Letters to the Editor: The Copytrack Saga
A lot of you wanted a follow-up to our battle with Copytrack, so here we are.
In February 2024, I published an article about an email I received from a copyright policing service called Copytrack. The gist of it was, I was being accused of copyright infringement for using a stock photo found on Adobe. The accuser, an Italian named Federico Caputo, had enlisted Copytrack as some kind of arbiter, and was seeking damages of around $1,000.
I’m not going to break down the entire article, but needless to say, Copytrack nor Federico Caputo got a single penny out of us.
I’m not the only one who’s dealt with Copytrack, and a quick Google search will reveal that they’re basically copyright trolls with a spray-and-pray business model. They send out a bunch of these threats with the hope that people will opt to just pay them without question. Benjamin Spider has done way more research than I have on the company and its less-than-scrupulous business practices, so I recommend giving his site a read if you’re being harassed by Copytrack.
Anyway, I published my own Copytrack article in February 2024. Since then, it’s become one of my most-viewed articles, and I’ve received quite a few emails from people dealing with their own battles against Copytrack, asking me how the whole thing played out, if they took me to court, what they should do, etc. So today I’m going to answer those questions, and hopefully give some people useful information that will help them save themselves a lot of money and grief.
Dubious disclaimer: I’m not your lawyer, this isn’t legal advice, use your own judgment when following my advice.
The example email (which I’ve edited just a bit for spelling and punctuation) I’ll be using comes from Mitja in India:
Hi,
I have one problem with this company Copytrack and Mr. Caputo like you… Did you pay him anything? Last year I started with some van business and my friend made a website for me. He took the main picture from Google free pictures and now some Caputo want my money… I deleted my website but they still want my money.
Did you make any charges against this company copyright?
Mitja
As I stated before, I didn’t pay Copytrack nor Federico Caputo anything. I came to this decision after consulting with my legal advisor, Jamir. Jamir isn’t a lawyer, but he does have a law degree from Rutgers, and is perfectly qualified to serve as the AJnet Organization’s legal advisor.
Jamir based his advice on a few things.
The first, and most important thing, was that Copytrack was in Germany, while Mr. Caputo was in Italy. While it’s entirely possible to file an international lawsuit for copyright infringement, the lawsuit would have to be filed in the AJnet Organization’s jurisdiction (Pennsylvania) using a lawyer that is registered here. Not only is this expensive, but the case could drag on for years. They also would have had to subpoena our host (also through the American legal system) to get the information required to subpoena me. Good luck finding an American judge willing to enforce German and Italian copyright law. It simply wouldn’t have been worth the hassle to pursue legal action against us.
The second issue with their claim was that Federico Caputo didn’t register the image with the U.S. Copyright Office. This doesn’t mean anyone can just steal someone’s picture and use it, but not having it registered makes it hard to seek damages.
The third reason that Jamir advised me not to pay them was that we had both done research on Copytrack and couldn’t find a single instance of them actually taking a case to court. There were plenty of horror stories from people who received threatening emails, and a lot of people who found it easier to just pay them rather than challenge the claims, but as far as we can tell Copytrack hasn’t ever escalated beyond sending emails. There were a couple of instances where they sent physical letters to people whose names and addresses were readily available, but we searched PACER high and low, and couldn’t find any instance of Copytrack or Federico Caputo ever filing a lawsuit in an American court.
Now, considering everything I just mentioned above, it’s highly unlikely that Copytrack would escalate beyond sending threatening emails. I’d go so far as to say that anyone outside of Germany probably doesn’t have much to worry about, and shouldn’t pay Copytrack anything. It might be wise to exercise a little bit of caution if you’re in a European Union country, since it’s probably a little easier to coordinate international legal action when both countries are members of the EU. But Americans, Indians, Brits, and people outside the European Union are most likely safe.
A week after I posted the article about Copytrack, we received another claim from them. This time, the claim came at the behest of WENN Rights International, a media organization specializing in celebrity news and photos. WENN was claiming ownership of an image of Deadmau5 found in my “Pot Culture is stupid” article.
