The Sierra County Citizen is close to a settlement over its unauthorized use of a photograph of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
The story began on Jan. 15, 2019, when Craig Fritz, a freelancer working for The Associated Press (AP), photographed the governor delivering her first State of the State address to the New Mexico Legislature.
The Governor’s Office website subsequently used the photo in its report on Grisham’s legislative priorities without crediting Fritz or the AP or, presumably, paying the AP its $35 fee. No one complained at the time. Fritz said he did not even know that governor’s website had used his photo until informed by the Citizen..
On July 20, 2023, Diana Tittle, a volunteer columnist for the Citizen, was searching for a photo to illustrate a “Stuff You Need to Know” brief about Grisham speaking to a White House States forum about expanding New Mexico’s pre-kindergarten programs.
On the Governor’s Office website, Tittle came across Fritz’s photo of a smiling Griffith with her arm raised triumphantly and Tittle decided to use a portion of it to illustrate the brief. She credited the “office of the governor” for the “thumbnail” because there was no indication who took the photo or owned the rights. Like many small news sites, the Citizen often uses photos from government websites because they usually are not copyrighted and can be reproduced without charge.
On February 12, 2025, Steve Pigeon, vice president for compliance of PicRights International Inc. office in Toronto, Ontario, sent a letter to the Hillsboro post office box of the Citizen’s sponsor, the Sierra County Public-Interest Journalism Project. “PicRights has noticed that imagery represented by The Associated Press has been displayed on your website…” he wrote. “However, The Associated Press has been unable to find a license for that usage of the image by your organization.” Pigeon said the Citizen should either send proof it had a license to use the photo or to remove the photo from its website within 14 days. “Please be aware that removal of the imagery alone will not resolve this issue,” he continued. “We also will require payment of compensation in the amount of $400.00 for the past unauthorized use of the imagery.”
Some project board members thought the letter was a mistake or fraudulent. Tittle, who thought the complaint might br a “scam,” had been involved in a similar case with PicRights in 2023 over the use of a Reuters photo of Richard Branson. In that case, she properly credited both the photographer and Reuters and included a link to the Reuters article. But PicRights rejected arguments that this alleviated the need for a fee to license the photograph and demanded payment of $250. So it was paid.
Board chairman Max Yeh’s research into the new complaint indicated it was legitimate and that even if the Citizen innocently used the photo because the governor’s website did not credit it to AP, federal copyright law holds that the Citizen could be fined as an “unwitting” violator. The Citizen removed the photo from its website and Yeh began a correspondence with PicRights. The governor’s website also removed the photo, though the office’s digital director said he knew of no demand from PicRights or fine paid over past use of the photo.
On September 8, 2025, the Sierra County Public-Interest Journalism Project received its first notice from PicRights’s main U.S. law firm, Higbee and Associates of North Las Vegas, Nev., increasing the demand to $1,200. This began a lengthy correspondence with Higbee’s Matthew K. Higbee, Theodore W. Sell and Howard Martitz who rejected Yeh’s contention that the Citizen’s use of the photo was exempt from copyrights because of “fair use” provisions for nonprofits and news organizations and because the photo posted by the Citizen was substantially changed from AP’s version.
Higbee’s lawyers subsequently reduced their demand but insisted on a confidentiality clause in the agreement over Yeh’s objections. “Confidentiality requirements in tort settlements is a common and necessary part of any tort settlement, lest the negotiated terms affect – either positively or negatively – any future, other parties – either claimants or defendants,” Sell wrote. “Obviously, that a settlement was found can be stated but the `terms’ of the settlement must be kept confidential.”
After closely reading the proposed confidentiality clause, Yeh wrote to Sell to say that one might interpret it to forbid the Citizen from identifying the AP or Higbee and Associate or citing other clauses in the agreement. Asked his opinion on this, Sell responded on January 7, “I find your challenges questionable as we have settled thousands of cases involving, at least hundreds of attorney[s] and also dozens if not hundreds of news organizations yet you — alone — are confused. Perhaps you should seek counsel rather than asking the victim’s attorney for clarification.“
PicRights is not the only so-called copyright compliance resolution agency, but it is one of the largest and most controversial. The firm got started as an office above a Swiss grocery, scouring the Internet for photos used without crediting or paying the creator or whomever owns the rights to the images. PicRights is based in the Swiss town of Pfäffikon in the canton of Schwyz, near Zurich, with offices in London and many other European cities, Australia, South America, Canada and the United States where it was first incorporated in 2016. Among its clients listed on its website are AP, Reuters, Agence France-Presse or AFP, the Canadian Press, Nature Picture Library, Mirrorpix, Paris Match, La Presse and King Features,
In recent years, PicRights has come under criticism for the way they do business. A 2020 Medium article by Shannon Rawlings accused PicRights of exacerbating disputes that could have been resolved easily, focusing on small publishers without access to legal counsel and harassing independent journalists. “They are very persistent, sending incessant letters and emails warning they will take legal action unless you get in contact to `resolve’ the infringement,” Rawlings wrote. Though PicRights cannot sue for damages, it can refer claims to law firms and in the United States, Higbee and Associates is its main legal counsel, according to the article.
Another online article by Caroline Fox, a lawyer in Maryland and Virginia, says that while PicRights is not a scam, “they are not always truthful or forthcoming.” While the company does have legitimate clients like AP, Fox wrote that from her personal experience, PicRights sometimes demands and collects fees on behalf of a photographer without an explicit engagement. “Additionally, in my professional experience, I’ve had instances where PicRights and/or the representatives at Higbee and Associates do not possess the rights they allege,” she wrote in the article posted in 2024 on her law firm’s website.
The Citizen has avoided publishing about this issue and fundraising campaigns while the dispute with PicRights was unresolved. Its bank account fell to a few hundred dollars during this time. Now that we have resolved this, we can inform our readers of this situation. We hope that you will be able to answer to our fundraising appeals so that we may continue to bring you information you can only get from the Sierra County Citizen. An anonymous donor has already paid the fee to Higbee and Associates so your donations will be wholly used for operating expenses.
Oh man, it’s worth almost ANY price to have received and now publish Sell’s Jan 7th quote that illustrates what parasites he and his “operation” they are! 😀
Too bad you can’t embolden it in RED!
Any way we can post your article in Sell’s hometown? 😈