Getty Images letter Ireland: CRRA 2000 response guide

You opened the post or an email and there it is. A demand for hundreds, sometimes thousands of euros, for an image on your website. The sender is Getty Images, PicRights or Higbee & Associates writing from a US address. Your first instinct is to either pay quickly to make it stop, or to bin the letter and hope it goes away. Both are usually wrong.

This guide walks you through what Irish law actually says, what an Irish court would do if it came to it, and how to respond in writing without making your position worse. If you want to check the rest of your site for the same problem before more letters arrive, you can run a free image and compliance scan at /ie/en/scan.

What CRRA 2000 actually says

Image copyright in Ireland is governed by the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000, commonly shortened to CRRA. Photographs are protected as artistic works under section 17. The rights holder is the photographer or, where the photo was commissioned or produced under employment, the commissioning party or employer under sections 21 and 23.

The action you care about is section 128 CRRA. It gives the rights holder a civil claim for damages against anyone who has used the work without permission. Subsection (3) lets the court award additional damages where the infringement is flagrant or where the defendant benefited from the use. That's the section that Irish courts apply when a Getty or PicRights matter reaches a hearing.

Ireland is a signatory to the Berne Convention. That matters because Getty's catalogue and the news agency images that PicRights enforces (Reuters, AFP, Associated Press) are largely produced outside Ireland. A common argument among business owners is that a US or German photo somehow doesn't apply here. It does. Berne reciprocity means a photograph created in any signatory state is enforceable in Ireland on the same footing as an Irish photograph.

The limitation period is six years from the date of the infringement under section 11 of the Statute of Limitations 1957. An image that sat on your website between 2020 and 2024 is still within the limitation period in 2026.

Is the letter actually from who it says?

Before you do anything else, work out who you're dealing with. Three names show up most often for Irish recipients.

Getty Images writes directly when the image is from its own catalogue. The letter comes from a Getty enforcement team email address. Verify the catalogue ID listed in the letter against gettyimages.ie. If the image identified matches and Getty is shown as the licensor, the letter is genuine.

PicRights is a Swiss enforcement agency representing rights holders including Reuters, AFP, the Associated Press and Press Association. PicRights doesn't own the images. It collects on behalf of the rights holder. Letters typically come from a picrights.com address with a UK or Swiss contact line for Irish recipients.

Higbee & Associates is a US law firm based in California. They contact Irish businesses by post and email referencing the same image library that PicRights handles. Higbee letters often escalate from a PicRights initial contact when no response was given. Higbee does not have an Irish office and does not have practising solicitors in Ireland, so any Irish proceedings would have to be issued through instructing Irish counsel.

There are also fraudulent copyright shakedown emails that imitate this format. The verification step is straightforward. A genuine letter names the specific image with a catalogue ID, the URL where the image appeared on your site, the dates of the use and the legal basis. A vague threat without those four elements is almost always not legitimate.

Which Irish court would hear this?

If the matter went to court, the value of the claim decides which court has jurisdiction. The civil monetary thresholds in Ireland (per the Courts Service overview) are:

• District Court for civil claims up to €15,000. The Civil Reform Bill 2025 proposes raising this to €20,000.
• Circuit Court for claims from €15,000 up to €75,000 (rising to €100,000 under the Bill).
• High Court above the Circuit Court threshold, with the Commercial Court list available for commercial disputes above €1 million.

In practice, a single-image claim against an SME settles long before issue. Where it does reach court, the District Court handles most matters because the realistic damages award sits well within its threshold. The Circuit Court has heard a small number of multi-image and commercial-misappropriation cases, but reported decisions specific to Getty enforcement in Ireland are sparse. That's a real data gap and we'd rather flag it than fabricate a case.

For matters involving the agency-led enforcement model (PicRights or Higbee), proceedings would be filed by Irish solicitors instructed by the rights holder. The agency itself does not bring proceedings in its own name in Ireland.

