I found a nasty surprise in my mailbox this morning: an email that claims it represents the legal department of CartoonStock.com. Apparently, they "just" found one of their cartoons in my personal blog, in a post from 2007 I completely forgot about. At the time, I wrote something about Murphy's Law, and googled for an image to accompany the post. I never gave it a second thought, and I doubt anyone but me read this.
In the meantime, I opened a consulting company. The company's site has a link to my blog. I guess that's what prompted that email to my company's address, claiming I've violated the rights of CartoonStock.com.
They want $168.00. They don't care if I remove the image. They have a long explanation about liability and such.
My questions:
1. Since I did not do anything with malice (and at the time, wasn't really thinking about copyright, or who owns a cartoon), did not benefit (financially or otherwise) from using the image, should I pay?
2. Is this some sort of a hoax/attempt to get money, or am I headed into major legal issues if I ignore this?
3. Should I remove the image immediately from the blog, or will that be an admission of guilt to something?
4. Finally, since this blog preceded my company by several years, are they allowed to pursue my company, just because I link to a clearly personal blog?
TIA for any assistance/ideas/opinions!
In the meantime, I opened a consulting company. The company's site has a link to my blog. I guess that's what prompted that email to my company's address, claiming I've violated the rights of CartoonStock.com.
They want $168.00. They don't care if I remove the image. They have a long explanation about liability and such.
My questions: 1. Since I did not do anything with malice (and at the time, wasn't really thinking about copyright, or who owns a cartoon), did not benefit (financially or otherwise) from using the image, should I pay? 2. Is this some sort of a hoax/attempt to get money, or am I headed into major legal issues if I ignore this? 3. Should I remove the image immediately from the blog, or will that be an admission of guilt to something? 4. Finally, since this blog preceded my company by several years, are they allowed to pursue my company, just because I link to a clearly personal blog?
TIA for any assistance/ideas/opinions!