It’s been a few months since I last published about the abusive copyright enforcement campaign operated by Prepared Food Photos, which has been shaking down small business that have used its stock photos of food, rightly or wrongly, for damages settlements many times the market value of its copyrighted images. (Other discussions are here, here and here). As presaged by a description in that most recent blog post, Prepared Food Photos has not filed a single infringement action in its own name since the beginning of 2025. Instead, it has been using a sock puppet, Rockefeller Photos, to file more than one hundred such lawsuits, often following up on demand letters sent in the name of Prepared Food Photos itself. These suits allege infringement of the copyright in photographs whose copyright was registered by PFP’s predecessor, AdLife Marketing and Communications, then assumed by PFP, and now licensed on a limited basis to Rockefeller Photos so that Rockefeller, rather than PFP, can be named as the plaintiff. I speculated in the last post that PFP’s owner formed Rockefeller Photos in an effort to avoid having its enforcement scheme sullied by its reputation for abusive litigation.
Based on review of the dockets, most of the Rockefeller Photos suits have led to prompt, confidential settlements without further litigation, just as review of PFP’s and CopyCat Legal’s financial documents obtained in discovery in Pool World showed that the subjects of the lawsuits (and of demand letters that never resulted in litigation) produced settlement amounts in the high four figures and low five figures, over the infringement of photos which, when licensed through Getty Images’ iStock subsidiary, cost about a dollar apiece (most of which went to iStock as a commission). During this period, PFP was earning several times as much from copyright enforcement as from subscription agreement. It is fair to assume that most of the victims of Rockefeller’s litigation scheme have similarly been paying many thousands of dollars to avoid having to pay more than that in defense litigation fees (and it appears that a number of PFP’s subscriptions have ended, so the ratio of litigation returns to licensing returns could be even higher).
But we know of a number of cases in which threatened companies have chosen to stand up on principle, preferring to spend thousands in defense to avoid paying totally unmerited tribute. And when companies take this sort of principled position they have found that counsel for Rockefeller Photos, like counsel for Prepared Photos itself, prefer to spend their time litigating in volume against easy targets, and hence are ready to walk away from claims against the defendants who actively resist.
Rockefeller Photos Takes on the Wrong Defendant
A case in point is the recent suit filed in the Northern District of Illinois by Rockefeller Photos against the owner of National Law Review (“NLR”) an online platform that carries articles written by attorneys about cases and legal issues of public interest. Several years ago, NLR carried an article by lawyers at Barnes & Thornburg about the treatment of pizza drivers under the FLSA, and illustrated it with a photo of a slice of pizza that NLR had obtained several years before. In early 2024, PFP sent first the law firm, and then NLR, its typical demand letter, insisting on payment of $30,000 to avoid being sued for much more. After NLR rejected this demand, Rockefeller Photos filed its boilerplate lawsuit in July 2025.
But Rockefeller got more than it bargained for. After the demand letter was sent, but before suit was filed, NLR had been purchased by a company controlled by Jonathan Friedland, a corporate partner at the Chicago-based law firm of Much Shelist. Formerly a bankruptcy litigator himself, and currently maintaining a commercial litigation funding transactional practice. Friedland was not ready to let the suit stand unchallenged. With the help of one of his litigation partners, Lorne Saeks, he marshaled an assessment of the case, and of his company’s financial exposure. Three other lawyers joined the legal team on a pro bono basis; myself; Phil Malone, who was co-counsel in the Pool World case; and Adrienne Love, a Florida lawyer who had fought off PFP’s litigation in the District of Massachusetts against WeNeedaVacation.com, in which she achieved a settlement in which PFP dismissed its claim with prejudice. According to CopyCat Legal’s own financial records, her client paid nothing for the dismissal.
With our help, NLR decided that, in addition to answering the complaint, it should make an offer of judgment in an amount greater than any likely award of damages. This would make clear to Rockefeller Photos that it had no chance of recovering attorney fees in addition to whatever small award of damages might be justified. (As I noted when discussing the outcome of the Pool World, our failure to make an offer of judgment at the outset was the one tactical error I regretted in that litigation).
Analysis of NLR’s records revealed that this photo had been used as a generic illustration for five different articles, in addition to the 2019 article. Because the first few uses were before the copyright in the photo had been registered, those uses could not be the subject of a statutory damages claim; however, statutory damages might have been sought for the post-registration uses – a minimum of $750 because only one award of statutory damages can be made per work infringed (not per alleged infringement). And, unfortunately, at the time the suit was received, NLR had not been able to locate records showing the source from which this particular photo had been licensed, although there were internal records showing licensing payments as far back as 2014.
