Rightsdefend Omdömen 

scammer !!!
Asked copyright fees of our own photos !!

They appear to be scammers attempting to intimidate people by accusing them of uploading images to websites without authorization and then demanding payment. We have received several emails from them, which we have simply ignored and deleted. Moreover, they have not been able to provide any copies or evidence of the images they claim were posted on our website.

Their actions are highly suspicious and resemble common scam tactics used to pressure individuals or companies into making payments out of fear. It would be advisable to report them, as others who may not be aware of these schemes could end up paying unnecessarily.

Difendere i diritti da copyright degli artisti è un atto nobile ma queste persone inviano email minacciose con tanto di modulo di pagamento come se si fosse già colpevoli e le cifre sono salatissime. Ricordo che la loro precedente società, chiamata CopyTrack, è stata indagata dall'AGCom per attività commerciali scorrette. Consiglio a tutti di scrivere un esposto alla stessa AGCom per comunicare che ora hanno cambiato nome ma il comportamento è sempre lo stesso.

I was contacted by this company regarding alleged unauthorized use of a photo that I had lawfully licensed through a major stock platform in December 2020 and used in good faith for years.

Nearly five years later, after the contributor had already removed the image from the stock platform, I began receiving repeated payment demands. Because the asset was no longer available online, it took significant time and effort on my side to locate an old account and obtain official Proof of License from the stock agency confirming that my use had been lawful all along.

Once this documentation was provided, the claim was finally closed.

While the matter was eventually resolved, the process was extremely stressful and time-consuming for an image that had been properly licensed from the start and used without issue for years. I would strongly advise others to keep detailed license records and to contact the original stock platform directly if they ever receive similar claims.

I am a football journalist, also have a non-profit web-site for my football articles. This is mainly used for archiving old articles. I use free photo websites (such as Getsyimages - non-profit images are free).

Recently I received and email from Rights-Defend threating me with legal action over copyright of one of the images used.

Their e-mail is shown below:
With reference to your publication, we have already sent you emails requesting authorisation, to which we have not received a response. For this reason, we now reserve the right to forward the claim to our legal partners for review of the enforcement of rights in accordance with the relevant national legislation.
Yours Sincerely,
RIGHTS-DEFEND

Clearly this company is harassing people for money.
They try to intimidate website owners with false copyright claims. They mass mail website owners with intimidating language, hoping to scare them enough to make them pay ridiculous and baseless claims.

On 10th January, Rights Defend emailed me, apparently on behalf of their client 'RAWF8', saying that I had used an image without consent.

I did actually purchase a license for this image from a reputable company (Deposit Photos) but before supplying this proof, I replied back to Rights Defend asking them to confirm proof of copyright.

After all, I'm not going to provide confidential documents to a random company.

Despite requesting these proofs multiple times, Rights Defend have continued to ignore me.

There's also no sign at all that their supposed client "RAWF8" even uploaded the image in question to DepositPhotos. (Their username on DepositPhotos is "gioiak2", and they never uploaded such an image)

So it seems like Rights Defend are just copyright trolls.

This is not a legitimate endeavor. They scan websites for licensed material and threaten you with fees for items they have no rights to, even if you did purchase the assets legitimately. Ignore them, report them. Also not in USA, they are in Germany.

they do not reply to emails, even though I sent them the license

I CANNOT believe that these people are still operating as scammers and have not been jailed!!. How is this possible?. They have targeted me again with stupid threatening emails from a photo I have paid for! and this time under the name of RightsDefend. They have already made £0000s from innocent people under Copytrack GMBH!. I have reported it to Alamy photos but I am sure other photo imagers and innocent people are being fooled.
The photographer Frederico Caputo produces great images yet these people take the piss and extort money from people on his behalf. PLEASE NOTE EVERYBODY. Their website looks so legimate. However, it is the SAME address as the previous scam and emails and website which was under Copytrack GmbH!!!!! The only difference is is was:
RD Legal GmbH
Saarbrücker Straße 18
10405 Berlin
Germany

Now is it :
Saarbruecker Str. 18 10405 Berlin, Germany

Scammers. Right-defends and Copytrack are the same scammer "company".

Verschicken fleißig Zahlungsaufforderungen, wegen angeblich fehlender Bildrechte... Antworten aber auf keine Emails in denen Nachweise der Beauftragung und der Urheberschaft verlangt werden. Somit sind diese Zahlungsaufforderungen nichts weiter als Scam. Jeder Betroffene sollte sich bei der Wettbewerbszentrale über das Vorgehen beschweren. Völlig unseriöser Verein. Kein Wunder, dass es soviele Umfirmierungen gab.

Auf die DSGVO Auskunft wurde reagiert aber nur mit der Ansage, man möge diese doch an die datenschutz@ senden. Nein, dazu ist man nicht verpflichtet. Ich glaube jedoch, dass die Abzockerbande dieser sowieso nicht nachkommen wird. Ich habe schon mal das Schreiben an die zuständige Datenschutzbehörde vorbereitet.

Absolute scam artists. If you get something from theme delete and block. Do not click on links and do not reply. Trying to take advantage of people who legit have the rights to use images with intimidation tacks - completely disgusting company.

