The COPYTRACK saga — a cautionary tale (about a very likely scam!)
Disclaimer (30-Jun-2023): In this blog post, I am sharing my personal experience with COPYTRACK. If you were contacted by COPYTRACK, your own mileage may vary — use your common sense when dealing with them and make sure not to infringe anyone’s rightful copyrights. But my personal experience dealing with COPYTRACK was very negative, so I needed to share it, in case other people are approached in the same way like I was. —Ani
On 16-Feb-2023, the following email landed in my inbox — excerpts are below, but I also provide a link to the full email.
“Authorization request / Unauthorized image use – Case no: 5D9BEC
We, COPYTRACK, are writing to you on behalf of our client WENN Rights International Ltd, whose license and image rights, limited to the territory of the
Federal Republic of Germany, we are here to protect – abroad this is done by our local lawyer partners. Our customer has informed us that molif is obviously using an image without permission and has exclusively commissioned us with the clarification, administration of the image rights and, if necessary, the enforcement of any copyright infringement. Images are protected by copyright law and infringements are actionable under national and international law. Please see the attachment below for details. On behalf of our client, we must first determine if you have a valid license to use the
images in question. If you have a valid license to use these images, please reply to this email and include proof of purchase and any other license information. Please respond to this letter no later than February 23, 2023. If this is not the case, your use of the image material most likely constitutes a copyright infringement on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany – abroad, our local lawyer partners will check this – and you would then be legally obligated to compensate our customer for the damage caused by this copyright infringement. […]3 STEPS TO SOLVING YOUR CASE
In order to resolve this case amicably with you, we request your cooperation. Please complete the following steps to close this case:
1. Check // Review the evidence on this case by going to https://portal.copytrack.com and entering CASE ID 5D9BEC
2. Proof // Show us proof of your license by uploading it, and if it is valid, we will close your case immediately;
If you do not have a valid license:
3. Compensation/License // Your publication on molif.comYou now have the following 2 options:
Option 1: Purchase of a subsequent image license (includes past and future use for one year after purchase).
Option 2: Compensation (includes the previous use and requires the immediate deletion of the image).
Image license (valid for 1 year from date of purchase): 132.79 €
Compensation costs (past usage): 110.00 €
Payment is due by: March 16, 2023″
This is the first email from COPYTRACK — click the image for full view. And there was also an attachment. (Note: Here and in the next few places where I am quoting emails, all email documents are provided in PDF format.)
And a week later another automatic reminder arrived from COPYTRACK. I was puzzled. Did I “steal” someone’s copyrighted work? Not likely, as I am usually very careful with these things — I always give credit where credit is due, I check other people content’s licenses, and I know a fair bit about fair use.
“In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, […] a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an infringement.”
—What Is Fair Use? (Standford University)
These two blog posts of mine were quite old, I needed to check what is this postcard image that I used in them approximately 16 years ago:
I have discussed this with Michel and we decided to politely respond to the COPYTRACK email, and meanwhile to try to find as much information as possible about the original image that I used — this was my reply, dated 24-Feb-2023. Right after sending my email, a quick automated reply landed in my inbox. And a bit later that same day, lo and behold! a human from COPYTRACK replied and offered a payment “reduction” — “only” 50 EUR to be paid:
“We understand that the circumstances make it difficult for you to pay the outstanding sum, which is why we decided to come to an agreement with you. We have lowered the compensation costs to 50€.”
Wow 50 euro, sounds like a bargain after the first email where we were offered to pay a total of over 240 euro (!) as a “compensation” for copyright damages and future use of this image and the such. Right?
Well maybe. But when using this postcard image, did I break the copyright of WENN Rights International Ltd? Or did I not?
Puzzle purse Valentine card from c. 1790 that is part of The Postal Museum’s collection. This photograph of the card was taken by a museum photographer in 2011, it is courtesy of the Postal Museum and is used here with permission.
First things first, I needed to find out who keeps the original and who made the photo of this old postcard! A half an hour or so of research lead me to the Postal Museum in London — apparently the postcard was dated 1790 (!) and was part of the museum’s collection. Michel quickly emailed the museum this same Friday (24-Feb-2023) and we started waiting…
The first reply from the museum shared nothing definitive but gave us some hope. The postcard was indeed in the museum’s collection! No, they were not sure who possibly owned the copyright for it.
