YAY Images Reviews 191

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!

Looks like YAY Images took photos from Shutterstock to claim they are there's for a bogus email claim. What a bunch of charlatans - might help if they actually checked who owns the rights and didn't pester users that actually have the licence to use the images. Marcus Schmitt - get your facts right (CEO)

Edit part 2: the response from yay images was edited after I updated my review to something no longer automated. Thank you for doing this. The below account of what happened is entirely accurate.

Sent our client a legal threat from Copytrack.
The author of the image has the image legitimately available from other platforms. We got ours from Adobe stock.

We have never heard of YayImages until today and will do everything we can to stop or 200 customers using their services following this legal threat via copytrack.

Do not use YayImages - They think it is acceptable to chase their customers or in this case not their customers and slap a huge legal fee on the process INSTEAD of just asking us to sign up to Yay Images.

The legal compensation fee was almost 4x a yearly membership to yay images and we have never used their services directly and now never will.

One star because of their association with Copytrack who do dirty business for people who have legally purchased images on other platforms.

They claim copyright on images that are available through 20+ other platforms. I never use images without a license, but I would stay away from yay images indefinitely and only buy from platforms that are respectable businesses.

Copytrack will insist on you proving your licence - which is easy to do - but they have absolutely no right to harass people who have purchased their licence legitimately. I have reported them. And I'm not wasting another second of my life on scammers like these.

We bought a tier from Appsumo portal on feb, 2021, and they simply deleted our subcription and we cannot know now many pictures are left.

We´ve downloaded 60 images so far, where 33 were “Extended” and 27 were “Regular”.
I even tried to reach them kindly requesting an understanding what might have happened but they just ignored saying we have a free plan and that is it.
Horrible costumer service. Never more. If I could give a zero star, I would´ve.

Same comment as most others here.
YAY Images took photos from Envato and demanded our company pays a very high compensation for our legally licensed images from Envato. We are contemplating sueing for compensation for wasting our time.

Stay very very far away from Yay Images.

Scammers! Their sister company Copytrack demands to see "proof" of purchase when they do not even represent the stock photo seller from whom we purchased our license! They need to leave people alone! I have sent everything to the Postal Police who will now monitor their scams.
Don't fall for their scams and don't buy from them! Go to reputable sources like Adobe, StockPhoto, Alamy or others.

Scammers and copyright trolls

This is what YAY Images are, together with COPYTRACK. I am a user of Unsplash+, Canva Pro and Adobe Stock; all our images are properly licensed, and yet they keep sending false emails accusing our company of infringing the intellectual property that they don't even own, attempting to extort a few hundred euros per image.

Do not pay them; they're trying to rob website owners with an automated copyright trolling system.

This vile company is a big scam. Please stay away. Do not reply to their emails.

I am a Canva Pro user, paying for a subscription that grants me access to premium images. However, I have been receiving notifications from Copytrack alleging that I am improperly using images from YAY Images, which is unfair.

In Brazil, improper notifications can result in liability for moral and material damages, as provided by the Consumer Protection Code and the Civil Code. In Germany, where Copytrack is based, notifications without basis can lead to compensation for damages caused by false accusations. And in Norway, where YAY Images is reportedly located, abusive practices in infringement notifications can also result in liability for damages.

I hope YAY Images and Copytrack review their procedures to avoid harming good-faith users.

YAY Images is a scamming company that sends copyright infringement letters demanding payments. Stay away from this fraudulent company.

Until Yay Images ends their relationship with Copytrack, we'll no longer be using Yay for our magazine. The jokers at Copytrack (in Germany mind you) had the gall to threaten us for copyright infringement on a stock photo we got from Shutterstock almost 15-years ago! What's more laughable...the same exact image is still available at Shutterstock, and gives accurate accreditation to the original TRUE creator of the photo.
We take copyright law very seriously in our company. We had three employees spend the better part of a week digging into this false claim, only to realize that neither Yay or Copytrack has legitimate claim to the image. Turns out, we actually have more rights to the photo than either of the questionable ambulance chasers that are trying to extort us. We're considering filing our own suit against Yay Images and Copytrack, for the almost 72-man hours that went into researching their bogus scam. Save yourself the trouble and immediately mark any incoming contact from Copytrack as junk mail/spam.

Same here. Trying to scam people by sending copytrack notices for images that were offered on other sites. Now I have to provide personal information to a company I have no affiliation with. I would stay away from this company. As far as possible!