Copytrack Global
Infringement Report 2019
International Image Theft in Comparison

March 2019
COPYTRACK GmbH
Global Infringement Report 2019
© Copytrack GmbH

 Hot on the Heels of Copyright
Infringement Worldwide
Almost nothing of value online operates
without the help of photos and illustrations.
That being said, of the images shared on the
internet, the majority are used without a valid
license – much to the chagrin of the authors themselves. In order to raise awareness
of the extent to which image copyrights are
violated, Copytrack regularly investigates how,
where, and to what extent images are used
illegally. The results from the investigation have
been compiled here in the 2019 version of the
Copytrack Global Infringement Report.
Millions of images are found on the web and
used on websites or shared on social media.
What is unclear to many users is that publishing
others’ images is generally regarded as copyright
infringement. Two studies from IMGembed and
Copytrack show that of the 3 billion images shared on the internet daily, around 85 percent are
used without a valid license. In most cases, not
even the very artists, photographers, publishers,
and image agencies affected are aware of the
extent to which their images are used illegally!
According to the figure above, it is estimated
that more than 2.5 billion images are stolen
daily. These license violations have the potential
to result in up to €532.5 billion in damages
daily. Many image owners feel that the extent
to which image rights are violated signals a lack
of respect for photographers’ work. Looking
one step further, violations result in the loss of
important revenues for rights holders on a daily
basis. In 2018, Copytrack was able to obtain an
average of €320 for each copyright infringement case submitted by a Copytrack user.

Logistically speaking, searching for duplicate
images on the internet is very elaborate and
when legal measures are required, they are
often cost-intensive. In addition, affected parties often don’t have the time to track down
their illegally used images in order to retroactively demand royalties. It is for this reason that
Copytrack allows access to its reverse image
search service for free and even offers to
take care of the enforcement of copyright law
without any financial or legal risk to the user.
This process begins with Copytrack’s app which
makes it easy for photographers and rights
holders to upload their images online. Copytrack’s image search system then scans the internet for instances of online usage globally; any
usages found are subsequently investigated.

The Copytrack Global Infringement
Report 2019 is comprised of the
statistical analysis of over 12,000
Copytrack user profiles. Illegal image
uses have been investigated on the
basis of all search hits considered
illegal by individual account holders, along with website owner data
based on information collected by
internally developed web crawlers.
Percent values mentioned in this
report refer to the number of
potential copyright violations handled by Copytrack over the period of
December 2017 through December
2018. Geographic locations were
used for the analysis.

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 Image Theft on a Macro Scale:
Continents with the Most Image
Copyright Violations

Image: Copyright infringement on images by continent

When it comes to the continent with the most
image copyright violations, the leading continent is not necessarily the one you would
expect. Our leader in regards to copyright infringement was not Asia, as many may have
assumed, but rather North America with 33.90
percent of image copyright violations coming
from this part of the world. Following closely behind North America in the number two
spot was Europe with 31.40 percent of image
copyright violations. Asia did however still
retain a spot on the podium at number three
behind Europe with 29.39 percent of image
copyright violations.

Why could this be? After all, Asia is home
to an overwhelming majority of the world’s
population.
Exact reasons are hard to pinpoint considering
that accurate information on the number of
websites per country and continent is hard
to compile. Analyzing the endings of domains
doesn’t do much help either as the popular
.com domain, which was originally designated
for American companies, has been used worldwide for some time now.
On the other hand, we do know that internet

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 and e-commerce sites are used extensively in
North America and Europe, which could be an
indicator for why image theft is higher on these
continents. Another indicator lies within the
percentage of internet users per continent.

Miniwatts Marketing Group statistically captured international
internet use in 2018 and found
that, while a large portion of the
global population lives in Asia, only
49 percent of the population were
regular internet users in that year.
In Europe, that number was 85.2
percent while North America was
the leader with a whopping 95
percent of the population using the
internet regularly.

