Copytrack Is Asking for €500 for a Photo? Read This Before You Pay
Copytrack charged a Slovenian company €510 for a single photo on its website. A lawyer’s letter challenging both Copytrack’s authority and the amount claimed brought the matter to a halt. Here is what to check, what not to do, and how to avoid letters like this altogether.
The letter is in English, carries the logo of a German company, a claim number and a German IBAN. It says you used a photo on your website without a licence and owe €500. If you don’t pay within a few days, the case will be handed over to lawyers and you will incur “significant costs”.
A few years ago, one of our clients, a construction company, received exactly this kind of letter. In the end, they did not pay €500. How we handled it is worth knowing for any business with a website that has a blog or a references page.
What Copytrack is and how it works
Copytrack is a Berlin-based company that tracks unauthorised use of images online on behalf of photographers and photo agencies. Its software compares images in its database with images on websites and, when it finds a match, sends the website owner a demand for a retroactive licence fee.
This is not a scam. Photographs are protected by copyright, and the Slovenian Copyright and Related Rights Act (ZASP) also allows authors to claim payment for unauthorised use. The real questions are different: is the claim justified, and is the amount proportionate?
The amounts in these letters are often calculated using German photo pricing tables and are many times higher than what you would pay for the same image in a stock photo library. Other companies, such as Pixsy and PicRights, work in a similar way.
Our case: €510 for a single photo
At the end of January 2022, our client received a payment reminder from Copytrack. They demanded €500 for publishing the photo plus €10 in reminder fees, payable within a few days.
The photo had been published alongside one of the articles on the company’s website. It showed a modern brick house, a generic subject of the kind you can find by the thousand in stock libraries. It later turned out that it had been taken by a British photographer and had also appeared on a foreign home-building website.
We removed the image immediately. We then consulted a lawyer, who sent Copytrack a letter on the client’s behalf.
What the lawyer’s letter said
The letter was neither an apology nor a promise to pay. It raised questions that anyone demanding money from you should be able to answer.
Who holds the rights?
Copytrack’s letter did not state who the author or copyright holder of the photo was. Without that information, there is no way to check whether the claim even exists.
Is Copytrack authorised to act?
No power of attorney from the rights holder was attached. The lawyer pointed out that the client could not respond to someone who had not shown that they were entitled to represent the author.
The letter was not signed
In the lawyer’s view, an unsigned reminder carries no legal weight.
The amount does not reflect the photo’s value
This was the key argument. Even if there had been an infringement, the €500 demanded bore no relation to the actual value of the image. A generic photo of a building costs a few euros online. The letter cited a figure of around €3.
Why German pricing?
None of the parties had any connection to Germany. The client is a Slovenian company and the photographer is British. The lawyer therefore asked on what basis the value had been calculated using German standards.
The letter concluded that the client would not pay the amount demanded.
How it ended
Copytrack did not pursue the claim any further. For a while, the case remained on their portal with a note saying it had been passed to a legal partner, but nobody got in touch after that. The client did not pay €500.
That does not mean every case will end the same way. But it shows that a well-reasoned reply is often a better option than paying straight away or ignoring the letter.
What to do if you receive a letter like this
- Don’t pay straight away. The deadline is short precisely so that you pay without thinking it through.
- Check whether the image really is on your website and where it came from. Look for an invoice, a stock library licence or the source on a free image platform.
- Remove the image, but take screenshots of the claim and the page first.
- Ask for evidence: who the author is, whether Copytrack has a power of attorney, and since when the image has been on your website.
- Compare the amount with the market price. Check what a similar image costs in a stock library.
- Consult a lawyer. A single letter can cost considerably less than €500 and, above all, it will be written in a way that doesn’t harm your position.
What not to do
Don’t discuss the case over the phone before you have checked it. Statements such as “we have a licence” or “we’ll pay” can come back to haunt you. Handle everything in writing.
Don’t ignore the letter. A foreign company can pass the claim on to lawyers or a Slovenian partner, and the costs may rise.
Don’t claim you have a licence if you don’t. A false statement can hurt you more than the image itself.
How to avoid letters like this
The cheapest dispute is the one that never happens. A few rules we follow on every website we manage:
- Don’t take images from Google Images or other websites. Just because an image is available online doesn’t mean you are allowed to use it.
- Keep proof of your licences. With Adobe Stock or any other stock library, save your download and licence history, ideally together with a note of where each image is used.
- Be careful with free image libraries. Pixabay and Unsplash are useful, but users occasionally upload other people’s photos there. For important images, use TinEye or Google Lens to check whether the same image appears elsewhere.
- Use your own photos whenever you can. For a construction company, photos of its own projects also sell better. Customers want to see your façade, not someone else’s house in England.
- Review the images when you take over an old website. Many problematic images stay on sites that were managed by someone else years ago.
In short
A Copytrack letter is no reason to panic, but it is a reason to take it seriously. Check whether the claim is justified, who is making it and whether the amount is proportionate. In our case, a €500 claim for a generic photo that was removed immediately was resolved by asking the right questions in the right form.
This article describes our own case and is not legal advice. Every case is different, so consult a lawyer before responding to a claim.
Frequently asked questions
No. Copytrack is a German company that tracks unauthorised use of images online on behalf of photographers and agencies and collects payments. Still, it makes sense to check whether each individual claim is justified and whether the amount is proportionate.
Not straight away. First check whether the image is really on your website, where it came from, who holds the rights and whether Copytrack has a power of attorney. The amounts demanded are often many times the market price of the image, so consult a lawyer.
We don’t recommend it. The claim can be passed on to lawyers or debt collection partners, and the costs may rise. It is better to reply in writing with clear arguments.
Removing it is essential, but it does not undo the infringement retroactively. It does, however, help show good faith and strengthens your position when negotiating the amount. Take a screenshot before you remove it.
Mostly yes, but users occasionally upload other people’s photos there. For important images, use TinEye or Google Lens to check whether the same image appears elsewhere, and save a link to the source.
Yes. Copytrack is a registered company based in Berlin, Germany. It works on behalf of photographers and photo agencies and is not a law firm itself. When a claim is not paid, it hands the case over to partner law firms or collection agencies.
Copytrack uses image recognition software that crawls websites and compares images with those uploaded by its clients. That is why letters often arrive years after an image was published, frequently for images on old blog posts or pages nobody maintains anymore.
Usually you receive reminders, and the case may then be passed to a partner law firm or a collection agency in your country, which adds costs. In the case described in this article, a lawyer’s reasoned written reply brought the claim to a halt. Not replying at all is the riskier option.
Send proof: the invoice, the licence number or your download history from the stock library. If the licence covers your use, the claim should be closed. If the image came from a free platform such as Unsplash or Pixabay, send the link and the date of download. This shows good faith, even though it does not always end the claim if the uploader did not own the rights.
