If I'd received such a letter and suspected it might be genuine, I would look them up somewhere (outside of the internet, preferably) and give them a call.

Sounds like a scam. How was both the envelope and letter addressed? To you personally or one of those general Dear Sir/Madam things. Also, given the fact they did not specify which copyrighted item, I again suspect scam. Better to err on the side of caution and not respond. At the very least, you may want to do some research on the company.

Marshall

Amazingly, one of the spammiest sounding letters I've ever received in my life appears to be for real. I did call them and everything seems to be legitimate.

My content was apparently photocopied in another country not bound by U.S. copyright laws - none of which was explained in the original letter from the Copyright Clearance Center.

It is ironic that an organization involved with literary works would send out a letter that made no sense whatsoever to anyone lacking detailed expertise on international copyright treaties, which I would assume would be the majority of the population.

For more info check out:
[copyright.com...]

Yes, I heard from them recently too. I had some foreign photocopying--actually sounds like some countries have an interesting system. When materials are photocopied (probably through libraries or academic institutions) a fee is charged and passed on to a clearing house. Whether they actually track individual articles or just apportion shares in some way I don't know.

The letter was sent by their accounting department and indeed it lacked details, but it was a form letter. How much detail should we expect them to provide? Providing more detail would take them more time, which costs money, which is money spent on overhead and this NOT distributed to copyright holders.

They seem to have found me via a whois lookup.

I had an interesting email discussion with one of their customer service people and have also signed on for them to handle other kinds of copying or licensed use of materials on my site. Not likely that this will generate much income, but you never know.

Maybe they purposely make it look scam like hoping you throw it away and never collect the money.

Maybe they purposely make it look scam like hoping you throw it away and never collect the money.

It appears they send you a royalty check for the money whether you want it or not. :) The tax form is to avoid backup withholding tax on your royalty check. But they don't tell you how much you are getting, so you might be taking the time to fill out the form and send it back to them for 25 cents.