But on Monday (27-Feb-2023) Michel received a new email from a Senior Archivist from the Postal Museum, with lots and lots of interesting information in it! Among other things:
“Copytrack sent us a similar message last year since the image is also on a blog on The Postal Museum’s website.
I responded by telling them: ‘This image is of a puzzle purse Valentine card from c.1790 that is part of The Postal Museum’s collection (https://catalogue.postalmuseum.org/collections/getrecord/GB813_OB1995_263). The photograph was taken by a photographer employed by the museum in 2011 so I am at a loss to see how the image is copyrighted by Wenn Rights International Ltd.’
I did not receive any further communications. […]
I hope that answers your questions but please get in touch if you want more information.
Best wishes,
***
Senior Archivist
The Postal Museum | 15-20 Phoenix Place | London WC1X 0DA”
We exchanged a couple of other shorter emails with the super-helpful people from the Postal Museum but one thing became more and more clear — there was no way some obscure German company (WENN Rights International Ltd.) could be the rightful holder of the copyright for this antique postcard and another obscure German company (COPYTRACK GmbH) to threaten me with fees and judicial procedures while allegedly representing WENN Ltd.! This postcard was in the Postal Museum’s collection for decades and it was photographed by the photographer of the museum — how could some company pretend to own the copyright for this card, unless this company was some kind of a… scam enterprise?
“Armed” with this new knowledge, I emailed COPYTRACK on 27-Feb-2023 and asked a few important questions.
In addition, I now also had the official permission from the Postal Museum to use their photo of the postcard in my blog, by quoting the postcard’s source. I edited my two blog posts and everything was alright. Turns out that all these years I haven’t broken anyone’s copyright (of course) and I wasn’t breaking it now either.
The next day (28-Feb-2023) I received a new reply from COPYTRACK:
“In a few days, I will send you an ownership confirmation. And in the meantime, can you please send me the letter that you have mentioned in the point 3.”
No, thanks. “In a few days” does not work for me. I replied again and said that for now I will not submit a copy of our correspondence with the Postal Museum and that I require a proof that COPYTRACK indeed owns the copyright for a postcard that is kept in the Postal Museum for decades (!) and which was photographed by the Postal Museum photographer. And a bit later, I asked again for a proof. (I am still waiting btw, but there’s radio silence on the other end — see next.)
And suddenly! I received a new (which was also the last) email from COPYTRACK — after this email I haven’t heard from them again.
“Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for your message.
We have reviewed the information you have provided us and decided to close the claim.
Thank you for your kind cooperation.
Best regards, etc. […]”
This is the last email that I received from COPYTRACK — click the image for a full view.
***
To sum this story up:
Have you received a threatening email from COPYTRACK? (Or from a similar “copyright hunting” company?)
If you did, don’t rush into replying to them, or worse — immediately sending them money!
First, investigate! Ask yourself a few important questions:
– Do you own the copyright for some piece of content hosted on your website? Perhaps you bought a license years ago (and have a proof of it), or maybe you have the permission of the original copyright holder? Or maybe the original content is licensed using some form of CC license which gives you right to re-use the content? Or maybe the content is in the Public Domain?
– It’s also possible that you don’t have any of the above yet you have used the content in accordance to the Fair Use policy.
– Don’t be intimidated. The company that threatens you, do they have a proof that they really own the copyright for this piece of content? Ask them and insist on proof.
In my case, not only WENN Ltd. could not have any real copyright claims over a postcard held in the Postal Museum’s collection (so they were either mistaken or were plain lying?) but also all these years I have used the postcard image according to the fair use rules and later I have also received an official permission from the nice people from the Postal Museum to use an even better version of the photograph of this antique postcard.
By doing some investigation first I saved myself a lot of trouble, a few hundred euro, and basically falling into some shady scam scheme.
Because yes, in this specific case there is 100% certainty that I was a potential victim of an online scam, so I absolutely don’t trust the words of another blogger who said:
“You are likely here because you have just received an email from a company called Copytrack claiming that you have used stolen images on your website. They want you to pay damages for this. It is natural to be skeptical of this email, the internet is a bit of a wild west at times. Is this letter a legitimate threat and should you do anything about it? The answer is yes, Copytrack are a legitimate business.”
A “legitimate business” would never try to extort money from you (or from the Postal Museum of London!) claiming copyright ownership over a postcard that is in the possession of the Postal Museum and when you start asking questions, suddenly to back up, to stop replying to emails and say “we closed the case”.
