Copyright Infringment - letter received

[mrright]

I have received a standard latter from a UK picture agency stating that I used one of their photos on my website. I was confused as i was not aware.
I used a screenshot of a news website that was 200px deep and within that screenshot it showed a proportion of a photo. There was a link provided to the website that they could view the article on. It did not show any of the text of the article that I was referring to. I was discussing the news story that it was referring to in a blog article. It was showing approximately 50% of the image in question and the image was around 50% also of the total size. Meaning the proportion of the image was about 100 pixels deep. This was really a thumbnail size and fully linked to the news story.

The image is for sale in the UK on a non exclusive basis for around £14.00

Is this likely to be a copyright breach or would it likely come under fair usage ?

Thank you for any help. Im sorry this was all a little vague. It's just that i presume that this is seen and read by both sides...

[IPMatters]

Hello,

I just picked up on your story. Are you able to say what your website does pls? For eg. Is it a business?
My thoughts are that this would be considered a breach of copyright. Generally speaking you should never copy and publish anything that isn't yours or which isn't paid for under license. This applies no matter how small the image is.
Have you been given proof of ownership with the copyright notice?
Good luck with this. Make sure you remove the offending webpage. If you need more help, I will try my best to help you.
Helen