No. It's evidence that something was lost, but not a measure of the actual damages you suffered. Whose to say if you lost $100 or $100k? In the absence of the lost material there's most likely no way to demonstrate anything.
In this case some sort of statutory deterrent would probably be a much more effective solution. I honestly doubt that regulation is a good solution here though - bugs like this are so severe from a PR perspective that there's already a huge incentive to avoid them.
Even with the images who's to say the images are $100 or $100k?
Microsoft paid "low six figures" for Bliss (the Windows XP desktop background) but only $300 ($45 to the photographer) for Autumn (a different desktop background)[1].
If you get physically injured and you successfully sue how do they determine the damages to award you? There isn't a dollar amount for physical pain. They can't test an alternate future where you aren't injured and see how much money you make. They just make up estimates. It would be the same here; they would estimate the monetary and emotional damage of losing the pictures.
My impression of the SOP of those organisations, which I stress is based entirely on online hearsay so may be wildly inaccurate, is that they write to someone who they suspect has probably ripped something illegally, make a song and dance about the huge statutory damages that can potentially be awarded (under US law), and then rely on the fact that defending a suit will also (under US law) probably cost them thousands even if they win, so settling may work out cheaper even if they really have done nothing wrong?
The analogous organisations don't tend to try that kind of stunt here in the UK. Unless the copyright infringement is criminal, in a civil action our legal system currently only provides for actual damages to be awarded, and it's usual for the winning party to be awarded their legal fees at the loser's expense.
So unless there are some kind of statutory/punitive damages available for each lost photo in a case like this, it doesn't seem to be a comparable situation.
