Need some actual advice on "copyrighted" pics

I run a recipes/food account. Nearly 99% of pics are from somewhere else. I usually write in the caption the websites. Like "Photo belongs to XXX.com". While the recipes, i'd tell them to go to my site to check it (most were either copied or re-written).

But now, one stupid teenie girl, who runs a recipe site in my niche decided my account was not okay and has emailed virtually ALL the owners of pictures and recipes that I have ever posted and I'm being flooded with "take down" emails.

I have put my entire site offline and set the Instagram account to private (so whenever I see some account from my niche asking to follow, I block).

This girl, however, had no reason to this, other than probably pure envy as I have nearly 20x the amount of followers she has (and I haven't even EVER used any photo or recipe of hers).

My advice was actually if putting site offline and setting IG account to private was the best thing to do.

What can I do to save this business? It has made, just in the last two months, almost $1000 spread through CB commissions, Adsense and Paid shoutouts.

If you re-write recipies then how can they prove anything? Recipies are not unique. As for the images, can't you change them for royalty free ones from google images or pixabay? You don't say how many you have

blogzandstuff said:

If you re-write recipies then how can they prove anything? Recipies are not unique. As for the images, can't you change them for royalty free ones from google images or pixabay? You don't say how many you have

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Have you ever seen royalty-free images for recipes? They're plain ugly. You can't hardly find one looking decent. In the website over 150 recipes. In the instagram page, over 300 posts.

vini said:

Have you ever seen royalty-free images for recipes? They're plain ugly. You can't hardly find one looking decent. In the website over 150 recipes. In the instagram page, over 300 posts.

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Buy a camera and start taking your own photos of food, or hire somebody to do it.
Obviously a professional photographer will be expensive for this project but you might find an amateur or hobbyist who will do it at lower cost.

unfortunately i have and agree with you LOL, if you have given a link back to the original owner of the image then i'll doubt if they'll sue you.
I'd contact the original owners a say you are linking to them and someone who is in direct competition with you is trying to start trouble.
Maybe she is doing it to more than just you