taylor_wells•4d agoTop Commenter

Rant: AirBnB host filed a copyright claim on my photos, then demanded I pay them $400

I do freelance photography on the side, mostly for local restaurants. Last month I shot a menu update for a taco spot in Austin. Three days after I delivered the pics, the owner's AirBnB host used my shots for their rental listing without asking. When I sent a friendly invoice, they flipped it around and filed a DMCA claim against my portfolio site saying I stole the images from their listing. My hosting company froze my page and I lost two potential gigs because of it. I spent a full morning on the phone with support explaining I had the raw files and metadata. The host finally backed down after I threatened a counter-notice, but they still tried to hit me with a $400 'usage fee' for their own theft. Has anyone else had a third party pull this kind of reverse claim on your work? How do you protect yourself when a stranger grabs your pics and then plays the victim?

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ivan46218h ago

I had almost this exact thing happen back in 2019 with a bar in New Orleans. Their landlord grabbed my shots off the bar's Instagram and put them on a rental listing. When I emailed the landlord directly with a bill, they hit me with a copyright strike on my own site too. The trick that saved me was having my camera's serial number in the EXIF data and a timestamped folder of raw files. I sent that to my host before they froze anything, so they just ignored the strike. For the fee, I told them I'd take them to small claims for triple what they owed me, and the invoice magically disappeared.