UK lawyers are above law or out of law ?

Today, I discovered an amazing thing about the misuse of pictures downloaded illegally on Dreamstime.

By a sudden curiosity, I installed a plugin on my internet explorer to search my photos on the internet. After some research, I came across a site called ELSA, an association of lawyers based in London. I left them a message to remind them that one of their pages is using one of my photos illegally with the Dreamstime watermark without the bottom right credit informations.

What do you think they gave in response to my message on their contact page? I am shocked to read the answer to a bunch of LAWYERS they loudly proclaim to be.

Here below is their answer :

1) We are a bunch of law students who are unpaid and run the site purely for educational purposes. No money is made from the site. The photo was of the International Court of Law in the Hague. It was used to illustrate a FREE international law lecture given by XX. I case you don't know - he is one on your photo.

The underlines of this point is, I do not make money with your belonging, your belonging is free for me. The fact that you are on the editorial photograph means for this bunch of lawyer, it belong to the models.

2) We are based in the UK so it might be more sensible if you had threatened us EU or English law.

I understood that the EU or English law is out of law. They can do whatever they want. They are untouchable.

3) Nowhere does anyone lay claim to your photo! As already pointed out ... WE ARE LAW STUDENTS. We would never do this.

None of them claims to be the owner of the photograph but they use it illegally. They can use any photo for free as long as they do not claim as the author.

4) Now that we know the owner of the image - we would have been happy to give you credit. As far as we were aware, the image was free for use for non profit or educational purposes.

Dreamstime photographs are "free for use" worth only a credit as long as they do not make money with.

As conclusion of their answer, they give this bull s..t statement - "The image was exceedingly poor in any case" and removed the photograph. Why did they used it if they think that it is a poor image ?

To summarize my post, I must say that I am shocked to read as much silliness from these peoples who are supposed to enforce the law or the make the law later. I am not that confident for out come of these "bunch of people".