There was just one teensy problem with their claim: The image in question wasn’t actually hosted on our site, and was only linked to. The image was also different from the one they were trying to claim, though it appeared to have been from the same set. When Jamir pointed this out to Copytrack, they sent a screenshot of the image supposedly on our site:
This screenshot was falsified, that image has never been hosted on our servers. I even went through the trouble of checking every individual media file uploaded to WordPress just to be sure. Interestingly enough, the URL they used was real, and was an image that I uploaded back in 2018 for some unknown reason (most likely to post on an internet forum somewhere). It wasn’t the same image that they were trying to claim, and wasn’t even part of the same set. The image was also uploaded in October of 2018, almost two years before I wrote the “Pot Culture is Stupid” article. I might write many of these articles in advance, but not that far in advance.
To be honest, I’m not even sure how they got the URL. We suspect that they may have made a copy of the site using an archive tool (we have server logs from around that time which show a German IP address behaving in a manner that suggests archiving), then searched for anything with “Deadmau5” in the file name, resorting to fabricating a screenshot when they realized they made a mistake. I haven’t seen any other instance of Copytrack actively manufacturing evidence, though that doesn’t mean they haven’t ever done it before. It’s entirely possible that this was the action of a lone Copytrack employee desperate to save face. Given the timing of things, I can’t help but feel that it was meant to be retaliation for my article. Jamir called them out on their mistake, and essentially told them to pound sand. We’ve heard nothing from them since.
After this, I did a little bit of research on WENN International. It appears that they’re a legitimate media organization which specializes in celebrity news and photos, and have been partnered up with Copytrack since 2018. When searching out info on WENN International, many of the results appeared to involve people who received emails from Copytrack at their behest. This leads me to believe that, while WENN is a legitimate company, they’re also copyright trolls. I suspect their current business model revolves around buying the rights to images, then siccing Copytrack on people for using those images. I’d strongly urge anyone against doing business with WENN International or any other company or organization affiliated with WENN Media Group, since they engage in unethical business practices like copyright trolling.
With all of this said, I suggest people sourcing images from Google to use caution. Google Image Search isn’t a free image repository. Someone always owns the rights to those images. 95% of the time, most people won’t care that you’re using their images, so long as you’re not making a profit off of them. It’s usually not worth it to go after some random person running a blog, for the reasons I mentioned earlier. However, there’s still the chance that someone may take issue with your use and decide to pursue legal action against you.
Typically, rights holders will first send out a “Cease and Desist” notice asking you to simply remove the infringing image to avoid legal action. But what many people don’t realize is that rights holders aren’t required to send you a “Cease and Desist” letter before taking legal action. They’re just a courtesy. It’s entirely possible for someone to suddenly file a lawsuit against you for copyright infringement if they choose to. It’s definitely a dick move, but it’s completely within the confines of the law.
The best advice I can give to anyone not in the EU dealing with Copytrack is to simply ignore them. Don’t engage them, don’t give them anything. Delete the offending image (if it’s actually present) and move on. They may send you a bunch of threatening emails or letters, but most of it is just blustering. It’s a lot of time, money, and effort to actually pursue legal action in another country, and it’s extremely unlikely that Copytrack would go through the required procedures to initiate a lawsuit overseas. It’s much easier for them to send out a bunch of threatening emails demanding payment. If they send out 100 emails a day each demanding $500, and even half of those pay, that’s a guaranteed $25,000. Conversely, filing a single international lawsuit costs thousands of dollars, and there’s no guarantee they’ll win.
Should you decide to engage, the best thing to do is ask them to provide proof that their client owns the rights to the image in question. From what I’ve seen, they rarely if ever seem to do this, and there’s even been instances where they didn’t own the rights. The burden of proof falls on the accuser. If they hem and haw, or refuse to provide proof, then chances are they have no case, and you can tell them to get lost. If they do provide proof (and there have been instances where they have), it’s up to you if you want to acknowledge their claim and pay up, or simply tell them to screw off. It’s still unlikely that they’ll come after you, and I personally wouldn’t pay them.
Again, I’m not your lawyer, this post doesn’t constitute legal advice, and I’m not responsible if Copytrack decides to try and make an example out of you if you follow my advice. If anyone has any further questions about our experience with Copytrack I’ll be more than happy to answer them in the comments or via email.
