COPYTRACK Reviews 

Sending scam emails with false image copyright claims.

How to get them shut down:

Regulatory bodies rely on aggregate data to spot patterns of deceptive or aggressive commercial practices. If enough people report them, authorities can launch investigations.

In the UK: Report aggressive debt-collection or spurious claims practices to Trading Standards (via the Citizens Advice consumer service). If you feel their communication crosses into harassment, you can also report it to Action Fraud or the police if threats escalate.

In the EU (where Copytrack is headquartered): Complaints can be directed to European consumer protection networks or German consumer protection centers (Verbraucherzentrale), which monitor unfair business practices and misleading threats across borders.

In the US / Globally: File complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or local state Attorney General offices regarding deceptive trade practices and intimidation tactics.

Shut them down!

Scammers and copyright trolls. Nothing else. Please, don't respond to their Messages. Remember: you’re under no obligation to respond to their claims. They’re not lawyers and can’t force you to do anything.

This an aggressive organisation trawling the internet to find images they claim belong to their customers.

We have been contacted twice now over image usage that their so called 'customers' clearly have sold cheaply to the likes of monthly subscription based photolibraries like Shutterstock. Where you can download hundreds of images a month which is what we do. They are a nuisance bot driven organsation

An absolutely despicable company. They issue exorbitant demands for payment for the use of images which they think are unlicensed. In my case they identified an image on my website, which was in fact purchased from a legitimate stock company and licensed. They claimed to be representing a client who they stated was the copyright holder. When I requested proof that they were authorised to act for the client and that their client was the copyright holder they replied thet they had requested the documentation from their client. A few day s later they issued the original complaint again. I advise before responding to these people search Google for "How to deal with Copytrack" Some of this company's practices are questionable (to say the least)

Extremely frustrating experience 😡🤬

I believe they have contacted two or three companies I’ve worked with using essentially the same approach: emails claiming that random images used on websites are copyrighted and that the company needs to pay for their use.

In our case, we ignored the emails and nothing happened afterward. That was our experience, at least. The whole thing felt extremely suspicious and, honestly, like a mass-emailing operation. 😤

The images they were referring to were completely random — food images and other generic website content — which made the claims even harder to take seriously. It gave me the impression that websites are being scraped, images are identified, and then large numbers of companies are contacted in the hope that at least a small percentage will pay.

What makes this especially confusing is that if you search online, you can find websites and articles saying that these claims should be taken seriously. They have a professional-looking online presence and content that ranks well on Google, which can make the whole situation look much more legitimate.

Personally, I would not rely on AI or random online articles to decide what to do with a copyright/legal claim. If you receive something like this, get proper legal advice and verify the claim independently before paying anything or admitting liability.

Based on my own experience, I absolutely would not recommend them. The whole process left a very bad impression on me. 😡

The company appears to be making unfounded claims and relies on a document presented as a licence agreement, the authenticity and evidentiary value of which are questionable

Copytrack searches the internet for all the images from a particular image agency, and if they find any instances, they send you a vague threatening email telling you the claimant has opened a case for sharing an unlicensed image or images and to log into the site using the case number to view the details. When I did I saw they were contesting an image I purchased through Shutterstock. Many photographers sell the same image to multiple image agencies, whether these are all identical or fractionally different (which they ought to be) I don't know, but looking at the claimant's version of the image it is cropped slightly. Either way, if the search engine that CopyTrack is using to identify 'unlicensed' content cannot tell the difference between the images on different image agency sites, then it cannot just assume anyone using it is in breach of copyright with one of the image agencies. So for such cases they cannot prove anything. All they can do is make threats and escalate it, demand money (extortion) or get their lawyer involved, whereby they would lose the case but take up a lot of your time.

Anyway, copytrack must be doing this sort of thing constantly, wasting millions of man hours looking for that one image which is actually unauthorised. So they are on a fishing expedition and just harrass people for no justifiable reason.

I do not have to respond to their case as there is no case but I am not going to subject my work colleagues to months of harrassing emails from them by being pig headed. I have complained to Shutterstock. Copytrack should be reported by all victims of their nonsense to their web host as they are harrassing people unjustifiably. I complained to the claimant also, who may potentially not know anything about it. If I could give Copytrack 0 stars I would. These types of businesses should not be allowed to operate except in instances where the image only exists with one image agency.

Not at all a serious company, Copytrack - RD Legal GmbH. They send threatening emails claiming, in essence, that images—which were legitimately purchased from an online stock photo agency and for which one holds publication rights—actually belong to a different agency called YayImages (a Chinese company). They are now collaborating on what amounts to an extortion attempt—which we firmly reject—involving image rights from another agency.

I disputed a copyright claim from COPYTRACK because I did not believe the image their client identified was the same image used on my website. Throughout the process, I repeatedly pointed out factual inconsistencies, including an incorrect webpage, incorrect publication date, and apparent differences between the two photographs.

