So buried in my email (in the Spam folder, in fact), was a message from an organization called CopyTrack saying I’ve got a copyright infringement on a pic of Harry Styles (which wasn’t even watermarked) that I posted back in 2014 from a German magazine.
After doing a bit of research, this surprisingly doesn’t appear to be a scam. But there’s also mixed reviews about how serious to take this. But the general consensus is to take it seriously. As far as I can see, this company are not lawyers… but they can escalate to lawyers. They’re asking for a few hundred dollars and removal of the pic if I don’t have the rights or fair use. Which I may try to plead a case for, as this blog is not run for profit (though I have already removed the pic to be safe).
Honestly, the money won’t break me for one single pic. But at the same time, I certainly don’t want to go through this again–who’s to say they won’t ask again for other pics? So I will be taking down most celeb content in the very near future if I can’t recall the source. In fact, I’ve already removed most celeb content (we’re talking mostly paparazzi and publicity pics) from about 2015 and earlier.
I’ve kept up screen caps from movies and TV shows–which was the direction I’m going more now anyway, so it shouldn’t affect as many more recent posts. Plus, with things like Wikifeet out there, there wasn’t as much of a need for posting a lot of celeb feet pics as much. Still, it’s a bit of a bummer.
Hope you all understand, it’s not fun for me to do. If anyone has any personal insight into this situation, please reach out to me!
Copytrack are scammers they claimed that a picture of Tom Daley I had on flickr was copyrighted and I should pay them for its use.
I took the photo myself at Pride in London