I was contacted by “RIGHTS-DEFEND,” a company that according to multiple public sources is the same as the former COPYTRACK, just with a new name.
However, their methods remain aggressive and controversial.

In my case, they claim to represent a so-called “client” named RAWF8, who alleges that I have been using an image on my website since 2017 without a valid license.
If I cannot prove the license after 8 years, they demand payment of almost €740, as follows:

Image license (valid for 1 year) – €389.59
Compensation costs – €350.00

Total: ~€739.59

It is clear that their “business model” targets very old images, exactly in situations where:

# the website owner has changed and no longer has access to old licenses,

# older platforms no longer allow downloading old licenses from 2017,

# after 7–10 years, people often no longer have the original archives, and they can “push” the idea that payment is required.

In short: they rely on the fact that you no longer have proof.

I immediately requested official documents proving:

1. that they are authorized to act on behalf of RAWF8;

2. that RAWF8 truly owns the rights to the image, including since 2017.

Their response?

“We have now requested the necessary documents from our client…”

So they contact me, demand money, ask for proof, threaten with lawyers yet they don’t even have a single document proving they are entitled to contact me.
No proof. Nothing. All talk.

Furthermore, I contacted the image creator (RAWF8) directly, asking whether they had authorized RIGHTS-DEFEND to approach me and request documentation.
The result?

No response to my email, and when I contacted him on Facebook, he blocked me after seeing the message. Very suspicious.
It is highly possible that RAWF8 is directly involved in these scam-like practices.

Important to note:
I do have a license for the image since 2017, but I have no intention of sending it to a company with a dubious reputation and dozens of negative reviews for abusive claims. Even if you don’t have proof, they really can’t do much, just so you know.

I am also waiting to see what “proof” they will send me, probably some forgeries, which I will attach to the complaint I will file with the competent authorities in Germany.

Conclusion:
RIGHTS-DEFEND / COPYTRACK use aggressive tactics, demand payment, and request documentation without having any proof themselves that they are authorized to make these claims.
This is an extremely dubious and unprofessional approach.

I strongly advise everyone to be very careful and not fall for these tactics.

A scam company requesting compensations for images that we have rigths of use, no relation with the author of the images and/or companies selling the rigths.
Do not feed the scammer

Company is trying to shakedown money from my nonprofit. Ironically, the person they claim to defend violated copyright by taking unauthorized photos of our artwork.

Scam company, Sent me a claim and after sent them proof that I paid for a picture they went silent.

You can ignore messages from this company. They contact companies for a shakedown with false copyright claims. Don’t pay this company any money. I’ve been approached by many firms like this in the past and it’s always a cash grab email scheme for unsuspecting businesses.

Dieses Unternehmen spezialisiert sich auf Copyright Fälle, am besten noch in Zusammenarbeit mit einem Vermarkter wie YAY Images, welche in einem Parkhaus in Oslo sitzen wollen, selbst aber keine Angaben zu Besitzverhältnissen haben, keine Handelsregistereintragungen oder gar ein verpflichtendes Impressum bieten. YAY behauptet sie hätten die Urheberrechte an einem Bild, Rights Defend oder früher Copytrack übernimmt den Fall ohne weitere Überlegungen und geht auf die Suche nach diesem Bild, was selbstverständlich auch bei anderen Vermarktern sowohl kostenfrei als auch kostenpflichtig angeboten wird. Dass man eine Urheberangabe macht, und die Lizenz eines anderen Anbieters angegeben hat, interessiert diese Leute nicht. Man reagiert auf Antworten nicht und meint man könnte seine Forderung von mal 389,50€ mal 374,20€ durchsetzen und wenn man die Frist verletzt (bei mir waren es mittlerweile 4 verschiedene Fristen (ja die sind wirklich so lächerlich), würde man es an Partneranwälte übergeben.
Was wollen diese Partner denn machen, wenn man legal eine Gratis Lizenz verwendet?
Achja man ist der Auskunft gegenüber dieser Bude nicht verpflichtet, schließlich geben sie auch keine Nachweise über den Besitz des Urheberrechts raus, eine stupide Behauptung, reicht nicht aus.
Nach dem 3. Anmahnen, dass sie den Fall gerne fallen lassen können, da sie mir selbst keine Nachweise erbringen wollen, habe ich nicht mehr auf ihre scheinheiligen Nachrichten reagiert, btw. jede neue Nachricht brachte eine neue Frist mit sich.

Darüberhinaus kann man bei diesem Schuppen nicht davon ausgehen, dass die eigenen Daten bei der Übermittlung der Lizenz gemäß DSGVO verarbeitet und gelöscht werden.

und die 5 Sterne Bewertungen auf TrustPilot sind doch alle von RD selbst verfasst.

A shady company that continues to spam websites in the hopes of receiving compensation, the amount of which is determined by their own discretion. I have read enough articles about it and my final meaning is that this is a SCAM project.

RightsDefend is a global copyrights lawyers network.

As photographer & Artist I must say that I am very satisfied and I appreciate the legal & professional support from Rights Defends, Until today we won about hundreds of claims and cases around the world.

If you have something to say, just visit the website. There is the telephone numbers and address and contact them,