In short: in 2019, through carelessness, I used a copyrighted photo on my own small blog. Copytrack found it, the photographer demanded €2,400, and in the end we settled the matter for $2,000 – roughly HUF 600,000. The lesson: any amount can be claimed after the fact for any image, crediting the source does not protect you, and "it was just one picture" is no excuse.
I got a Copytrack letter
In May 2019 I started a small blog that I wrote for regularly in my spare time. Good content is worth little without images, so I mainly illustrated the posts with free stock photos. And the emphasis here is on mainly: when the topic was very specific, I used Google Image Search.
On 14 October I received a letter from a company called Copytrack: they had found a copyrighted image on my blog, and I had the option of paying for the licence retrospectively, which was "only" €2,400.
I thanked them for letting me know, took the image down immediately, and told them so. The reply came quickly: a copyright infringement had indeed taken place, and either I paid or we would go to court.
What is Copytrack?
Copytrack is a Berlin-based company founded in 2015 that specialises in enforcing image copyrights. Photographers and picture agencies can upload their images to it, and Copytrack's system searches for them on the internet. If it finds one somewhere, it notifies the owner of the image; if the owner deems the use an infringement, Copytrack starts the process – adding its own share to the licence fee.
Desperation
The bottom line: I was careless and managed to put a copyrighted image into a post. A post that was opened by 107 users and generated a total of 168 page views. Unluckily for me, one of these was their bot. (The image, incidentally, was a tabloid photo of a lesser-known American actress.)
A desperate exchange of emails began between me, the company and the owner of the image. I also contacted the photographer directly, admitted that I had made a mistake, and was willing to pay a reasonable amount for the image – but not the price of a used car.
The photographer was unmoved. He was not swayed by the fact that it was a non-profit blog, nor by the fact that he was asking for more than five times the Hungarian minimum wage for 168 views.
To be clear: I was not looking for a way out. I made a mistake, and I admitted it. Had I switched on the filter for freely usable images in Google Image Search, I could have used plenty of other pictures.
What is infuriating about the story is that any amount can be claimed from you after the fact for any image.
An expensive lesson
In the end I managed to negotiate the amount down to $2,000, but I had to borrow money to pay this very expensive lesson. And I closed the blog for good.
What to watch out for when uploading images
If you upload images to any platform – a website, a blog, social media, an online store – pay close attention to the following:
- Always check whether the image is copyrighted and under what conditions you may use it.
- Use the "Usage rights" filter in Google Image Search (Tools → Usage rights → Creative Commons licences), but this is only a starting point: always check the licence at the image's original source.
- Memes are no exception: if they are based on a copyrighted image, they can be just as infringing.
- Crediting the source does not protect you: writing under the image where it came from does not mean you have been given permission to use it.
- A "free stock photo" is not always free: it happens that an image uploaded to a free site is actually copyrighted. I have read stories like that too.
- Save the licence: for purchased or freely licensed images, keep the licence terms and the download date so that you can prove lawful use.
What to do if you have also received a Copytrack letter
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice – just what I would do differently after my own case:
- Do not ignore it, but do not pay straight away out of panic either.
- Check the facts: whether the image really was on your site, when and where it was uploaded, and whether you had a licence for it. If you did, send the proof.
- Take the image down, and record how and since when it appeared on the site.
- Negotiate: the first offer is not necessarily the final amount. In my case, too, I managed to bring it down.
- For larger claims, get legal help before you sign or pay anything.
How to prevent it as a company
For a company the risk is greater, because many people upload content and a lot of images accumulate over the years. The safest solutions:
- your own photos – of products, the office, the team; these are also more authentic;
- stock images with a purchased licence, with the licence saved;
- a simple internal rule: nobody uploads images downloaded from Google Image Search;
- periodic checks: reviewing the images in old blog posts and pages, because the problem is often in content from years ago.
Feel free to share this story – I hope it reaches many bloggers and content creators.
Thank you for reading!
Csentes Zoltán
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