You Won't Believe How This Magazine Replied to a Photographer's Copyright Claim

How should you respond if a photographer says you're using her photo without permission? Probably not by calling her an asshole. Kathy Shea Mormino, proprietor of the popular backyard chicken site The Chicken Chick, says that's what happened to her when she tried to get one of her photos removed from Survival Magazine's Facebook page and blog. On her own business' Facebook page, Mormino shared a screenshot of an email she received from the magazine with the subject line "You're an asshole Kathy." The note also called her "a complete and total jerk" and threatened to come after her for up to $10,000 in legal fees. The magazine's email called her action a "false take down" and noted "we will be contacting all your sponsors." Here's how Mormino (whose LinkedIn bio says she's also an attorney) described the situation to her 133,000 Facebook fans: A fan alerted me yesterday that someone removed my watermark from my photo & used it without permission on their blog and Facebook page, so I sent them an email AND FB message requesting that they remove it. They ignored me & deleted my FB request, so I reported the copyright infringement to the Internet Police who took it down for them. THIS is the email I just received from Survival Magazine. What on earth is WRONG with some people?! Please feel free to let them know what you think of that. Her supporters say they posted several incensed comments on the magazine's Facebook page, only to have all the comments removed. The page currently does not allow any "posts by others" and seems to be removing comments about the issue when they're posted to the magazine's other Facebook activity. We reached out to both Mormino and Survival Magazine early today for comment and will update if we hear back.