How to Scan Your Website for Copyrighted Images

There are copyrighted images on your website right now, and you probably don't know about them. That's not an accusation. It's a pattern we see on roughly 1 in 4 small business websites we scan.

The images get there in predictable ways. A web designer grabbed them from Google. A WordPress template included stock photos. An employee added a blog post and pulled in a nice-looking image without checking the license. None of these people meant any harm. But agencies like Getty Images, CopyTrack and PicRights don't care about intent. They care about usage.

Finding these images before an enforcement agency does can save you thousands of euros. Here's how to check.

Why copyrighted images end up on your website

Most business owners don't personally upload unlicensed images. The typical sources are:

Your web designer. This is the most common one. A freelancer builds your site and grabs images from Google to fill the layout. They might not even realize those images are copyrighted. You're still liable. Read more about who's responsible when your designer uses copyrighted images.

Template and theme defaults. Many WordPress themes and website templates ship with placeholder images. Some of these are properly licensed. Others are not. When you launched your site and kept the default images, you inherited the risk.

Employee blog posts. Someone on your team writes a blog post, searches Google Images for a nice photo, right-clicks "Save As" and uploads it. They've done this at every job they've ever had. It's always been a problem. It just wasn't their problem until now.

Social media reposts. You found a great image on Instagram or Pinterest and put it on your website. The license to view that image on social media doesn't extend to your commercial website.

Method 1: Manual reverse image search

The simplest way to check an image is to search for it across the web.

Google Images reverse search

1. Go to images.google.com
2. Click the camera icon in the search bar
3. Upload an image from your website or paste its URL
4. Review the results. If the image appears on stock photo sites like Shutterstock, Getty Images or Adobe Stock, it's almost certainly copyrighted

TinEye

TinEye is a dedicated reverse image search engine that's better than Google for finding the original source of an image.

1. Go to tineye.com
2. Upload your image or paste the URL
3. Sort results by "Oldest" to find the likely original source
4. Check if the oldest match is a stock photo agency or a photographer's portfolio

The problem with manual checking

This works for a handful of images. But most websites have 50 to 200 images. Checking each one manually takes hours. And you'll miss images hidden in blog archives, CSS backgrounds and PDF downloads.

Method 2: Check EXIF metadata

Every digital image contains metadata. Stock photos from professional agencies often include copyright information in their EXIF data, including the photographer's name, the agency and licensing terms.

You can check EXIF data with free tools:

• ExifTool (command line): exiftool yourimage.jpg will show all embedded metadata
• Jeffrey's EXIF Viewer (web): paste an image URL and see the full metadata
• Your image editor: Most editors like GIMP or Photoshop can display EXIF data under file properties

Look for fields like Copyright, Creator, Credit and Source. If you see "Getty Images" or "Shutterstock" in any of these fields, you have a licensed image that needs a valid purchase record, or an unlicensed image that needs to be replaced.

# Check EXIF copyright data for all images in a folder
exiftool -Copyright -Creator -Credit -Source /path/to/images/

Keep in mind that some copyrighted images have had their EXIF data stripped. No metadata doesn't mean no copyright.

Method 3: Look for watermark remnants

Stock photo agencies overlay watermarks on preview images. Sometimes web designers download preview images and attempt to crop or edit out the watermark.

Look for:

• Faint diagonal text across an image
• A slightly blurred or smudged area in the center
• Repeating patterns that look like they were cloned over something
• Unusually tight crops that cut off the edges of what should be a wider shot

Automated scanners can detect these patterns more reliably than the human eye. Our free website scanner checks for watermark signatures as part of its image compliance scan.

Method 4: Automated website scanning

An automated scanner crawls every page of your website, finds every image and runs checks against multiple databases and detection methods.

What a good scanner checks:

• EXIF metadata for copyright ownership tags
• Visual watermark detection
• Image hash matching against known stock photo databases
• Reverse image lookups at scale
• Hidden images in CSS, PDFs and archived pages

You can scan your website for free to get an overview of potential image compliance issues. The scan takes about two minutes and checks every publicly accessible image.

What to do when you find a problem image

Don't panic. You have options.

Remove it immediately. This is always step one. Take the image off your website. If an enforcement agency hasn't contacted you yet, removing the image eliminates the ongoing violation.

Replace it with a safe alternative. Check our guide to safe free image sources for properly licensed alternatives. Unsplash, Pexels and Pixabay all offer images you can use commercially without fees.

Buy a retroactive license. If you really want to keep the image, you can purchase a license from the copyright holder. This is usually cheaper than a settlement demand. A standard Shutterstock license costs 30 to 50 euros. A Getty Images settlement demand for the same image might be 1,500 euros.

Document everything. Screenshot the image on your site, note the date you found it, record when you removed it and save your replacement image's license information. If an enforcement letter arrives later, this documentation shows good faith.

Building an image compliance habit

Checking once isn't enough. New images get added over time.

Set a quarterly reminder to review your website images. If you have multiple people who can add content to your site, create a simple policy: no image goes on the website without a documented license or a link to the source proving it's free to use.

For teams, keep a spreadsheet tracking every image on your site with its source, license type and date added. This takes ten minutes to maintain and can save you thousands in settlement costs.

Common Questions

How do copyright enforcement agencies find images on my website?

They use automated crawlers similar to Google's web crawlers. These bots scan millions of websites, download images and compare them against their copyright databases using image fingerprinting technology. They find images even if you've resized, cropped or slightly edited them.

Can I use an image if I credit the photographer?

No. Attribution is not a substitute for a license. Unless the image is released under a Creative Commons license that explicitly allows commercial use, you need permission from the copyright holder. Crediting the photographer is polite, but it doesn't make unlicensed use legal.

What if my web designer says the images are "royalty-free"?

Ask them for the license documentation. "Royalty-free" doesn't mean "free." It means you pay once and can use the image without ongoing royalty payments. If your designer can't produce a license receipt, the image isn't properly licensed.

How much could a copyright claim cost me?

Typical settlement demands range from 500 to 5,000 euros per image. If a case goes to court, damages can be higher. Read our full guide on copyright claim costs for detailed breakdowns.

Are screenshots of other websites copyrighted?

Generally, yes. A screenshot of another website reproduces the copyrighted content on that site. Using screenshots for commentary, review or education may fall under fair use or fair dealing, but using them as decorative images on your commercial website does not.

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