How to Find Out If Someone Is Using Your Photos

If you run a business with its own photos (product shots, a portfolio, your team, your space), some of them are probably on sites you’ve never heard of. Competitors lift product images, scrapers copy whole blog posts, and fake stores use real shop photos to look legitimate.

Finding them takes a reverse image search. Getting them removed is a short escalation: ask, then send a takedown notice, then ask Google to drop the page. This guide covers each step, with the legal parts quoted from the US Copyright Office rather than paraphrased from memory.

I’m not a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice. It’s the process, with the official sources linked so you can check them.

Step 1: Find the copies

Reverse image search finds pages that show the same picture. Run your most valuable photos first: the hero product shot, the images on your homepage, anything a fake store would want.

1. Google Lens. On a computer, right-click the image in Chrome and choose to search with Google, or upload it at Google Images. On a phone, use the Google app or Chrome. My guide to reverse image search on iPhone and Android has the steps.
2. TinEye. A dedicated image search engine that’s free for non-commercial use (TinEye). It’s good at exact and cropped copies.
3. Bing Images. A second index catches pages the others miss.
4. Crop and repeat. Search a tight crop of the product or the most distinctive part of the shot. Copies are often cropped, resized or mirrored.

To send one image to Google Lens, Bing, Yandex and TinEye at once, use my free reverse image search tool.

Keep a simple log as you go: the URL, a screenshot, the date you found it, and your original file. You’ll need all of it if this escalates.

Step 2: Decide whether it’s worth acting on

Not every copy is a problem. A news site embedding your Instagram post, a customer sharing your product with credit, or a supplier using an image you licensed to them may all be fine. Check your own records before you send anything.

The cases worth acting on fast are the ones that cost you money or trust: a competitor’s product page, a fake store, or a scraped copy of your content that outranks you.

Step 3: Ask first

Most removals happen with one polite message. Look for a contact page, an “about” email or the site’s social account, and send something like this:

Hi, the photo at [URL] is mine (original here: [link]). It’s being used without permission. Please remove it, or reply if you’d like to license it. Thanks.

Give it a few days. If the site is a fake store or the owner can’t be found, skip to step 4.

Step 4: Send a DMCA takedown notice to the host

In the US, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act gives web hosts and platforms a safe harbor if they remove infringing material when notified. That’s why a proper notice to the host works even when the site owner ignores you.

The US Copyright Office says a notice must contain “substantially the following information” (Section 512 resources):

#	What the notice must include
1	The signature of the copyright owner or an authorized agent
2	Identification of the copyrighted work (your photo)
3	Identification of the infringing material and enough information to locate it (the URL)
4	Your contact information
5	A statement that you have a good faith belief the use isn’t authorized by you, your agent or the law
6	A statement that the information is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you’re authorized to act for the copyright owner

Where to send it:

• Platforms (Instagram, YouTube, Amazon, Etsy and so on) have their own copyright report forms. Use those; they map to the same six elements.
• Independent websites: find out who hosts the site, then look the host up in the Copyright Office’s DMCA Designated Agent Directory, where service providers list the person who receives notices.

Once a host gets a compliant notice, the Copyright Office says it “must act expeditiously to remove or disable access” to the material and promptly tell the uploader.

If they send a counter-notice

The uploader can respond with a counter-notice if they think the removal was a mistake. After a compliant counter-notice, the host must restore the material “after no less than ten and no more than fourteen business days”, unless you tell the host you’ve filed a court action. Plan your next step inside that window.

Step 5: Ask Google to remove the page from search

A takedown at the host removes the copy. If the page is still in Google’s results, or the host won’t act, Google says it complies with DMCA notices and takes removal requests through its legal help center: pick the product (such as Google Search), pick the reason, and give the specific URLs (Google, Report content for legal reasons). Be specific about which content is infringing. Google also notes that removing a result doesn’t remove the content from the site itself.

Step 6: If it’s worth money, consider small claims

For US cases, the Copyright Claims Board is “an alternative forum to federal court to resolve copyright disputes up to $30,000 total”, with statutory damages limited to $15,000 per work (CCB FAQ). It’s voluntary for the other side, but it’s built for exactly this kind of dispute. For anything larger, talk to a lawyer.

Let Claude or ChatGPT draft the notice

You don’t need to write the notice from scratch. Paste this into Claude or ChatGPT and fill in the brackets:

Write a DMCA takedown notice to a web host’s designated agent. My name: [name]. My business: [business]. My original photo is at [URL of your original] and was first published on [date]. The infringing copy is at [infringing URL]. Include all six elements the US Copyright Office lists for a valid notice: signature line, identification of the work, identification of the infringing material with its URL, my contact details ([email], [address], [phone]), the good-faith statement, and the accuracy and penalty-of-perjury statement. Keep it under 250 words. Then list anything I still need to fill in.

Read the result against the table above before sending. The model will happily invent a date or a URL if you leave a bracket empty.

Stop it happening again

• Keep originals with their metadata so you can prove what you shot and when. My EXIF viewer shows what your files carry.
• Search your top images every quarter. It takes ten minutes with the tool above.
• If someone sends you an image claiming it’s theirs, check it too. My guide on telling whether an image is AI-generated covers how to find the earliest copy.

Photo theft FAQ

How can I find out if someone is using my photos for free?

Run your photos through Google Lens, TinEye and Bing Images. All three can search by image at no cost for personal or non-commercial use. Search a few crops of each photo, because copies are often cropped or resized.

What do I need to include in a DMCA takedown notice?

The US Copyright Office lists six elements: your signature, identification of your work, identification and location of the infringing material, your contact information, a good-faith statement that the use isn’t authorized, and a statement under penalty of perjury that the notice is accurate and you’re authorized to act.

How long does a DMCA takedown take?

The law requires the host to act “expeditiously” once it receives a compliant notice, without setting a fixed number of days. If the uploader files a counter-notice, the host must restore the material after 10 to 14 business days unless you’ve filed a court action.

Can Google remove a website that’s using my photos?

Google can remove the page from its search results when you file a copyright request through its legal help center. That doesn’t delete the page itself, so also send a notice to the site’s host.

What if the site is outside the US?

The DMCA is US law. Large platforms usually have their own copyright report forms, and many hosts list an abuse contact in their terms. Use the platform’s form where there is one, and check the host’s terms for the rest.