There are also multiple user reviews of COPYTRACK that confirm our suspicion that this is a very shady business — unverified copyright claims, money extortion, threats, multiple attempts to get money for the same piece of content, and worse:
“This company is a complete scam. Without doing any verification, they send automated messages to companies claiming that images on their websites infringes on third parties rights.”
“This is a scam company. I got an email to pay a licensing fee because I was supposedly using some photographers image. And yes, I did use the image which I paid for on DepositPhotos website. I have a subscription there for years. Also, went and checked the image is still there for anyone to download to and is for editorial use, meaning can be used on blogs, news article or websites for descriptive purposes which I did.”
“They sent us an e-mail saying that we had to pay to use a photo that belongs to WENN Rights International Ltd. The problem is that this photo does not belong to this company. WENN adds photos to its database under a free license, or very old photos from inactive websites. First, they add such a photo to their database, and then Copytrack sends claims for its use. It’s their way of making money.”
“They are clowns. They asked me 300 euros for a photo saying that the rights were Wenn’s, when in fact the photo was owned by Getty Images (bought by me on their site).”
“Same as others here, told I was using an image owned by some German medical company. Image is from Wikipedia Commons, in the public domain (!) and originally put up by the US Center for Disease Control. They want over 2000 euro for a ‘license’ and a further 2000 euro for past usage. Just ignore them.”
—source: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.copytrack.com
Don’t fall for it! Do your investigation first and if your conscience is clear, don’t be afraid to dispute COPYTRACKS’s claims.
Thanks for writing this. I got one of these from a post from 5 years ago. Came across as a TOTAL scam. The say it is for images from a look book which is used to promote a well known designers collection. So being on my blog it is basically are free advertising. I addition I included a link to send people to Vogue.com to see more of the images from the collection as I did not post all of them. The images themselves were created and owned by the designer/label and are used to promote the collection. I do not know any designers/companies that don’t want free advertising LOL.
But, thanks again.
I received 2 emails from CopyTrack. I am sorry but something has to be done about them. They have to be sued at some point. We cover tech products. It’s a tech news sites. We post product images from Kickstarter and tech businesses that want us to promote their business. WENN, on two occasions now has copyrighted them (without the permission of the artist) and goes after tech blogs. First time, I got the owner to contact CopyTrack and they dropped it. This time, the copyright owner is furious and wants to sue WENN.
So let me get this straight: I owe these people I know nothing about $300 for a Kickstarter product image that was sent to us as a media kit but this “legitimate” business CopyTrack didn’t do the most basic due diligence to make sure they had the right copyright owner? How is this allowed? How is going to compensate us for all the time we spent as a business tracking down some 6 year old project to make sure we were in the clear?
Thank you for this! One of my clients just received an identical email today from them! After looking into it, pretty sure we paid Deposit photos or Dreamstime images to use it but I didn’t scroll through 3500 images we have used to be sure. Now I know they are likely a scam and I feel much better.
Hi there,
I’m a small business owner that had my website built a long while ago and have also just been receiving constant emails from this company so I have been in contact with the Australian cyber security who has informed me to seek guidance from the Australian copyright council.
I have just received this email and I’m feeling relieved that this is possibly just a scam.
Thank you
Kind regards,
Deb
Beware of Copytrack.com (GmbH). They wrote to me in June 2023 about one image that I had posted on my website legitimately. Unfortunately, I did not keep the documentation to prove that I had paid for the image — the documentation vanished when I changed computers. As a law-abiding person, I paid Copytrack 260 euros compensation for use of the image, because I no longer had the documents to prove that I had paid for the licence to use the image. I made the 260 euros payment via Copytrack’s website; their system acknowledged that the payment had been received and that the issue had been settled. Two days later Copytrack emailed me demanding proof of payment. I sent them a copy of their own acknowledgment of the payment. They emailed again and again and again, demanding the same. I sent them an extract of my credit card statement showing the payment had been made and received. They emailed again saying they could not trace the payment and demanding further proof. It would seem that they are trying to get multiple payments for the one case in question. I warned them not to contact me again or else I will report them to the police.
Conclusion: Copytrack are HIGHLY UNPROFESSIONAL. Either they are GROSSLY INCOMPETENT, semi-literate and semi-numerate (or innumerate), or they are scammers. I deeply regret paying them anything. I should have ignored them.
