Someone stole your photos or content? Secure the evidence before you report it

Why evidence comes before any complaint

The natural reaction is to write an angry comment, message the copier or click “report” on the platform straight away. All three have the same side effect: they warn the other side. A shop owner who receives a takedown notice can swap your photos for others in minutes, and a week later insist they were never there. Platforms remove content after a successful notice, and then the infringing page no longer exists for anyone, including a court.

Copyright disputes are usually won or lost on two questions: can you prove the work is yours, and can you prove how, where and since when the other side used it? The second question is the one people forget. Commercial use, the number of pages, the prices next to your photos and the time period all matter when you later ask for a licence fee or damages.

Step 1: Find every copy

Copiers rarely use a work only once. Before you do anything visible, map the whole picture with free tools:

• Google Lens (images.google.com or the Lens icon in Chrome): upload your photo or right-click it to search by image. Check both the exact matches and the visually similar results, because cropped or mirrored copies often appear there.
• TinEye (tineye.com): strong at finding exact and slightly edited copies and lets you sort results by the oldest date it has seen.
• Bing Visual Search: a different index, so it regularly finds shops and marketplaces the others miss.
• Text search in quotes: copy a distinctive sentence from your product description or article and search it in quotation marks, e.g. “hand-stitched from vegetable-tanned leather in our Brno workshop”. Try two or three different sentences.
• Copyscape or similar plagiarism checkers: paste your URL to find pages with overlapping text, useful for blogs and e-shops with many product pages.

Write down every URL in a simple spreadsheet: the address, what was copied (which photo, which text), whether it is commercial use, and the date you found it. Also note the marketplace listings, social profiles and ads that point to the same seller. A copied website is often part of a network of listings.

Step 2: Prove the work is yours

You own the copyright from the moment you create the work, but in a dispute you still have to show it. Gather this before anything else, while you still remember where everything is:

• Original files: the full-resolution JPEG and, ideally, the RAW file (CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG). A copier almost never has the RAW, and it is one of the strongest authorship proofs a photographer has.
• EXIF metadata: camera model, serial number, lens, capture date and time. Export a readable copy, but keep the original file untouched.
• Neighbouring shots from the same session: the frames before and after the copied image show you were behind the camera.
• Earlier publication: your own page, blog post or product listing showing the work, with a provable date. Cloud upload history (Google Photos, Dropbox, iCloud, your CMS media library) and emails sending the files to a client also help.
• For texts and designs: drafts, document version history, CMS revision logs, invoices from the copywriter or designer, and your first published version.

The weak point is often the publication date. Your site can change, and a CMS date can be edited. A sealed capture of your own page, with a qualified timestamp, fixes what you had published and when. If you publish original work regularly, capturing your key pages now costs little and settles the priority question before anyone copies you.

How to prove what was published before a page changes →

Step 3: Capture their use so it holds up

Now document every infringing page. A cropped screenshot of your photo on their site proves very little: it does not show the URL reliably, the date can be disputed and the image itself can be edited in seconds. For each copy, capture:

• The full URL and the complete page, not just the part with your photo or text.
• The date and time of the capture, fixed by something the other side cannot dispute.
• The context: shop name, company details in the imprint or legal notice, logo, contact information.
• Prices, add-to-cart buttons, shipping information and ads. These show commercial use, which matters for the licence fee or damages.
• Where the image is actually loaded from: the network log shows whether they host your file themselves or hotlink it from your server.
• Every page where the copy appears: category pages, product pages, social posts and marketplace listings, not only the first one you found.

If the copier's site uses your photos across dozens of products, capture a representative set of pages plus the category overview. When the stakes are high, capture the pages again a few days later: it shows continuing use, not a one-off mistake.

How to capture it properly

A forensic web capture records the page the way a neutral third party would see it: a full-page screenshot, the full HTML source, the network log (HAR), metadata, SHA-256 hashes of every file, an eIDAS qualified timestamp from an EU-accredited trust service provider and a Bitcoin anchor via OpenTimestamps. Anyone, including the other side's lawyer or the court, can check independently that nothing was changed afterwards.

With GetProofAnchor you paste the public URL of the infringing page and receive an Evidence ZIP with a PDF report, verifiable offline and at /verify. For a one-off case, the Starter pack (9 €, three proofs, no subscription) covers your own page plus two infringing pages. Content visible only when logged in, such as a private group or your own order confirmation from the copier's shop, can be captured with the browser widget on subscription plans. If you would rather not do it yourself, Assisted Capture captures public URLs for you within 60 minutes.

No tool can guarantee that a court will accept a piece of evidence, because courts assess evidence freely. But a sealed capture with a qualified timestamp is much harder to challenge than a screenshot, and it often ends the discussion before it reaches a court.

Evidence workflows for brand and content protection →

Step 4: Contact the copier, or send an invoice

With the evidence secured, many cases can be settled directly. Choose the tone to match the situation: a blogger who innocently used your photo is different from a shop that cloned your entire catalogue.

