YAY Images Reviews 191

I have had a very negative experience with YAY-Images and cannot recommend this agency.
As a contributor on Panthermedia, the stock gallery was sold to YAY-Images in 2024. Due to the promising claims made, I agreed to the transfer of my photos, hoping to continue selling usage licenses for my images regularly on YAY-Images as well.
However, the transfer of my photos and my account balance took several months.
During this time, no licenses were sold.
When I inquired about the timeline for the transfer of my photos, I received only vague and non-specific responses.
Further inquiries from me were eventually left unanswered — as if there were no support available for inconvenient contributors.
As a result, I decided to delete my account with YAY-Images. I also requested the YAY-Images team to transfer my remaining balance to me.
Both requests were denied, with the justification that account deletion was not possible, and any balance would only be paid out if it exceeded a certain threshold.
When I asked how I could possibly reach that threshold if my account was to be deleted, I once again received only generic and uninformative responses.
It is clear that YAY-Images is deliberately and strategically withholding the balance I had earned through Panthermedia.
The company's headquarters are located in Oslo, which unfortunately complicates any potential legal dispute.
Lesson learned: I will no longer agree to the takeover of my content by other platforms. Unfortunately, the stock photo market also includes many disreputable agencies. YAY-Images is undoubtedly one of them — a fact that is only reinforced when reading various other reviews.

Total grifters.

Use a company called copytrack to send out copyright infringement emails demanding sums of money when I have a valid licence for the image through another provider.

Clearly this is how they monetise their platform

Please please please this company need to be stop now pure scammers

Stop sending fake copyright warnings. Scam at all Levels using copytrack.com to initiate fake claims and ask for compensation. The Police Should investigate this company and Arrest them.

Common criminals at best on a good day. Use CopyTrack to threaten legitimate businesses with incorrect and spurious claims. Why do the authorities in Berlin not close down CopyTrack for a start. Who could even be associated with these companies and their principals in any capacity.

Stat away from this company! If you need some reprezentative pictures, use other services, like Freepick..

Do not approach this company. They work hand in hand with CopyTrack.. If you have an image from another company, for example, Adobe or Canva, YaY claim it is their image, they send you threatening emails.

Shady Tactics and Copyright Scam – Avoid YAY Images at All Costs

My first encounter with YAY Images wasn't through their website or marketing — it was through a threatening, legal-sounding email from a German-registered copyright enforcement company called Copytrack. They claimed I had infringed on copyright by using an image supposedly owned by YAY Images — an image I had legitimately licensed through Shutterstock. I had never even heard of YAY Images or Copytrack until that email landed in my inbox.

Everything about the email screamed scam — from the aggressive tone to the demand that I log into a suspicious online form to “settle” the matter. A quick Google search confirmed my suspicions: there are countless reports online alleging that YAY Images and Copytrack are involved in what appears to be an extortion racket, targeting artists and businesses with baseless copyright infringement claims.

What’s especially disturbing is that YAY Images claims ownership over images licensed through entirely unrelated and legitimate agencies. If you're a creator, business owner, or web publisher, you should stay far away from YAY Images. Associating with them could expose you to legal headaches and unethical copyright traps.

False copyright claims like the ones they and Copytrack are sending out can backfire — especially under German law — potentially resulting in lawsuits and legal penalties for them. So not only is this unethical, it’s legally risky behavior that no respectable company should engage in.

Bottom line: I wouldn't touch YAY Images even if they paid me. Their practices are shady, their partnerships questionable, and their approach to copyright enforcement downright predatory.

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.