PixsyReviews of pixsy.com

Piscy is a fraudulent company that has harassed us several times and committed wire fraud by attempting to extort undue fees for photographs my company has never published. Please beware, if you receive an email from these scumbags, consult with your attorney or seek legal help. They represent an army of amateur photographers who are desperate to bag in some $ and they are willing to go as far as accusing companies like mine of having published some horrendous images of a pathetic self proclaimed photographer.

Don't deliver the service I pay for: paid for a service, high level of control is promised, archive searched only once in a month. There are much better reverse photo search companies out there. Case management also leaves a lot to be desired. It does not help if you start with the highest prices and cannot close the case. Ultimately, only the photographer gets a bad rap, Pixsy already has it.

On the 2nd August, 2021, I received an allegation from Pixsy that I had used an image, without authorisation, on my business website. They claimed that the image was the intelletual property of a named copywright agent and that I was required to pay a licensing fee for its use. Having created my business website using a highly reputable self-build platform, I had utilised their free images library. I immediately spoke with my website host, as well as forwarding them the allegations from Pixsy. They are able to confirm that the image was theirs and that Pixsy should forward any allegations to their team who specialise in copywright infringement. I informed Pixsy of this, in writing, as well as confirming the email address to whom they should forward the case. Despite this, I received a 'Second Notice' on 13.08.2021. This notice made no reference to my previous correspondence and threatened to escalate my case to their partner attorney to initiate legal proceedings. I immediately called their London office via the number on the email. I spoke with one of the 'Case Management' team who admitted that the second email had been sent in error and that they would pursue the claim via Wix. This telephone operator did not disclose her name and was reluctant to engage in conversation as soon as she identified that I was the 'defendent' in this scenario. Having investigated this online, there is a lot of evidence that this business genuinely support artists whose legitimate copywright has been infringed. However, there is also ample evidence that they actively seek to extort money from new and small businesses who may not have the forsesight or resources to identify a potential scam. I am a small business owner, fortunately with a specialism in the legal sector. As such, I will not be paying their demands for a licensing fee. Instead, I shall await any notice from my website host that the image should be removed from circulation.

I submitted a case that, after weeks of review, was declined. What bothers me is that Pixsy sent me a list of criteria the image theft would need to meet for them to accept the case which included "Your image is not available on a stock site" and "Your image is registered with the US Copyright Office". I don't understand why these criteria aren't transparent from the start. I would not have bothered wasting my time putting together all the information and proof regarding the image theft. When you submit a case, there is even an option you can check to tell them the image is available on stock sites - Why isn't the case automatically declined right then? Why isn't this basically the first question? The next criteria was that the image needs to be registered with the US Copyright Office. I come from Europe. The site that stole my image was located in Europe. So, pixsy is only for US citizens? Why isn't this communicated from the start so peopel outside the US don't waste their time? Last but not least the list of criteria said that they basically only go after big companies, as small fish are not worth their time. All of this should be clearly communicated on their site from the start. Would save both them and photographers a lot of time.

Absolutely immoral and ridiculous company. So I received a long winded and borderline threatening email a couple of weeks ago requesting I pay almost £500 for the use of a very very basic image someone has made on canva or similar. The image was used in a small blog section on my site, it was probably seen about 20 times. Now I am been threatened in to legal action if I dont pay. Considering the current climate for small business the last thing we need is a bill like this dropping on us when we are trying to keep our heads above water, we removed the image within minutes and replied but that was not enough and the legal threats continue. It looks like we will have to pay at a time we are struggling the most, this is completely immoral and terrible of a company to hand pick small shops at a time like this.

Complete and utter clowns. If you receive threatening emails from this lot just ignore. Nothing but garbage.

This company may pretend to look after "copyright owner's rights" but in fact their business model is same as "no win no fee lawyers". They are sending long intimidating letters in legalese in hopes of bullying website owners into paying extortionate amounts for images that are mostly licensed under Creative Commons licenses. Small business owners and private individuals get rightly stressed and scared of threats of litigation and pay up hundreds and thousands of pounds, even though in most cases the alleged infringement did not even occur. Pixsy know it, but will try it on anyway in hopes that the ignorant victim will not be well-versed in the intricacies of copyright law. Like any cyberscammer, they send multitudes of such auto-generated emails a day, in hopes that a small portion of recipients will get bullied into paying without defending themselves in court. This kind of frivolous litigation may thrive in US, but courts in UK will not look too favourably on such a waste of their time and resources. To anyone who has received their ludicrous long-winded extortion email that amounts to nothing - have no fear. This is still UK and your rights are still protected by the law. Make sure you don't fall victim to their scare tactics and seek legal council before, if at all, engaging with these scam-artists.