Copyright infringement is as easy as downloading images off the internet. While most people are unaware of the impact this has on the content creator, commercial use without a license is illegal.
Using our unique LAPIXA Image Finder, LAPIXA scans for uses of your content across the web. If illegal activity has been found, we are also fully equipped to take legal action on your behalf. Whether photographer, photo agency, or company, we ensure you’re compensated for your work.
With just one click, you decide which images you’d like to track so that you can focus on what really matters: content creation – we’ll take care of the rest.
Being part of LAPIXA means you never have to worry about illegal uses of your images ever again.
Our search technology finds all usages of your images, even if they have been edited. Together with our worldwide network of lawyers, we help you to protect your copyright.
LAPIXA stands for exceptional customer satisfaction. If you have any questions, your personal account manager can always help and advise you.
To use our continuous search software, you have various membership options to choose from. These plans vary depending on the number of images you want to search.
For pursuing legal cases, LAPIXA works on a commission model which is only taken if your case has been won.
After winning the case, a flat rate of 85€ is deducted for documentation costs. The exact legal fees vary depending on the country the infringement was committed in. After these charges are deducted, LAPIXA receives a commission of 43% and if applicable, VAT is applied. LAPIXA will then send you your share of 57%.
Our carefully selected partner law firms take care of the rights to your images.
We currently have partner law firms in the following countries: Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Israel, Great Britain & USA.
Our network of trusted lawyers is gradually expanding to other nations around the world as well.
If you do find a violation outside one of the countries listed above, please feel free to report it to us here.
You can upload up to 10 images for free. If you want to upload more content, please refer to our pricing page to see which option best suits your needs.
If you would like to upload more images than what is offered in our subscriptions, please email us at kontakt@lapixa.de.
Technically, you can upload any image onto our user interface. This being said, the images that find the most results are those that are publicly visible
For cases to be legally prosecuted by our lawyers, the case must meet the following criteria:
1. – You are the sole copyright owner of the image or be able to legally act on behalf of the copyright owner. In the case of acting on behalf of the copyright owner, you must provide the necessary documentation.
2. – The website or its parent company is based in one of the countries where we legally operate: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, France, United States, Israel, Norway, or Finland.
3. – The copyright infringement should be in the form of commercial use and not in a forum, personal blog, review, etc. Commercial use means that the site is used to earn money – e.g., through advertising for one’s services, advertisements on the site, or an existing online shop.
4. – There should be an address or other contact information that can be used for submitting an official letter. This information is usually found in an imprint or on the website’s contact page.
After you submit a case, we will review and document it. Once a quick check for the necessary criteria (see above) is completed, we forward the case to our partner law firms in the respective country.
Our calculations are based on photograph values in the area where the infringer operates.
If you have an older invoice where your photography has been licensed at a higher value, please include this in the comments, and we will update it for you.
We do not prosecute cases against wallpaper websites.
In our experience, these sites are often outside our area of operation and rarely have the necessary contact information we need to take legal action.
In such cases, it typically helps to contact the person in a non-legal way and ask the person to remove the picture.
Blacklisting excludes certain websites from being searched by our system. For example, you can blacklist your own website, a partner agency, or a regular client’s site so that they do not appear in your matches.
You can add domains to your Blacklist in settings or by clicking on the small arrow in the upper left corner of a result and then selecting “Blacklist.”
This is also useful for removing your customer’s websites or websites you don’t want to take action against.”
If more than one of your images is used on the same website, we will combine these matches into one case. You can either submit every match or add a note in the comments.
Even if we are not active in these areas, we would like to offer you the option of seeing your matches worldwide.
If you would like to only see matches from specific countries or only countries that LAPIXA can take legal action in, you can add these countries to your Whitelist under settings.
Usually, a case is rejected because it is either not in a country where we have legal support, the infringement is not used commercially, the image is not on the same server as the website, or there is no address.
If you have questions about a rejected case, you can always leave us a message under case details, and we will get back to you with more information.
It is important to distinguish between a CC BY and a CC0 license.
Suppose your picture has been published under a CC BY license. In that case, the user of your image is always obligated to name the author. If this has not been done, then this constitutes an infringement of your copyright. A case submission would therefore be the next step.
However, a suite would not be successful if your image has been published under a CC0 license. With a CC0 license, you give up all copyright claims to this image. The photo is effectively released into the public domain with a CC0 license.
You are welcome to send us cases you have found personally to kontakt@lapixa.de, along with the original image and link to the source.
As legal cases must meet certain criteria (see above under Matches- What’s the criteria for a case to be accepted), we will do a quick check to ensure it’s all met and will then email you confirming if we can support the case.
Facebook and Instagram have policies restricting us from browsing private pages. However, that doesn’t mean they’re free from copyright infringement. If you find that your images are being used commercially on Facebook or Instagram, please email us at kontakt@lapixa.de with a copy of the original image.
More information on Meta’s terms can be found here and here.
Since we only take action against the commercial use of your images, we do not pursue claims against personal blogs. However, if the blog post is published on a company website, or any other website that displays advertising, you are welcome to submit the case.