Today (they emailed again despite me asking them not to) I will report them to the police for harassment and will pass any more emails from them to the police.
Thanks for writing this, we have just received a letter – for an image that isn’t even on our blog! Thanks for all the comments sharing your experience too.
This will help us to formulate a response!
I am dealing with them over an image that was licensed from Getty Images for an event by a community organization. I published an article on the event and used their images. Years ago. Recently I got a letter from Copyscam or Copytrack asking for proof of the license and they said they represented Imagebank and I had to pay $900 for the image. The photographer on Imagebank has this picture in his collection of images that he is “licensing”. Online there are several sites offering this picture for license. But only the Getty owns the copyright for the image. I found out that Copyscam gives the photographer 30% of what they collect. If I can’t prove I have a license then anyone of the several sites who has the license can go after you. So there is a whole business around people downloading images, calling themselves a licensing business and hiring copyscam to go after people. It has become a total scammy business. I wonder how they can prove I took the picture from their site. Either way I can prove the picture was purchased from the Getty not Imagebank. But jeeeez loueeeeze!!
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Can I give the other side of the picture here? I use Copytrack to pursue copyright violations because I have a real problem with people using my images without permission. Even when they are pursued they often either ignore the request for payment or try to pretend that they own the image themselves.
I think the problem is that Copytrack has some rogue clients who get them to pursue claims in respect of images they don’t own the rights to. They need to deal with those clients as well as with the people who are stealing images.
Hi, I like that someone comes with different perspective on the matter and I am happy to hear that you had positive experience. But when I read the room, you are, sadly, an exception, so obviously one spring bird cannot make COPYTRACK’s modus operandi clean or right. I also had many of my original images and photos used without permission or “stolen”, but I wouldn’t even think of choosing the services of a shady company to defend my rights.
No this has all the hallmarks of a scam. Find some years old image that no one can even remember and ask for money straight up and threaten legal action that has never happened. This is straight out of the copybook of a crowd called The Expo Guide which did the same sort of things but with fake listings. Normal activity in todays environment would be to ask any offender to take the image down and only then say they may pursue legal action if not. Always be suspicious if someone immediately wants 100s of euros.
So what’s best then? Ignore their emails?
We’ve received one of these emails about a scanning electron micrograph that we took ourselves!!
They picked the image up from our own website which only has our images and micrographs on it!!! What a bloody cheek. We will be ignoring this email. I will not waste my time replying with proof of our copyright to a scammer. I can’t believe how ignorant and brazen faced they are!!
i have also received 3 emails from them over the last 2 weeks, concerning an image that i literally drew myself by hand as a teenager, and later used (about 15 years ago) for the artwork on a 7′ vinyl single.
i’m not going to reply to them, who knows where that will lead but i obviously know 100% it’s not true!
I can’t say if this is the best route but there are 100s of stories that would suggest they are total crooks.
sharing this incase it helps put anyone’s mind at rest..
We received a similar email. The image in question was from another news website that had placed a (c) on the image we used on our website. I’m not logging into the copytrack website, and just emailed them to let them know that someone else was claiming copyright.
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I’m documenting my own experience. Definitely linking back to your post. As it was the most detailed.
Also, you appear as the second result when searching for “WENN Rights International Ltd” – Excellent!
So far I am putting back on Copytrack the responsibility of providing proof of ownership and went directly to Wenn’s site to contact them. I got a response asking for the case number so they could contact Copytrack to remove it. Then Copytrack sent out a second claim on the same image before I could respond to Ween.
Thank you so much for putting this out.
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Thanks for documenting this about your interactions with CopyTrack. I was recently confronted by their claims/accusations, and found your blog in my research about them. This was very helpful in informing how I dealt with them as well. Their claims to an image I knew they did not own the exclusive rights to, that we had legally purchased a license to use, then their demands that we produce proof by a certain deadline, which we did, all struck me as scam styled. They finally backed down after I threatened them with legal action like they had threatened me with. Case closed.
Thank you again for exposing them. Your experiences served as a template for how we dealt with them as well.
*UPDATE 4/2/24:
We received another email today 4/2 stating “We, C*PYTRACK, are writing to you a second time on behalf of our client” but it was actually their THIRD time sending us an email. I am not replying or clicking any links in their email although I’m sure they have a tracker that shows if the email was viewed.