Rounding out the bottom of the list of
continents with the most image copyright
violations (excluding Antarctica) were South
America with 2.71 percent of violations, Africa with 1.53 percent, and Australia with 1.36
percent. In total, these three continents
accounted for just 5.6 percent of copyright
violations globally.
While almost 70 percent of the people in
Australia and Oceania have access to the internet, the percentage of the world population
living in this part of the world is very low in
comparison to North America, Europe, and
Asia. In contrast, almost as many people
live in Africa as in North America and Europe
combined, however internet culture there is
proportionately much less developed and
only about 36 percent of inhabitants
there used the internet regularly in 2018.

Source: Internet World Stats - www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
The penetration rates are based on a world population of 7.634.758.428 and 4.208.571.287 estimated
internet users on June 30, 2018.

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 Image Theft by Country:
The Top 20 Most Image
Infringing Nations

Image: The top 20 most image infringing nations

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 Analysing the number of stolen images by
country, the USA is clearly in the lead with
22.96 percent of global search hits. Considering the size of the country and the millions of
websites operated there, this number does not
raise many eyebrows.
What is astonishing however, is that Panama,
with a population of only 4 million, comes in
second place with 6.76 percent of copyright
violations. While this may be shocking at first
glance, the reason why this is the case makes
this figure much more reasonable. Panama
is actually a popular destination for privacy
protection services to register domains on behalf of third parties. This service is provided in
order to disguise domain ownership information
and publicly accessible “Whois” data with the
intention of keeping a site’s actual owner undetected.
The third most image infringing country is
actually the one which many would have expected to rank first, China. China is home to

nearly three times as many inhabitants as the
USA and, in the past, has garnered an international reputation for infringing on copyrights.
Although China is responsible for 6.57 percent of illegally used image material worldwide, this number is proportionally low in
regard to the massive size of its population.
Following closely behind China is Germany,
which was responsible for 6.32 percent of illegal search hits. The fact that Germany lands
closely behind both Panama and China can
be an indication that the sensibility for image
rights in Germany is not as developed as in
other countries around the world. Each of the
following six countries of the worldwide top 20
most frequent image infringers are responsible
for between three and four percent of image
theft worldwide. These countries include the
United Kingdom with 3.75 percent of image
infringements, followed by Indonesia, Japan,
Italy, Russia, and, in the tenth spot, France with
3.03 percent of image infringements.

Focusing in on Cities:
The Top 20 Most Image Rights
Violating Cities in the World
According to a report by the United Nations
and the British newspaper The Guardian in
2018, around 55% of the world population
lived in cities. In our investigation of illegally
used images by city, we did not find the number one most infringing city to be a mega city,
but rather Panama City. With 6.21 percent of
image infringements by city, Panama City was
the leader in image copyright violations com-

pared to every other city in the world. While on
the surface this seems strange, referring back
to the fact that Panama ranked number two out
of all image infringing countries in the world,
Panama City’s ranking seems to fit the bill.
To add to this point, Panama is the most economically globalized region in Central America
and the country’s modern capital is booming
economically.

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 Image: The top 20 cities for image theft worldwide

Two other factors that pull Panama into focus
are the local tax law and the handling of copyright law. Panama has a territorial tax system,
that exempts all incomes obtained outside
of Panama from taxation. This zero-taxation
regulation for foreign incomes applies to people residing in Panama as well as Panamanian
companies. Due to Panama’s geographic location, modern infrastructure, and relatively cen-

tral location, having headquarters in Panama
or operating websites and blogs there can be
very appealing for American citizens. Furthermore, for many years Panama adhered to the
reputation of ineffectively proceeding against
copyright violations.
Second place on the most image infringing
cities list went to the wealthy city of Scottsdale,
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 Arizona in the USA. Scottsdale was responsible
for 5 percent of image infringements and did so
with a population of only about 250.000 inhabitants! Finding reasons for this placement is not
easy, however, in 1993 Scottsdale was rated the
“most liveable city in the USA and made a name
for itself in tabloid media as a celebrity vacation
spot. In Scottsdale, photos of popular locations
are some of the most commonly used pictures
without a license. It is therefore quite possible that the sudden fame of the city was picked
up locally and was spread across the internet
– without sufficient diligence for image rights
research.

copyright violations came in ahead of Japan’s
drastically more populated mega city of Tokyo,
which came in at tenth. With this finding, the
number one metropolis in the USA makes itself
known not only for cultural, ethnic, and economic diversity, but also for copyright violations.
Shifting attention over to European cities, only
Istanbul with 1.27 percent of infringements,
London with 1.13 percent, and Hamburg
with 0.74 percent made the list, coming in at
eleventh, twelfth, and nineteenth respectively.