1. Friendly request: identify the work, the URLs and ask for removal or proper credit within a short, specific deadline. Often enough for private blogs and small mistakes.
2. Licence offer or invoice: for commercial use, send an invoice for a retrospective licence, based on what you would normally charge for that use and period. Many photographers use their own price list or industry rates as the basis.
3. Formal cease-and-desist letter: a written demand to stop, remove the content and, where appropriate, pay compensation. In Germany this is the Abmahnung, usually with a declaration to cease and desist backed by a contractual penalty; having a lawyer send it is standard there.
4. Keep everything in writing and capture the page again after your deadline, whether they removed the content or not.

How compensation is calculated depends on national law. The EU Enforcement Directive (2004/48/EC) allows damages to be set as a lump sum based at least on the licence fee that would have been due. Some countries go further, for example Czech law lets the author claim unjust enrichment of twice the usual licence fee. Ask a lawyer before quoting a figure in a letter.

Step 5: Platform, host, Google and court

DSA notice to the platform or hosting provider (EU)

Under Article 16 of the Digital Services Act, hosting services, which include web hosts, marketplaces and social networks, must offer an electronic notice and action mechanism. A good notice explains why the content is illegal (your copyright), gives the exact URL, includes your name and email and a statement that you believe the notice is accurate and complete. A properly substantiated notice gives the provider knowledge of the illegal content, so it has to act on it diligently. Attach or link your evidence rather than just describing it.

DMCA notice for US-hosted services

If the site or platform is hosted by a US company, it will usually expect a DMCA takedown notice to its designated agent: identification of your work, the infringing URL, your contact details, a good-faith statement and a statement under penalty of perjury that you are authorised. The other side can file a counter-notice, and notices may be forwarded to them or published in redacted form, so expect your name to be visible.

Host and registrar abuse contacts

When a copied website ignores you, look up who hosts it (a WHOIS or RDAP lookup and the IP address usually reveal the hosting company) and send your notice to its abuse contact. Registrars generally forward copyright complaints to the host rather than suspend domains, but for a full clone of your site, especially one used for fraud, they are worth notifying too. Google also runs a copyright removal request that de-lists infringing URLs from search results; it does not delete the page, but it cuts off the traffic.

Court

If the copier refuses and the use is commercial, courts in most EU countries can issue an injunction, order removal, award damages and order the infringer to disclose information about the extent of use. For urgent cases there are fast-track procedures such as a preliminary injunction. Here your evidence from Steps 2 and 3 is exactly what the lawyer will ask for first.

DSA Article 16 notices and what evidence to attach →

What EU copyright protects, with country notes

Across the EU, copyright arises automatically when a work is created. There is no registration and no © symbol required. Photos, articles, blog posts, illustrations and website designs are generally protected. Very short or purely factual texts, such as a bare list of technical specifications, may not reach the originality threshold, while a carefully written product description usually does. A few national points worth knowing:

• Czech Republic: the Copyright Act (121/2000 Sb.) protects original works; for unauthorised use, the author can claim unjust enrichment of twice the usual licence fee, in addition to removal and other claims.
• Germany: besides photographic works, even simple photos without creative ambition are protected as Lichtbilder under § 72 UrhG. Damages are commonly calculated as a notional licence fee (Lizenzanalogie).
• France: under the Code de la propriété intellectuelle, the author has rights from the mere fact of creation. Infringement is called contrefaçon, and a court-authorised saisie-contrefaçon can be used to seize evidence.
• Austria and most other EU countries: similar principles apply, with damages generally based on an appropriate licence fee; details and procedural rules differ, so check with a local lawyer.

If a competitor copied your whole shop, texts and layout, unfair competition law may offer additional claims alongside copyright. A lawyer can tell you which route is stronger; your job is to bring clean evidence.

When the copycat keeps changing the content

Some copiers play cat and mouse: they remove your photos after a notice and put them back two weeks later, rotate product pages, or move the shop to a new domain. Each round erases the previous state unless someone recorded it. In these cases, a single capture is not enough. You need a timeline.

Scheduled website monitoring captures a public page automatically, daily or weekly, and seals each capture as a separate proof, with an email when the page changes. Monitoring the copier's key pages, and your own originals, gives you a documented history of repeated infringement, which is valuable when you ask for a contractual penalty, escalate to the platform or go to court. Monitoring is part of the Business plan.

Brand protection evidence workflows for repeat infringers →

Common mistakes to avoid

• Reporting before capturing: the content disappears and you are left with your word against theirs.
• Relying on cropped screenshots without the URL, date or context of the page.
• Forgetting to secure your own proof of authorship, or editing the original files so the metadata changes.
• Capturing only the first copy you found, while the same photos appear on ten other pages.
• Quoting an arbitrary damages figure in an angry email instead of a reasoned licence fee.
• Publicly accusing the copier on social media, which can expose you to a defamation claim if you get a detail wrong.

Frequently asked questions

This article is general information, not legal advice. Copyright and damages rules differ between countries; for a specific case, consult a lawyer specialising in intellectual property.