Are the millions of folks also going to be sued for posting that pic on Facebook?
This photo is managed by Getty. The answer is yes. Getty is notorious and relentless. They will sue for the use of a square centimeter cut and pasted from a 1 meter square picture, rotated, re colored, and flipped backwards. . . Their software WILL find it on the web and you WILL receive a demand letter for a license for an amount over $1000 for your illegal use of their image threatening a lawsuit if you don't pay! They put their copyrighted images on FREE image sites, include them in free website templates, wait until unsuspecting people have used them for a while, the drop on them like a ton of bricks!
I have a file full of demand letters from Getty to my company demanding payment for the use of just such a fractional image. . . That WE had nothing to do with! A website designer made a sample website, put our office name on it so he could show us what he could do for us. . . As a DEMO website. Purely on spec! We did not ask him to do it! He came in and said "I want to show you something. . ." Asked to use our computer and linked to a website that had a nice looking design... with a background scene he'd cut from a larger picture HE was licensed to use from Getty. We told him, "Sorry, not interested. We have a web designer."
It was up less than a week, but Getty's crawler found that website, found their fractional image, and for over three years they've been DEMANDING that we pay them $1695.00 for the use of that stupid photo, which according to them we were using promoting our business!!!! They do not care that we did not use it. They don't care that they licensed the web guy to use it. They don't care that we did not solicit it, or that it was not posted by us. They ignore our attorney's cease and desist letters to them. They keep sending the demand letters and making the demanding calls.