Following Scottsdale in third place is Mountain
View, located in the heart of Silicon Valley and
also home to Google’s headquarters. Mountain
View’s 2.48 percent of image rights violations
only made up about half of the violations of
Scottsdale. Silicon Valley is the USA’s internet metropolis with numerous start-ups and
tech-giants alike establishing their headquarters
there. While there is no clear correlation
between the size of a company and the due diligence applied when using correctly licensed
image material is strived for, the many small
businesses and countless bloggers and influencers residing in Mountain View may be to blame.
Fourth and fifth place are held by Toronto with 2.24 percent of image infringements
and Phoenix, the capital of Arizona situated
between mountains and desert, with 2.04 percent. All of the cities mentioned above show
that the most illegal image uses originate from
cities located in strong economic regions of
Central America, the western United States,
and Canada.
Two more interesting findings were related to
the cities in the number nine and ten spots. The
world city on the east coast of the United States,
New York, with 1.29 percent of global image

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 North America: USA Commits
Two-Thirds of All Image Copyright
Violations on the Continent

Image: The top 10 countries for image theft in North America

While we already know that the USA is leading
in image copyright infringement violations in
all of North America, what is surprising is that
the USA was responsible for about two-thirds
(66.98 percent) of Copytrack’s search hits.
Number two in the infringing countries list, Panama, followed with 19.73 percent of image
copyright violations in North America, while
Canada took third place with 7.94 percent.

percent of illegal findings, while the Dominican
Republic and Costa Rica rounded out the bottom of the group with 0.09 percent each.

In other North American countries, the illegal
use of images didn’t seem to be very widespread. Mexico was responsible for a mere 2.02

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 Europe: Germany Responsible for
the Most Image Copyright Violations
on the Continent

Image: The top 10 countries for image theft in Europe

Germany is the clear leader among European
countries with 19.1 percent of image rights
violations. Following behind Europe's most populous country is the United Kingdom, which
sits in second place with 11.33 percent of infringements. Italy sits in third place with 9.36
percent, putting it just ahead of France’s 9.17
percent. In Spain, image rights were violated
almost as often as they were in France; Copytrack found that 8.99 percent of European violations originated there. At the bottom of the
list was the Netherlands, which came in tenth
with 3.52 percent.
Since
European
countries
are
all
fairly modern, strongly industrialized, and

have a strong internet economy, there are no
major surprises here with the most populated countries proportionately leading the others. Population size does not correlate onefor-one with copyright violations in Europe
however. For example, France, the country
with almost as many residents as the United
Kingdom, was responsible for less than half
that of infringements from the leading nation,
Germany. Similarly, although the Netherlands
has a population of just about double that of
Switzerland, the two countries were responsible
for roughly the same percentage of unlicensed
image uses, with 3.52 percent and 3.77 percent
respectively.

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 Asia: China Leads the Pack in
Image Copyright Violations

Image: The top 10 countries for image theft in Asia

The Aktion Plagiarius (www.plagiarius.com), a
tongue-in-cheek German prize awarded since
1977 for especially audacious product copies,
has investigated that almost 80 percent of the
counterfeit goods seized at customs come from
China or Hong Kong. That being said, China
does not come first in the world for image
copyright violations. Within Asia however, China is clearly leading the pack with 24.28 percent of violations.
The country following behind China in image
rights violations is a bit of an unexpected one.
While one could assume that the second most
image infringing country in Asia might be India,
based on its immense population and its rate
of development in terms of both the economy
and tech, this title actually goes to Indonesia.
Indonesia, with its 264 million inhabitants, is
responsible for 13.04 percent of image thefts

