YAY Images Reviews 

Utter disgrace of a company, claiming they own an image so they can extort companies out of money.... using Copytrack - Marcus Schmitt to write threatening emails and demanding money, claiming people are using unlicensed images. YAY Images and Marcus Schmitt - you should hang your head in shame, you run a disgracefully low form of business practice.

YAY Images claims, via threatening legal-sounding emails from a German-registered copyright troll Copytrack, to own copyright to images licenced via legitimate photo agencies. First time I've heard of either company was via such a Copytrack email, about a legitimately licenced Shuttlestock image that has nothing to do with YAY Images. Everything about this screamed Scam, including the demand to log into some dodgy online form. A quick search showed that these two companies have an extortion racket going, and it's all over the internet. I wouldn't use this company if they paid me, if you are an artist, please beware. Making a false breach of copyright claims, as they do, can result in lawsuits and legal fines in Germany, so you don't know what you are getting yourself into.

Yay Images issues "copyright" infringement notices to anyone displaying "their" images. Regardless of whether you paid for them under a royalty free license, or acquired them legally elsewhere. I received one of these notices for an image that was legally acquired 12 years before I received the email. Do not respond to demand emails from Yay Images or their goons at Copytrack.

This company is a complete scam and needs to be shut down immediately. Like countless others, I’ve been hit with a fraudulent copyright infringement notice from Copytrack, supposedly on behalf of YayImages, for an image that was legally licensed for free. Their predatory tactics are nothing more than a blatant cash grab, and they need to be held accountable.

You use their images and them they try to take money from you using infringement claims from Copytrack.

They are scammers

This company should be shut down. Like everyone else on here I have also received a copyright infringement notice by Copytrack on behalf of YayImages to an image that was a free license image from 13 years ago. They do not verify or track down the correct licenses for images. YayImages must think they own every image on the planet.
I’ve been blogging for 15 years and have never heard of this company YayImages until now when I received a email from Copytrack. They need to be investigated for fraudulent claims on image licensing.

I've also received a demand for money from Copytrack for an image I licensed for use through a different platform (in this case, Envato). I have provided my licence but it remains to be seen if Copytrack will accept it and leave my business alone.

Congratulations on destroying the reputation of your business by working with a copyright troll.

I recently received a copyright infringement claim from Copytrack on behalf of YaYImages, demanding proof of a licence for an image that I had legally acquired from a different platform. This is nothing more than an automated shakedown, putting the burden on website owners to repeatedly defend their legitimate use of images.

If YaYImages truly cared about fair enforcement, they would verify licensing across platforms before sending out these threatening emails. Instead, they allow Copytrack to bombard businesses with legal-sounding demands, forcing them to waste time proving their innocence or paying extortionate "settlement" fees.

If this is how YaYImages operates, I would strongly advise anyone to avoid their services. A stock image provider should protect its users, not throw them into legal disputes over images they've already licensed elsewhere.

Avoid at all costs!

I filed a complaint with the European Union Consumer Protection Committee.
1. The YAYIMAGES website lacks proper data protection information. The users do not know exactly where the data they provide goes and how it is used, this is illegal. Did it turn out that a Chinese-based company owns the copyright to a problematic photo?

"Despite our best efforts to identify any such content, Doublesix Ltd does not hold any responsibility for any infringements."
Meanwhile, the given photo is actually legally licensed by Shutterstock Inc., where the real author uploaded it!

2. The real owner direct contact information, and the possibility of verification are not listed anywhere on the Yayimages website.

3. EU's General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR): A New Era of Consumer Protection
This is still missing.

4. "You are solely responsible for determining whether your use of any content requires the consent of any third party or the license of any additional rights, and you should not rely solely on the information provided by Doublesix or its members. If you are unsure whether additional third-party rights are needed for your use, you are responsible for consulting with competent rights management professionals or legal counselors."

Am i sure understand this correctly?!?!
The owner does not assume or guarantee the security of the copyrights of the uploaded materials and sells them in this way?
At the same time, in collaboration with another company (Copítrack GmbH), it still attempts to trick users into verifying the appropriate licenses?

I strongly advise against engaging with this organisation. Their practice of instructing legal counsel to demand financial compensation for alleged copyright infringement based solely on automated accusations raises serious concerns.

I, too, utilise legitimate image sources as alternatives to YayImages. However, the current system lacks crucial safeguards. CopyTrack, without conducting any independent verification or demonstrating genuine ownership of the copyrighted material by YayImages, issues threats of legal action and substantial fines. This constitutes an alarming abuse of legal processes.

