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Finding your own photos or videos on a website you never gave them to is a horrible moment — and it happens to photographers, artists, models, illustrators and video creators every day. The good news is that you can find leaked content and remove stolen photos yourself, without paying a takedown service, if you work through the steps in the right order: search, record, report, then follow up.
To find leaked content and remove stolen photos, run a reverse image search on your original files to locate every copy, save each infringing URL with its date, send a DMCA takedown notice to the site’s designated agent, and ask Google to remove the result. For intimate images shared without consent, use the free StopNCII.org tool. If the use was commercial, you can also send a copyright demand letter to claim a licence fee for the use.
Leaked content is any photo or video of yours that appears online without your permission — whether a paying subscriber copied it, a client reposted it, or someone downloaded it from your portfolio and uploaded it elsewhere. This guide walks through the whole process, from the first search to the final follow-up, and it works for professional work and personal images alike. It is written for creators in the UK and the US, and it notes where the rules differ.
How Do You Find Leaked Content and Remove Stolen Photos from the Web?
You cannot remove what you cannot find, so searching comes first. A reverse image search compares your original file against billions of images on the web and shows you where matching or near-identical copies appear. Start with your most distinctive work — the images most likely to be stolen are the ones that are popular, searchable and easy to download.
Follow these steps to search properly:
- Pick the right original. Use the highest-quality version you have, ideally the file exactly as you published it. Cropped or re-saved copies still work, but the original gives the most matches.
- Search with Google Lens. Open Google reverse image search in your browser, upload the image, and look through the “visually similar” and “exact match” results. Google Lens is usually the fastest way to find copies on indexed websites.
- Try a second engine. Run the same image through TinEye and Yandex Images as well. Each engine indexes different parts of the web, and a copy that Google misses often shows up on one of the others. Our how to reverse image search guide explains each engine’s strengths.
- Search video stills, not just photos. For a leaked video, take a clear still frame from a distinctive moment — a face, a logo, a room — and search that frame. Video files themselves cannot be reverse-searched directly, but a still from the video can be.
- Search your name and stage name too. Some copies are only findable by text. Search your name, your business name and your watermark text in Google and Bing, and set up a Google Alert for your name so you hear about new copies automatically.
- Repeat with different crops. Leaked copies are often cropped, flipped or watermarked over. Searching a tight crop of a distinctive detail — a tattoo, a piece of jewellery, a background object — can surface copies the full image misses.
If you would rather not upload your work to a search engine, you can start with the free reverse image search tool on our homepage, which runs the same engines without asking you to create an account. Whichever route you choose, keep a simple list as you go: the URL of every copy, the date you found it, and which of your originals it matches. That list becomes the evidence for everything that follows.
A worked example: a photographer’s portraits turn up on a free-download site
Here is how the process looks in practice. Maya is a freelance portrait photographer in Manchester. A client tells her that two portraits from a paid shoot are being offered as “free downloads” on a site she has never heard of. Maya opens Google Lens, uploads one of the original portraits, and the results show the same two portraits on the download site, plus a third copy on a forum. She writes down all three URLs with today’s date, and she does not download the copies — the notice she is about to send needs the location of the material, not the material itself.
Maya then searches a tight crop of the sitter’s necklace, which surfaces a fourth copy on a social media account that is selling “photo packs”. She adds it to her list. With four URLs recorded, she moves on to reporting: a DMCA notice to the download site, a report to the forum, and a report to the social platform. A week later she re-runs the same searches. The download site and the forum have removed their copies, but the social media account has re-uploaded the photos under a new post, so she reports that post too. This is normal: removal is a process of repeated checks, not a single action, and outcomes vary from site to site.
What Should You Do First When You Find a Leak?
Before you contact anyone, protect your position. The first hour after a discovery matters, because pages disappear, accounts get deleted, and a site that ignores you today may respond to a properly written notice tomorrow — but only if you can show exactly what was taken and when.