on the Asian continent. The fact that this Southeast Asia country is made up of thousands of
volcanic islands and is a popular travel destination may provide some insight into why this is.
When it comes to image theft in Indonesia, local
tourism industry entities often fall back on unlicensed images for promotional material.
Following behind Indonesia and taking the title
for third most copyright violating nation in Asia
was the tech giant Japan with 12.31 percent of
infringements. Russia was the fourth most infringing country with 11.24 percent and India
followed closely behind with 10.98 percent of
infringements.
Coming in at the tenth spot and earning the reputation of least infringing country in Asia was
the island nation of Taiwan with only 1.71 percent of image rights violations.

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 South America: Almost 60 Percent of
Image Thefts Come from Brazil

Image: The top 10 countries for image theft in Africa

As with North America, there is also a lone
image-stealing leader in South America as
well. Brazil is responsible for a whopping 59.79
percent of image thefts originating in South
America. This is unsurprising as Brazil is by far
the most populated country in South America,
not to mention it has a stable economy in comparison to its continental neighbours. On a global
scale however, Brazil is the sixteenth most
image infringing country and is responsible for
only 1.62 percent of image rights violations in
the world. In terms of infringement originating
in South America however, Brazil is responsible
for roughly two-thirds of all violations on the
continent!

Contrary to what common logic would suggest
if factoring economic strength and population
into an assumption about the second and third
most infringing South American countries, these titles don't actually belong to Colombia and
Venezuela. These spots are instead occupied by
Ecuador, with 12.92 percent of South American
infringements and Argentina, with 10.91 percent. Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, and Chile are
in the middle of the pack in the South American
image theft category, with between three and
four percent of infringements each. In Uruguay,
Paraguay, and Suriname there were only isolated violations and therefore didn’t play a noteworthy role by international comparison.

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 Australia & Oceania: Image Rights
Violations Originating from the
Island Nations

Image: The top 10 countries for image theft in Australia and Oceania

On the continent of Australia & Oceania,
three-quarters of Copytrack’s image search hits
marked as illegal were attributed to Australia
with 75.17 percent of violations originating from
the continent. Of the remaining violations, almost a fifth stem from New Zealand with 18.51
percent, which is to be expected considering
the size of both countries’ populations.

With a search hit rate of under one percent
for the continent with the fewest residents,
Australia as a whole was not responsible for
a significant portion of image rights violations
globally despite having a well-developed tech
culture.

Smaller islands like the Cocos Islands, Tuvalu,
and Fiji, are responsible for the remaining image
rights violations originating from the continent.

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 Africa: Egypt Infringes on Image Rights
More Than Any Other African Country

Image: The top 10 countries for image theft in Africa

Overall, Africa plays virtually no role in regard
to image copyright law violations globally.
That being said, they still do occur, with most
violations in Africa coming from Egypt, South
Africa, and Morocco at a rate of about 33
percent, 20 percent, and 10 percent respectively.

Moving down to the bottom of the top 10 most
infringing countries in Africa we found the
Comoros Islands and Ghana with 1.63 percent
of search hits each.

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 Which Resolutions Are
Most Common for
Unlicensed Images?
In regard to the resolution of images that are
stolen, there are mixed findings. Copytrack
has investigated targeted search hits according
to their size. It is clear that times of standard
resolutions à la “optimized for the Netscape
navigator 4.0.4 and 1024 x 768” for images are
long gone.

are dominant among mobile phones and computers, larger images are mostly either used
with larger width (“landscape mode”) or greater
height (“portrait mode”). For small product previews or avatars, the 1:1 format is set as default
when 800 x 800 pixels are too big.

Thanks to the triumph of mobile internet and
responsive websites there are thousands of different formats, that are deployed depending
on the purpose and display device. Copytrack’s
findings were extremely varied with 22,676
different resolutions registered for image search
hits during the assessment period.

