and delivering them as their own and others incorporating significant passages from a book of mine without attribution. However, in this case, once again, I felt like I was an innocent victim and that the entity that should be pursued is Unsplash and/or WordPress, who provided the platform that enabled the distribution of intellectual property without a valid license.

Unfortunately, my appeal fell on deaf ears, but PicRights was agreeable, under the circumstances, to reducing the $534 claim by 30%. Long story short, I settled the claim and moved on even though I felt like the victim of shake-down.

So, what does this have to do with insurance and risk management? First of all, you can insure the copyright infringement peril. However, such policies may have a deductible and, otherwise, is it worth it to file a $300-plus claim?

Second, there are other risk management approaches that can be used. In my case, looking to the future, I chose “Avoidance.” I spent a long day deleting every image on my website that I had downloaded through the WordPress platform. I also practice loss prevention by being more diligent to ensure I don’t even innocently incorporate the intellectual property of others in anything I produce.

Do you or your employer have a website that uses “royalty-free” images? If so, be aware that there are organizations using image search apps and even more sophisticated bots to patrol the internet.

Have you had an experience similar to mine? If so, feel free to share your story in the Comments section or send an email.

Finally, I’d be interested in what you think about this practice of going after the “little guy.” Recently, I spoke at a conference on ethics, and one of the issues I discussed was that an act can be legal but unethical or arguably ethical but illegal. In my case, this was legal, but was it ethical or moral?