Furthermore, this is not an isolated incident. This is the second time CopyTrack has made such a demand concerning the same website. YayImages, in their responses on Trustpilot, merely instruct their clients to inform their "partners" of the issue. This places an unreasonable burden on website owners and developers to independently investigate and resolve copyright claims for every image used.

Given the volume of images typically used on websites, complying with this demand would be an impractical and potentially unsustainable undertaking.

After encountering the Copytrack scam (see mine and other reviews) I requested my account with Yay be closed and final balance sent to me. They promised to do this by the end of the month but have failed to do so. (I requested earnings at an earlier date, too, and they refused to send them to me.)

I came across this company after receiving a spam email from Copytrack saying that I "might" be infringing copyright. Well anyone "might" be doing anything, but that's not a reason to send letters demanding money.

YayImages teamed up with Copytrack to send out massive amounts of spam written in language that carefully accuses you of nothing but is designed to sound legal and scare people into paying to "settle" the non-existent case. Of course that is a form of extortion.

I see they are responding to reviews here with something to akin to "if you have a legitimate license you don't need to worry." Well that is something they should be able to check before they send out threatening letters. My time is valuable and I am certainly not going to waste it sending copies of my licenses to people I never heard of. I prefer to spend my time writing a review here and warning others not to fall for this.

Fortunately, if you just ignore these emails they just stop because obviously they have no legal basis and nobody is going to bother paying lawyers to enforce these "rights" when they apparently do not even know themselves who has valid licenses.

I got an email from Copytrack threatening me with legal action to pay 750 euros for an image I legitimately downloaded from Canva with a Pro Subscription. How they can even get away with this is beyond me. Yay Images and Copytrack must be scraping the bottom of the barrel for revenue if they resort to these highly unethical practices to make money. Thanks for wasting my time!

Absolute clowns, they teamed up with the scammy Copytrack to try to get me to part with €1000 for an image I downloaded from their own website as part of a subscription I had with them.

What a business model! Harrassing your own customers. Idiots.

They are incredibly dodgy. They come after you with copytrack for photos widely available on paid sites. It's an awful way to treat customers as its timely to respond to these.

I had an extremely disappointing experience with YayImages. Their partner, Copytrack, accused me of unauthorized use of an image that is widely available on multiple subscription-based platforms. Instead of a professional inquiry, I was sent a threatening email demanding payment without substantial proof.

As a small personal blog owner earning minimal revenue, I found their approach aggressive and unreasonable. They even requested personal data in a way that raised concerns about GDPR compliance.

I cannot recommend YayImages to anyone, especially if this is how they handle licensing disputes. Instead of resolving issues amicably, they resort to what feels like scare tactics to extract money. Avoid them at all costs!

UPDATE: To reply to Yay Images, your statement is NOT true. The image in question is available at multiple stock image sites not only on Yay Images. In this specific case it was purchased in 2020 from Storyblocks. There is no legitimate claim, you are just throwing mud on the wall and hope it sticks.

It is SCAM! DO NOT PAY THEM! They emailed our business and our clients businesses claiming infringement of copyright images while all images was purchased through Canva. They scamming people to pay them money

NEVER USE YAY IMAGES. As a subscriber of their service, I legitimately download images and use on blogs under their license agreement. I received threatening emails from the bottom-feeding CopyTrack to PROVE that I have the right to use these images. So wait, excuse me. You want me to waste my precious time and resources to prove that I have the right to use an image acquired through my subscription? That burden is unreasonable for an independent publisher. Imagine the time it would require to validate every image used under license for even the smallest of online publishers!

Even though we purchased the photos from Shutterstock, they still send false IP claims. We have submitted our evidence, and Shutterstock knows what they are doing!

Yay Images uses CopyTrack, which supposedly uses "AI” technology to reverse lookup images. Based on these reviews, I don't think it works!

The legal team must be crazy if they think they can mass-send out bogus IP claims without conducting any checks.

UPDATE: 02/01/2025

CopyTrack have now closed the case after I sent over proof from 2016 that we purchased these images.

Also, over the weekend I tracked down the original owners of YAY Images before they sold to these loons! What they told me was really insightful..... Basically don't pay a penny and let them chase! The insider told me that this is what YAY Images does when Shutterstock claims IP on them!

I emailed the owner of CopyTrack (Marcus Schmitt) we had a good back and forth chat... he's now ignoring me!

Claiming we are using an image on one of our websites without permission. They state the image is in use since Jan 2021.

Well, the image was bought in May 2013 at istockphotos.com. Now, can I send you an invoice for the time it took me to recover the evidence?

My advice: don't use them for your images! There are better alternatives such as depositphotos or bigstockphotos!