- Record every URL and date. Write down the full address of each page hosting a copy, the date you found it, and which original it matches. A spreadsheet works well; keep one row per copy.
- Do not download the stolen copy. You already own the original, so you do not need the copy, and downloading it — especially if it is an intimate image — only creates another copy on your own device. The URL and the date are the evidence.
- Work out when the copy first appeared. The publication date of the copy helps you prove it came after your original. Our guide to when a photo was first published explains how to date an image from its metadata, its first search-engine appearance and its page history.
- Check who took the photo. If the image is yours but you are not sure of the chain of ownership — for example, a client supplied it — confirm that you hold the copyright before you send a legal notice. Our guide to who took this photo explains how to trace an image back to its photographer.
- Do not message the uploader angrily. A short, factual message asking for removal is fine, but threats and arguments rarely help and can make a bad situation worse. The formal routes below are more effective and leave a paper trail.
- Tell the people affected. If the leak involves a client, a model or anyone else pictured, let them know promptly and privately. They may need to take their own steps, and they deserve to hear it from you first.
One more thing to settle early: whether the image shows you as an adult or as a minor, and whether it is intimate. If the content shows you under 18, use NCMEC’s free Take It Down service and report to the CyberTipline instead of the steps in this article — those services are built for that situation and act fast. The rest of this guide covers adult creators and general creative work.
How Do You Send a DMCA Takedown Notice That Works?
A DMCA takedown notice is a formal request under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act asking a website or hosting company to remove material that infringes your copyright. You do not need a lawyer to send one, and you do not need to have registered your copyright to send one — although, as the U.S. Copyright Office explains, registration is generally required before you can sue for infringement in the US.
According to the U.S. Copyright Office, a valid notice of claimed infringement must be sent in writing to the service provider’s designated agent and must include six things: your signature, identification of your copyrighted work, identification of the infringing material with enough information to locate it, your contact details, a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised, and a statement under penalty of perjury that you are authorised to act for the copyright owner. The Copyright Office keeps a public directory of designated agents, so you can find the right contact for almost any site at the U.S. Copyright Office DMCA Designated Agent Directory.
Send your notice like this:
- Find the site’s designated agent. Check the site’s own copyright or DMCA page first; if it has none, search the Copyright Office directory for the site or its host.
- Write one notice per site. List every infringing URL on that site, identify your original work for each one, and include all six elements above. Keep the tone factual and professional.
- Send it by email and keep a copy. Email is the usual route. Save the sent message and note the date, so you can prove when the site was told.
- Wait, then follow up. Most legitimate sites act within a few days. If nothing happens in a week, send a polite follow-up and, if the site still ignores you, escalate to its hosting provider or domain registrar — the companies the site depends on to stay online.
- Expect a counter-notice sometimes. If the uploader files a counter-notice claiming the material is lawful, the platform may restore it after 10 to 14 business days unless you tell the platform within that period that you have filed a court action, as set out in 17 U.S.C. § 512(g). At that point, speak to a lawyer before doing anything else.
For UK creators, the DMCA is a US law, but it still works in practice because most large platforms and hosts are US companies that follow it. UK copyright law gives you the same basic right to demand removal of your work, and a short letter before action — the subject of our next article in this series — is the UK route when a platform ignores you. Do not pay a takedown company before trying this yourself: the notice costs nothing but your time.
How Do You Get Leaked Content Removed from Google and Bing?
Removing a copy from a website and removing it from search results are two different jobs. Even after a site deletes the page, Google and Bing may keep showing it in results until they recrawl the page or you ask them to drop it. So run the search-engine step alongside the DMCA notice, not after it.
Google offers a legal removal request form for copyrighted material, and a separate form for personal information and explicit images shared without consent. Bing has its own content-removal form. In each case you supply the infringing URL, the URL of your original work, and your contact details. Google does not publish a fixed turnaround time for these requests, and in practice straightforward copyright removals are often processed within days, while complex or personal-information requests can take weeks. A search-engine removal only hides the result from that search engine — the page stays on its site until the site itself removes it — which is why you should always do both steps.