How Irish courts calculate damages

Section 128 CRRA gives the court a flexible approach. The starting point is the licence fee the rights holder would have charged for the use. Practitioner commentary, including guidance summarised in the Law Society of Ireland's IP practice notes, points to a notional-licence-fee approach consistent with the EU Enforcement Directive 2004/48/EC.

For a single editorial image on a small Irish business website, an editorial web licence typically prices between €150 and €350 for one-to-two year non-prominent use. Commercial and feature images price higher. Demand letters routinely seek two to four times this figure, which incorporates enforcement costs and an opening negotiation position rather than the true notional fee.

Section 128(3) allows an uplift for flagrancy. Where the business removed the image promptly on first notice and cooperated, the uplift is rare. Where the business ignored repeated correspondence, continued to use the image after notice, or used it in paid advertising, the uplift becomes meaningful and can multiply the base award.

The data on Irish-specific settlements is thinner than for the UK or the Netherlands because Irish cases tend to resolve without published judgments. The general range for first-time, single-image disputes resolved through correspondence is in the €600 to €1,500 area when the recipient engages early. We say that with caution. Your specific facts will move the number.

What to do this week

Numbered steps. None of them is optional.

1. Find the image and remove it. Not just hidden from the menu. Delete the file from your CMS media library so the URL it was served from returns 404. Take a screenshot showing the date you removed it.
2. Check your licence records. Search Adobe Stock, iStock, Shutterstock and any other accounts you or your previous designer used. If you find a valid licence covering the image, the use and the date range, send that to the sender. The matter ends there.
3. Ask the designer. If you didn't upload the image yourself, ask the person who built or maintained the site to provide the licence. Keep the request in writing.
4. Reply to the letter in writing. Don't ignore it. Don't phone. Email a short response. Acknowledge receipt, confirm the image is removed, identify the image you've removed and state that you're considering the matter. Don't admit liability.
5. Make a proposal calibrated to the notional licence fee. Set out your figure and the reasoning. Offer a "full and final settlement" subject to written confirmation that no further action will be taken.
6. Get the settlement in writing. Before any payment, get an email or PDF confirming the specific image, the period covered, that payment closes the matter and that no further claim will arise from the same use.

If the demand sits above €5,000 or the image was used in paid advertising, get advice from an Irish solicitor with copyright experience before you respond. The cost of an early consultation is small relative to a multi-image escalation.

What not to do

Three things make matters worse.

Ignoring the letter. Rights holders track non-responders and escalate. The Irish solicitor stage adds costs that the rights holder will incorporate into a higher demand.

Admitting full liability in the first reply. Acknowledging the image and proposing settlement is fine. A blanket admission of the demanded figure removes your room to negotiate quantum.

Trying to argue Berne reciprocity doesn't apply. It does. Ireland is a Berne signatory and a 1965 ratification of the Brussels Act. A US, German or French photograph is enforceable here.

How to prevent this happening again

Once this one is resolved, audit the rest of your site. The most common cause of a second letter is another image from the same designer or marketing batch. You can run a free scan that flags external image sources and known stock CDN patterns on your site, or do it manually by reviewing every image and tracing it back to a licence.

For future images, three sources cover most small business needs without licence-fee exposure:

• Unsplash: free for commercial use, no attribution required for most images.
• Pexels: free for commercial use under the Pexels licence.
• Wikimedia Commons: check each image's individual licence, most are public domain or CC.

For higher-value imagery, buy a licence through Adobe Stock or Shutterstock and keep the receipt with the image file. The receipt is what defends you if a future letter arrives.

For a deeper dive on verifying the sender of a claim letter, see our guide on whether CopyTrack, PicRights and Getty letters are legitimate. For broader guidance on what a copyright claim typically costs, see how much a copyright claim actually costs.

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This is technical analysis, not legal advice. Consult an Irish solicitor for advice specific to your situation.