A single unlicensed image on your website could cost you thousands.

Answer: Most site owners have no way of knowing where every image on their website actually came from, especially if the site has changed hands, been redesigned, or built up years of copy and blog content. Copyright holders and the firms that represent them use automated reverse image search tools to find unlicensed image use, and they’re sending more demand letters than ever: an estimated 269,000 in the U.S. in 2025 alone, up from 85,000 in 2020. Checking your images proactively means you find the problem before someone else does. 

Answer: ImageVerifier scans pages on your website that are publicly accessible, indexes every accessible image, and checks each one against billions of sources using reverse image search technology. The results build your Image Compliance Database, creating a record of every image on your site with an estimated risk level for each, so you can see exactly which images need attention, instead of guessing. Each time you rescan, the database updates, so it tracks your site over time as images are added, replaced or removed. Armed with this data, you can more quickly and easily see what actions are needed to correct the problem ones and thereby majorly reduce your odds of getting legal claims against you or your organization. 

Answer: Yes. When ImageVerifier matches one of your images to a stock library, it shows you which providers carry it, including Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, Getty, DepositPhotos and more. This makes it easier for you, so you don’t have to go hunting for the source yourself. 

You can also connect to your Adobe Stock or Shutterstock accounts directly into your dashboard. ImageVerifier then checks your matched images against those accounts and shows you which ones already appear there, along with the platform and the account they’re tied to. That’s usually the fastest way to separate the images you’ve already paid for from the ones you can’t account for. 

Answer: In general, an image is probably safe to use without a specific valid license only if: 1) it’s in the public domain, 2) it’s released under a license that permits your specific type of use (such as certain Creative Commons licenses), or 3) it’s an image you created or and licensed yourself. But notice the words “in general” and “probably” in the above sentence. There are lots of rules and caveats, which is another reason so many organizations (and even individual website owners) are wanting to get all the help they can. 

“I found it on Google” or “it didn’t have a watermark” are just two common misconceptions, not proof of a valid license. If you can’t point to where an image’s license came from or you can’t verify that the license pertains to your exact manner of usage of the image, treat it as at-risk until you can verify it. That’s exactly the gap ImageVerifier is built to help you close. Without ImageVerifier, getting the data you need will be a long, labor-intensive, expensive and (potentially) more error-prone process. 

Answer: The risk doesn’t go away. It just stays invisible until an automated bot finds it. Consequences can range from a demand letter requesting a licensing fee, to a legal claim seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per image, plus attorney’s fees and legal costs. We’ve seen real cases with judgments well into six figures (with some being seven figures). Even claims that settle out of court can be expensive and time-consuming, especially if a site has dozens or hundreds of unverified images. 

Answer: A few misconceptions that come up constantly include “Any image without a visible watermark is free to use”; “Crediting the photographer is as good as having a license”; that “Images marked as ‘fair use’ or ‘educational use’ are okay for commercial or promotional content”; and “Stock images purchased years ago are still properly licensed today even after a site redesign or ownership change”. There are about a dozen more such incorrect (and risky) assumptions. None of them hold up , and each one is a common way organizations unwittingly end up with websites with real legal exposure. 

Answer: Two things changed at once: reverse image search technology improved dramatically and became cheaper to run at scale, and a growing number of firms built business models specifically around finding unlicensed image use and monetizing it through demand letters and settlements. What used to require manually searching the internet for a stolen photo can now be automated across millions of websites, which is a major reason demand letter volume has more than tripled since 2020.