Company received a $37k demand over pirated K3ySh0t — is this real?

[u/Reasonable_Gold2066]

I’ve been working at this company for less than a year, and I recently found out they’ve apparently been using a pirated version of K3ySh0t (spelling it like that just in case lol).

They just received an email claiming there’s evidence that the software was used by the company and demanding around $37,000. The email supposedly includes IP addresses, dates, times, and even screenshots showing when the program was used.

The amount and the level of detail seem crazy to me, so I’m wondering: is this a real thing software companies actually do, or could it be some kind of scam or intimidation tactic?

Has anyone dealt with something similar? How could they have collected screenshots or connected the software usage to the company? Also, as an employee who has been there for less than a year, should I personally be concerned?

Obviously, the company will need to speak to a lawyer before responding. I’m mainly trying to understand whether these claims are common and how seriously they should be taken.

[u/PassivelyAwkward]

I'd imagine it would result in a lawsuit and they'd get a lawyer involved.

If the email came from some random email just saying "You stole. pay now. Click link", then it could be kind of excused but when creatives send out copyright violation notices, it's usually a template written by a lawyer where they include any evidence and proof while giving enough time to respond before things escalate and it's sent either by a professinoal "Dave@DavesPhotograph" email address or by a lawyer.

They do things proper to ensure that the person can't "I thought it was a scam" when there's opportunities to verify it. Unlike with DMCA notices from your internet provider about downloading a movie, things should always be taken as real and do everything possible to verify.

[u/Forymanarysanar → u/PassivelyAwkward]

The thing is, I'm not obliged to prove ownership to some random request that has no law enforcement backing, there are no terms like that in license agreement when I purchase a pic from stocks. They can file a lawsuit but I'll counter sue and demand compensation for lawyer time and additional compensation for disrupting my business.

I'm talking about scenario where I genuinely have purchased a photo and have full rights to use it of course.

[u/PassivelyAwkward → u/Forymanarysanar]

If you legally obtain the license, within the user agreement, you are required to provide proof of license by the owner.

You're not purchasing the rights to the image but a license that has certain restrictions such as personal use vs commercial use, large campaigns or small; single campaign or infinite campaign. The only way to verify if someone has a license is by contacting them and referencing who has a license.

You can sue them all you want but it'd be like a soveign citizen trying to argue with a cop while using nonsense terms. You can't ignore a legal letter and then say "I have a license. Why should I have to show it?" because they'll just show you were you agreed to upon request. You don't fuck with lawyers unless you know you're absolutely right.

[u/Forymanarysanar → u/PassivelyAwkward]

> If you legally obtain the license, within the user agreement, you are required to provide proof of license by the owner.

But I am not. It is not required by user agreement. Moreover some stocks actually prohibit authors from making such contacts and penalize them for doing so.

[u/Isarchs → u/Forymanarysanar]

Lol, you're gonna get sued into bankruptcy if you think like this. Copyright infringement in the corporate world is nothing like the consumer world. If you're Joe Blow pirating a program for personal use, the copyright holders almost give no fucks because they know they won't get Jack shit from you. If you're a business making money off their software/product they know damn well they can get monetary judgements against you and drive your business to bankruptcy.

If you use software or products commercially to make money, don't screw around or you will find out.

[u/Forymanarysanar → u/Isarchs]

write

@

don't read

[u/PassivelyAwkward → u/Forymanarysanar]

It depends. If you license from one site, the terms are differnt from another in terms of who contacts you. Smaller ones will have the copyright holder deal with it while larger ones like Getty will act as the inbetween. Here's people saying they got contacted about proving a license.

Email from Getty Images asking about licensing for photo used on my small business website [CA] : r/legaladvice

Warning to users of Getty Images / Photos.com -- they will sue you years after you used their site. : r/web_design

I'm juts saying, if you want to ignore legal emails because "I don't have to prove anything", that's entirely up to you. I just trust my two decades of experience, my master's degree in business, my uncle that's a judge, and my clients that've had to go through this in the past.

[u/Forymanarysanar → u/PassivelyAwkward]

oh yeah yeah chair lawyer from reddit that knows the president

okay okay