Along with its offer of judgment, Mr. Saeks then sent a detailed letter to CopyCat Legal, laying out the facts about its past use and explaining why he was confident that at least one of several affirmative defenses would prevail. These included the statute of limitations defense that had been the basis for Pool World’s motion for summary judgment; Mr. Saeks pointed to language in several Seventh Circuit decisions describing the “discovery rule” exception to the statute of limitations as an equitable rule. As Pool World had argued, invocation of equity is subject to the principle that one who seeks equity must similarly do equity (and PFP’s copyright trolling had been based on lies about its supposed minimum subscription fees as well as a host of other unequitable practices). NLR further warned that it planned to attack Rockefeller Photos’ standing to sue for infringement of PFP’s claimed copyright in the pizza slice photo, arguing that Rockefeller had received only the right to sue on PFP copyrights. This, Mr. Saeks warned, made Rockefeller’s series of lawsuits comparable to the lawsuit scheme employed by Righthaven, which was roundly condemned and eventually went down in flames.
Moreover, in preparation for the impending litigation, NLR retained the services of another lawyer, Amber Herda, who had been co-counsel in the one case that PFP had ever taken to trial. That case resulted in a jury verdict awarding only $200 in actual damages for the use of a stock photo of raw pork chops, and only $1000 in statutory damages.. This very low damages award was made even though Rebecca Jones had testified (falsely) that PFP charges a minimum of $999 per month for use of its database of photos; the evidence we adduced in Pool World about subscription agreements far less than $999 per month was not presented to the jury (defense counsel did not spend his client’s money on discovery). But based on its sense of the case, the jury STILL awarded minimal damages.
As a practical matter, Mr. Saeks preview of the planned litigation arguments, along with his offer of judgment, marked the end of the litigation. It became apparent that Rockefeller’s counsel were not prepared to spend their time litigating the several issues involved, recognizing how limited its damages, if any, would likely be. It requested (and was granted) a series of extensions of its time to respond to the offer of judgment, while it tried to obtain a confidential settlement of its claims. But NLR made clear that confidentiality was a sticking point – Friedland, on principle was unwilling to pay far more than Rockefeller had any likelihood of recovering, but he was also unwilling to allow Rockefeller to cloak yet another excessive settlement in secrecy, which would only perpetuate the false impression that it had extracted another extortionate payment.
Finally, with Friedland unwilling to let drawn-out negotiations continue to delay discovery, NLR made a final settlement offer on a take it or leave it basis. After much hemming and hawing, CopyCat Legal declared that further litigation was “not worth the squeeze” and agreed to enter a settlement agreement so long as the amount it had agreed to accept was kept confidential (the Settlement Agreement is linked here, with the final amount redacted). Several weeks later, the case was finally dismissed.
Some lessons from the National Law Review case
There are several lessons to be drawn from this example. First, Mr. Saeks’ letter responding to the litigation outlined several defenses that deserve to be litigated in the appropriate case, assuming that PFP is ever willing to have them litigated instead of dropping the litigation on the defendant’s terms. Second, it is apparent that Rockefeller Photos and its counsel have no more desire than shown in cases brought in PFP’s own name to spend precious time and money opposing such defenses. After all, they make money by piling up many quick recoveries from defendants (or defendants’ insurance companies) who either do not find out about cases like Pool World, or who would, much rather pay several thousand dollars than oppose the shakedown efforts.
Third, removing the possibility of a high recovery eliminates CopyCat Legal’s own incentive to litigate. A target can show knowledge of the market value of the photos and of the falsity of the “minimum annual subscription” claims, and it can make a sensible offer of judgment that eliminates CopyCat Legal’s possibility of recovering attorney fees or costs. In Pool World, PFP had no claim for statutory damages or attorney fees from the outset of the litigation (because registration was after the use began). That was what led PFP to make the payment (in a confidential amount) that secured its release from the litigation. Likewise, NLR’s offer of judgment is what drove Rockefeller to accept settlement on NLR’s own unilateral terms, paying the price for its insistence that the amount remain confidential. This is an approach that other Rockefeller Photos targets and defendants should certainly consider following. Pick your own settlement number and impose it, daring Rockefeller to litigate.
Fourth, it is worth finding help from one of the increasing number of lawyers who are willing to oppose the CopyCat Legal enforcement machine either pro bono, or low bono, simply as a matter of principle, because its lies and its tactics are so offensive. There are more and more lawyers who find CopyCat Legal’s tactics offensive.
Caveats
That said, individuals and businesses that operate web sites (including posts on social media platforms) would all do themselves a big favor by double-checking their materials to eliminate any images for which they cannot document licenses. For future postings, they should keep records of licensing, not just for three years but for as long as the images are on their sites; this is needed because of the discovery rule exception to the statute of limitations, at least until the equitable exception to that exception is similarly recognized.
Copyright trolls like CopyCat Legal exist because too many web site operators use images without permission. Photographers and other content creators whose works are being used without permission are fully justified at being angry about that, and it is not surprising that they demand compensation. If only the demands were in reasonable amounts, and not based on lies and extortionate tactics.
