I read on Yahoo Answers in a response to someone else's question that they should check to see if a picture is registered with the copyright office. My friend just received a letter from Getty Images on copyright infringement and it is really expensive to pay. (She thought she had taken them all down but she missed this one)

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The Image itself should have the "C" for copyright placed in some part of the image. Or it might be an overlay that says Copyright and the date in years...i.e. C 2008 That is all that is needed to copyright a photo.

All Getty Images are copyrighted. (See this on thier website: All contents © copyright 1999-2008 Getty Images, Inc. All rights reserved. ) For that matter, all commerical news images are copyrighted. http://www.getty.edu/legal/copyright.html

If your friend doesn't own it, it doesn't really matter who else does. She infringed someone's copyright. These "cease and desist" letters are really to get someone to stop using the image. If she doesn't want to pay for her use of the photo, she can write back that she doesn't admit doing anything wrong, but she will stop using the photo immediately. If she then stops using it, they probably will not do anything more to her. As for registration, it doesn't have to be registered to be copyrighted. It's not hers, she knows it, she needs to stop using it.