I conducted my own investigation and ultimately obtained the original RAW file and metadata from the guest contributor who supplied the photograph, showing it originated from his own photography archive. Despite sharing this new evidence, COPYTRACK continued sending repetitive emails asking only for a purchase receipt or license and never substantively addressed my evidence or the central issue I raised.

My experience was that the process relied heavily on automated communications rather than a genuine review of disputed claims. I spent many hours investigating and responding, yet my evidence appeared to have no impact on the responses I received.

Wrongly accuse legitimate businesses of stealing images and making totally unfounded threats of legal action in juristictions we don't even trade in all our images stock is supplied and tagged via licensed photo agencies.

They sent me threatening emails claiming I used an image that I did not use. Their automated system mismatched my image with another image that had some similarities, but big differences. It was of a keyboard image, but my text on that keyboard was different to their claimed match.

I sent follow up emails twice, saying it was a mismatch. They just ignored the content of my replies and kept saying they have proof that I did a copyright violation. The issue is that they automate everything so that some people get nervous and send them money.

This is harassment and these types of organisations should be closed. It is disgusting what they do.

In my experience, dealing with Copytrack felt like being targeted by an aggressive, predatory shakedown operation rather than a serious copyright service.
As a small business, we received their email over images that were actually covered by a valid Canva Pro license. The whole approach seemed designed to intimidate small businesses into paying quickly rather than checking their rights.
When we responded with our license documentation and demanded that Copytrack prove the full chain of rights they claimed to represent, the claim was suddenly dropped. Draw your own conclusions from that.
My advice to other small business owners: do NOT panic and do NOT pay right away. Check your licenses, keep your proof of source, and make them prove they actually have the rights they say they do. Stand your ground.

I was emailed about an apparently copyrighted image on my blog. I panicked, and paid the fine without looking up the image (I was pretty sure it wasn't copyrighted when I used it, but it was 2015 and I had no proof either way). I deleted it, of course, but accidentally left a back-up in the backend of my site (not accessible without the exact image URL). They then emailed me two weeks after I paid the fine demanding 950 euro because I had not followed the terms and conditions, and the image was still accessible. They have the URL, which is why they could find the accidentally saved back up, but no one else reading the blog would really do that. I disputed their claim, and they said 'fine, we reduce the penalty to 600 euro but you have to pay'. This time, I looked up the image, and found it is actually available, royalty-free, online. I wrote back to tell them so, and shared a screenshot, and have heard nothing since. ALWAYS check before you pay - these guys are aggressive and the legalese can be scary, but they may be wrong and you don't want to end up paying for free images like I stupidly did.

just creating extra work for everyone under threats of fines etc.

Bottom feeding scamsters. Do not fall for their BS. They do not provide basics that would allow them to pursue an actual claim.

Sick of receiving their nonsense, time consuming emails. Our business respects creative work and has only ever downloaded images under licenced photo sharing platforms.

We pay for the licence, download an image and then over 10 years later receive aggressive emails expecting us to provide receipts to prove payment and the download history despite no longer having access to these email accounts or financial records.

Jog on!

I understand that someone may have fraudulently sold images to the platforms, but the photographer needs to take that up with the relevant platform.

Block Copytrack and don’t engage with them.

COPYTRACK appears to rely on automated image scanning to generate copyright claims, without first verifying whether an image was legally licensed through platforms such as Canva.

In my case, I received a payment demand for an image that was obtained as a Canva Premium image. Rather than checking with Canva whether the image had been legitimately licensed, COPYTRACK immediately contacted me with a claim and requested payment.

This approach places the burden entirely on the customer, even when the image was sourced from a reputable licensing platform. It creates unnecessary stress and requires customers to spend time proving that they acted in good faith.

From my experience, these claims seem to be driven by automated image-matching technology rather than a proper investigation into the actual licensing status of the image. Before sending legal demands, it would be far more reasonable to verify the licensing history with the platform that distributed the image.

In my opinion, this is not a fair way to handle copyright matters. A proper investigation should come before sending payment demands, especially when there is a realistic possibility that the image was legally licensed through a recognised provider such as Canva.

This company are hounding me. I sent proof that we used an image as part of a Shutterstock download package, but they keep requesting date stamped proof. At first I thought it was spam so deleted their messages, then they emailed someone else in our company. Their tone of voice feels very threatening . As we use a Marketing agency for our website, they are going to charge me to provide the info based on their hourly rate too, so CopyTrack are costing me money when I've done nothing wrong! So frustrating!

Helps unscrupulous elements to frighten people and companies to pay, by systematically mediating false copyright infringement claims. At present under the name RD Legal GmbH, not to be mistaken for a proper law firm. If you are a copyright owner with just claims, think twice before engaging this firm, since it will place your own professional credibility at risk.