Scams have always been around. We are familiar with the long lost uncle that wants to give us millions (if we first deposit money to him) and dubious callers who want our banking pins. But when a scam is dressed up in legal language, the lines become blurred. We don’t want to go against the law. But we don’t want to be taken advantage of, either. Is CopyTrack legit? I’ll share my story and what I’ve learnt from what others have experienced and let you draw your own conclusions. For myself, yes, I think they are scammers.
There is nothing wrong with protecting your media property. If your images are being used by someone else, unlawfully, you are entitled to challenge that. However, the problem with CopyTrack is that they seem to email anyone who has a stock image whether they are entitled to it or not, or whether they have got rights to it or not.
Most of us don’t have the best memory of where we got all the images from, and that’s where they take advantage.
CopyTrack is a legit company. But they follow dubious practices.
First Email: 11 July
I first received an email from Copytrack saying that I have an image that is being used without permission.
They basically said that my options were either to prove that I had a licence for this image or else I must pay for past use and delete the image, and if I wanted to keep it I must pay them as well.
This was the offending image. It was for this post about facials.
I was feeling really guilty. I cannot for the life of me remember all details about all images. But I tried to stall them, asking for a payment plan. But they kept hounding me with these threatening letters. I couldn’t take it and I caved. I paid them 350 euros. That was 28 August.
The Next Attack: 15 September
Although I had removed the image from the post, I forgot to remove it completely from the website.
So guess what? I get another email from them. No courtesy email to remind me to remove the image. No. I just get hit with an invoice for a thousand euros for not taking it down within 14 days.
To say I was torn apart was an understatement. I could of kicked myself for not removing the image, and it was too late now. I honestly was so stressed over all of this. I wanted to give up blogging forever and delete everything. But somewhere in the midst of it all I really wanted someone professional to talk to to fight this off. I remembered about the lawyers when I signed the papers for the house and thought maybe I would just shoot them a mail just to get their take on it, if I could get out of this mess. I was too emotional to think logically and did not sleep well that night.
The next day I got a call from the lawyer and he was convinced that it was a scam. He didn’t have any evidence for this, but it opened me up to the possibility. And that is when I started doing some investigation. Which is what I should have done in the first place.
So I googled “CopyTrack Scam” and a Pandora’s box opened. So many people had written about them. Obviously, maybe if they are targeting bloggers, maybe they didn’t think this through, that the people would write blog posts, right?
But one of the most balanced and logical article comes from a fellow German who is a lawyer, and you can read that here.
He also got one of those emails, and it was for an image that he definitely had a license for.
A pattern started emerging in what I was reading. The people already had bought the stock images. CopyTrack was just taking chances.
This got me racking my brains trying to remember about where I got the image from. I did have a stock image membership long ago, but when was it?
Some more detective work of searching through emails.
Ah! Here is my proof.
A quick search through their site revealed:
Bingo! I was legally entitled to this image after all! I did have this membership at that time, in 2017.
But now, I was really curious, who was their client?
I had heard on the internet that they represented Yay images but I could not find the image there. Similar images, yes, but not the same.
So I asked Copytrack: Who is your client? I did this repeatedly over a few days before I got a response from them.
But going back to that first email it looks like it is Concept Production. If you look at their site, I can’t see any photos.
There are some remarks on Trust Pilot though.
Finally I heard from Copytrack and on the document they sent they mention the author being “Syda Prod.”
Upon further investigation I found this website and contacted them.
I got this response:
If you ever get an email from them, take my advice.
Do your research. Don’t get emotional, and don’t get sucked in.
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