You found your work somewhere unexpected

You might recognize your photograph from a tiny detail: the crooked cup in the background, the shadow you spent an hour adjusting. Seeing it on an unfamiliar page feels personal, and the first impulse is to write to someone straight away. Do one thing first: find out how the work got there. That answer decides what you can ask for and who gets to ask.

Describe what you found

Write one plain sentence for each use you found. A shop is using your photograph in a product listing. A former client has republished your illustration. A competitor sells a course on the same topic as yours. Each sentence points to different facts and different rights. "They stole my business" points nowhere.

Separate copying from overlap. U.S. copyright protects the way you expressed an idea, not the idea, concept, system or method itself, and it does not protect names, titles, slogans or short phrases. 1 Your particular article, diagram or photograph is protected; the subject it covers is open to everyone. A competitor teaching the same topic in their own words has not copied your course. A competitor who reused your slides may have.

Then check where else the work appears. On google.com, click "Search by image" and upload your file, or right-click an image in Chrome and choose "Search with Google Lens"; the results can list websites with the image or a similar image. 8 Several copies often lead back to one source, such as a client or a stock listing.

Trace the route the work took

Imagine an illustrator who finds an old image on a retailer's website. The first suspicion is that the retailer downloaded it. Then the illustrator remembers licensing the image to a manufacturer. The question changes: did that license cover retail promotion? If it did, there is nothing to dispute. If it did not, the illustrator now knows exactly which use falls outside the permission, and who granted what.

Check every route the work could have taken:

1. Clients, distributors, agencies and publishers you supplied it to.
2. Stock libraries and marketplaces where you listed it.
3. Collaborators who contributed to it.
4. Licenses and permissions you gave, including the ones in old emails.

Save the terms as they stood when the work was supplied, not only today's version of the page. License pages change.

Confirm who owns which right

Paying an invoice or holding the source file does not make anyone the copyright owner. Owning a copy of a work is separate from owning the copyright in it, and a transfer of copyright is valid only in a writing signed by the owner or the owner's authorized agent. 2 So an agency can build your website without ever transferring the copyright in its images to you. A client who paid you for a photograph does not own its copyright unless you signed it over or it was a work made for hire, where the employer or commissioning party is treated as the author. 2

Rights can also be split. Joint authors co-own the copyright, and each exclusive right can be transferred and owned separately. 2 Only the legal or beneficial owner of the right being infringed is entitled to sue over it. 5 If you co-created the work or transferred part of the rights, find out which part each person controls before you speak for the whole work.

Look at how it is being used

Even when ownership is clear, the other use matters. A review, a quotation, an adaptation and a straight commercial copy raise different questions. U.S. fair use permits some unlicensed uses. Courts decide it case by case by weighing four factors: the purpose and character of the use, the nature of your work, how much was taken, and the effect on the market for your work. 3 A label settles nothing: not every nonprofit educational use is fair, and not every commercial use is unfair. 3 Checking for an explanation does not weaken your position. It makes your complaint accurate.

Check your registration and the dates

Two facts decide how much leverage you have:

• Registration. For a U.S. work, you cannot file an infringement suit until the copyright claim is registered or preregistered. 4 Statutory damages and attorney's fees are not available for infringement that began before registration, unless you registered within three months after first publication. 4 If your work is not registered, apply now in the Copyright Office's eCO Registration System 9 (fees are on the official fee page 10). The Copyright Claims Board accepts a claim once you have at least submitted an application. 7
• Time limit. A copyright suit must be started within three years after the claim accrued. 5 If the use you found has been running for a long time, have a copyright litigation attorney check the dates before you send anything.

Choose the smallest response that works

Save what you can before you ask anyone to change it: the page address, the date, screenshots, and the listing or post as it looks now. Saving evidence while the facts are still available has the method. Then write a short account of what you know and what you still need to find out. Put the open questions in plainly: "I licensed this image to a manufacturer in 2021, and I do not know whether that license covers retail use." That account is what you will hand to the other side, a platform, or anyone who helps you.

Decide what you want: removal, credit, a correction, payment, a license going forward, or an explanation. Each calls for a different first message, and you do not have to start with the most forceful one.

• Removal from a website or platform. The copyright owner or the owner's authorized agent can send a takedown notice under section 512 to the provider's registered DMCA agent; the Copyright Office keeps a directory of designated agents. 6 The notice includes a statement, under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act, and knowingly misrepresenting that material infringes can make you liable for damages, costs and attorney's fees. 6 That is one more reason to finish the checks above first. How platform reports and takedowns work walks through the process.
• Payment, when the other side will not talk. The Copyright Claims Board hears claims up to $30,000 in total damages, statutory damages are limited to $15,000 per work, you do not need an attorney to file, and the other side can opt out. 7 See Small claims and mediation for an IP dispute.