I got this email yesterday:

Greetings,

I am an acquisitions editor with Publications International, Ltd., a Chicago-area book publisher. A few years ago, we published a large format, lavishly illustrated work entitled The World's Greatest Landmarks. This tribute to mankind's creativity included images ranging from Stonehenge in England to Chichen Itza in Mexico. We strove to showcase examples from every people and culture, that our readers could share in the beauty and majesty of the planet's inhabitants.

The reason I'm writing to you is that we are launching on-line versions of many of our books, in association with Howstuffworks.com. This website operates as an information resource, where educators and other web-surfers can come to glean data on an array of topics as broad as your imagination. Each article is hyper-linked to others, so that the casual visitor may find themselves far afield from their starting point by the time they're finished. The point of all of this is to broaden the horizons of visitors, exposing them to topics and subjects that they might not ordinarily seek out on their own.

I came across your website while doing a photo search for Christ the Redeemer in Rio. I found your images and recognized immediately the suitability for our World's Greatest Landmarks article. I am therefore requesting permission from you to place an image of the aerial view on the Internet along with our descriptive text. Your photo will be captioned with your name and a direct link to your web site. ( Please note that your photo will only appear as low-resolution images.)

We are not at this time in position to compensate contributors monetarily, but have found many willing donors who will happily accept a hyper-link to their own websites, recognizing the exposure that connecting to Howstuffworks.com will offer them. I hope that you will find this acceptable.

Please let me know if this would work for you at your earliest convenience. I am available via phone or e-mail to answer any questions you may have, so please don't hesitate to contact me if you wish. Thank you and I very much look forward to your reply!

Cordially,

Robert Rodriguez
Acquisitions Editor
Publications International, Ltd
847-583-4540

should i let him? I'm not actually a photographer, i just took some pictures when i was in rio and put them on flickr. Is he ripping me off by not paying me?