*UPDATE 3/25/24:
We received another email today 3/25 repeating the same exact information as the first email. I am not replying or clicking any links in their email although I’m sure they have a tracker that shows if the email was viewed.
*INITIAL CONTACT 3/17/24:
We also received the scam email today 3/17 from this company for an image that we legally licensed from a stock photo company. We have the receipt saved and the purchase is still linked and available through the stock site.
We will not be replying based on all of the feedback we received from this post on Trustpilot regarding the scamming nature of this company.
I’m pleased to have come across this because as scams go this one made me sit up and take notice. It’s well-constructed and appears to come from a company that exists (how they get away with this is another question). I noticed that previous comments refer to Copytrack representing WENN. Mine was different. It arrived today (1st May 2024) stating:
We, COPYTRACK, are writing to you on behalf of our client CONCEPT-PRODUCTION, who has assigned us the monitoring and protection of their licenses and image rights globally.
UPDATE 13 May 2024
Despite being given 11th May as the deadline for my response (I didn’t) I’ve heard nothing since. I can only assume it follows the typical path of many scams which is to add a sense of urgency. If ignored, it goes away.
Our corp comm received a fake notice from copytrack even though our use of photo was legit. Thanks to your post (and others) we were able to determine that it was an online scam. We immediately alerted colleagues not to respond or click any link. Thank you very much to everyone for posting their stories here. Your information helped us.
Copyrltrack have contacted me in an aggressive manner about images I have used that I was the photographer for. This is clearly stated. This should go to Interpol or the Herman Police if they are firing out these emails around the world. It’s a dangerous scam.
I was also hit with a copyright claim from Copytrack on behalf of WENN Rights International. I asked for evidence of copyright and they sent a website screenshot and a legal document representing a contract between WENN Rights International and Copytrack. So no evidence of copyright ownership other than a website screenshot … Since I had obtained the original image from a photographer on Facebook and used his image in a factual report of an incident, I did so under assumption of fair use and gave full attribution to the photographer and a link to his Facebook profile. Copytrack never addressed the issue of fair use but just kept demanding money so I contacted the photographer. He had received other messages from people also being pursued by Copytrack. He has no relationship or contract with WENN Rights International so the claim is false.
Today I received an email accusing me of using an image without permission. I downloaded the image from a website, the theme was coffee, I did not think that by uploading the image I would have problems. I never saw any copyright warning when I downloaded the picture. Now Copy Track is asking me for 380 Euros compensation for the use of that picture on my website. I haven’t replied to any of the mail yet.
Same here, I have just received today one of these emails on behalf- apparently of another company called ‘yayimages” for a picture I bought in a bundle with rights from a stock photo vendor some years ago. I was worried at first, as they seem legit, that I didn’t know if I had any rights documentation as it was so long ago.
But it sounds like it doesn’t matter and they are chancers. I already replied saying it was bought from a stock photo vendor so too late to ignore completely but thanks for sharing.
I wonder perhaps if a lot of small businesses just pay up.
There’s also an interesting article here: https://www.rmndigital.com/germany-must-prosecute-marcus-schmitt-of-copytrack-for-running-worldwide-cyber-extortion-racket
Has anyone tried asking Copytrack for money for wasting your time?
I have received the same letter for an image used on a blogpost written in 2012! I definitely would have bought the image because I always pay for stock images. But I would no longer have records going back nearly 13 years! I plan to ignore any further correspondence.
Over the 23 years we have been in business I have received these letters from various companies every now and again. Once it was for using my own photo! Scammers who prey on small businesses.
Thanks for writing this up. I googled is Copytrack a scam and got here. Indeed the picture that they purport is illegal is an Adobe stock photo. Sigh.
If you use copyrighted material, either get approval or purchase the rights. At the very least, attribute the image owner by crediting them and making clear the property is not yours. You can take it even a step further by instructing any concerned party to contact you and the material will be removed immediately.
If this was truly a matter of litigation, you should receive such notice by registered mail with signature of service (of course this is dependent on jurisdiction). Asking for compensation without any proceedings is simply that, “asking”. If you sway and agree to their threatening sales pitch (or scam), there is nothing Interpol can do for you.
COPYTRACK’s website, logo, emails and overall presentation looks quite sophisticated and impressive. But, underneath it all, it stinks of a simple scam.
Stay vigilant.