Full-HD with 1920 x 1080 pixels is
the most common resolution among
illegally used images. This format is
usually used for full-screen images
like wallpapers or large galleries.
The other top 10 resolutions are altogether
much smaller, however a format ratio of 3:2, 2:3,
or 1:1 is common to almost all of them. Images
in 600 x 400, the second most commonly
found resolution, is often found in articles for
loosening up and improving the presentation of
the text.
Third place with its 800 x 800 pixel size is a
bit more interesting. Since widescreen screens

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 10 Different Resolutions Make Up
Almost 40 Percent of All Image Sizes
for Image Theft

Image: 22.676 different resolutions for image theft are registered –
the graphic shows the 10 most-stolen image resolutions.

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 Image Theft by Domain:
The 10 Top-Level Domains With the
Most Illegal Image Duplicates

Behind every unlicensed image use, there is a
website and a URL. Upon conclusion of the Copytrack Global Infringement Report 2019, a total of 505 different domain endings have been
identified as illegally using images.
Domains with the ending “.com” have been
regarded as the most valuable for years. Domains
ending in “.com” are popular for both companies
and individuals worldwide and are not regionally
limited upon registration. It should come as no
surprise that because of this, domains ending in
“.com” were the most common URL’s for posting
illegally used images – far ahead of the other
internationally used domain, “.net”.

We don’t start to see any geographical bias in
terms of infringing domains until the third most
infringing “.de.” domains, meaning they were
registered in Germany. Other notable mentions in the category were comprised of a mix of
globally-used and regional domains, including:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

“.ru” (Russia)
“.org” (Organizations)
“.it” (Italy)
“.info”
“.jp” (Japan)
“.co.uk” (Great Britain)
“.pl.” (Poland)

Just under half of all illegally used
images were found on “.com” domains
with a frequency of 48.76 percent.
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 Analyzing the Results
As we can see from the findings in our
Copytrack Global Infringement Report 2019,
image rights are disregarded in almost every
corner of the world. While on the surface, this
realization seems as if it gives an indication as
to the overall opinion on image rights in today’s
day and age, this isn’t the full story. Concealment
of actual image sources through search engines,
as well as the very nature of the internet itself,
often make it difficult for people searching for
images to properly identify authors and confirm
their image uses. On the other hand, the prevalence of image theft online reflects just how
easy it is for intellectual property rights to be
infringed upon. More often than not, these infringements stay online for far too long and, in
many cases, go completely unchallenged.
This problem will most likely continue at a
similar rate until major search engines such
as Google, Yahoo, and the like figure out a
way to reliably identify the authors of images
posted online. Although the mere thought of
how extensive copyright abuse is for copyright
owners can be frightening, not all hope is lost.
As of today, it is still possible for photographers
and other rights holders to assert their claims for
equitable remuneration even after image theft
has taken place, as a means to begin combatting
image theft and fighting for image rights.

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 The Copytrack Global Infringement Report has been created and

Publisher 

 

published in March 2019 by Copytrack GmbH. Copytrack GmbH
offers rights holders like photographers, image agencies and e-com-

COPYTRACK GmbH

merce providers an all-around service that allows for the finding and

Dresdener Straße 31

prosecution of copyright violations online without a risk of cost.

10179 Berlin
Germany

For the Copytrack Global Infringement Report 2019, Copytrack
GmbH has anonymously and statistically evaluated over 12,000

Managing Director and V.i.s.d.P.:

Copytrack user profiles. Illegal image uses have been investigated on

Marcus Schmitt

the basis of all image findings considered illegal by account owners,
as well as publicly accessible data of website owners on the basis of

marketing@copytrack.com

internally developed website crawlers.

www.copytrack.com/de

The percent amounts mentioned also describe the proportion of
potential copyright violations during the period of December 2017

Contact  

through December 2018.
Copytrack GmbH
The Copytrack Global Infringement Report and all its included

Mary Eising

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photographs depicted in the report.

marketing@copytrack.com

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[1] For each successful case, an average of 320 euros was generated for on average 1.5 images per
case.
[2] Since a majority 71% of Russia's land mass lies on the continent of Asia, statistics from Russia
have been attributed to Asia in this analysis.

Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH

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 Global Infringement Report 2019 © Copytrack GmbH