If the leaked content is an explicit image of you shared without your consent, use the personal-information route rather than the copyright route: Google removes non-consensual explicit images under its own policies, and the request is reviewed as a privacy matter rather than a copyright dispute. The same applies to images of identity documents and other sensitive personal information. Keep the confirmation email from each request, and check the search results again after a week to confirm the listing has gone.
What Free Help Exists for Intimate Images Shared Without Consent?
If the leaked content is an intimate image of you — nude, semi-nude, or sexual — shared without your consent, you have free specialist help that works differently from a DMCA notice and is usually faster. Do not skip this section if it applies to you: these tools were built for exactly this situation, and they cost nothing.
According to StopNCII.org, its free tool works by creating a hash — a digital fingerprint — of your image or video directly on your own device, and sharing only that hash with participating companies so they can detect and block matching copies. StopNCII.org states that it does not download the images from your device, and that the hash is the only file shared. StopNCII.org also reports a removal rate of over 90%, and says the Revenge Porn Helpline behind it has removed over 300,000 non-consensual intimate images from the internet. The tool is for adults who are in the image, were 18 or older when it was taken, and still have the image. You create a case on StopNCII.org, select the images on your device, and the hash is shared with participating platforms, which can then stop the image being uploaded or shared again.
In the UK, the Revenge Porn Helpline (which operates StopNCII.org) also offers free advice and support, and you can report the offence to the police: sharing intimate images without consent is a criminal offence in England and Wales. If someone is threatening to share your images unless you pay or do something — sextortion — do not pay, save the messages, and report it to the police and to Action Fraud. If you are in immediate danger, contact the police straight away. None of this is your fault, and you do not have to deal with it alone.
How Do You Stop the Same Content Being Re-Uploaded?
Removal is rarely a one-time job. Copies are often re-uploaded after they are taken down, sometimes by the same person and sometimes by someone who saved the file earlier. A simple routine, run once a week, catches most re-uploads before they spread.
- Re-run your reverse image searches weekly. Search your most-stolen images again every week for the first month after a leak, then monthly. New copies usually appear in the first few weeks.
- Set up alerts. A Google Alert for your name, stage name and business name tells you when new pages mention you. Most platforms also let you save a search for your watermark text.
- Watermark new work. A visible watermark with your name or website does not stop copying, but it makes copies easier to find with a text search and links them back to you — and it deters casual re-use.
- Publish in lower resolution where you can. Portfolio images at web resolution are less useful to thieves than full-resolution files, and they still look fine on screen.
- Keep your evidence file up to date. Add every new copy to the same spreadsheet, with its URL and date, and note the outcome of each notice. If a dispute ever reaches a lawyer, that file is gold.
The table below compares the main removal routes, so you can pick the right one for each copy you find.
| Method | Best for | Cost | Speed | Main limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reverse image search | Finding copies | Free | Minutes | Finds copies, removes nothing |
| DMCA notice | Any copyrighted work | Free | Days | Some sites ignore it |
| Platform report button | Social media copies | Free | Hours to days | Needs an account sometimes |
| Google/Bing removal | Hiding search results | Free | Days to weeks | Page stays live on its site |
| StopNCII.org | Intimate images, adults | Free | Days | Adults only, you must hold the image |
| Take It Down (NCMEC) | Images of under-18s | Free | Days | Under-18 images only |
| Paid takedown service | Large-scale leaks | Monthly fee | Days | Costs money; try free routes first |
One last point about expectations: you may never find every copy, and that is not a failure. The aim is to remove the copies that are findable and visible — the ones on indexed sites, search results and large platforms — and to make re-uploading harder each time. Creators who run the weekly check, keep their evidence file, and report every new copy quickly find that leaks shrink from a flood to an occasional trickle. Start with the search, send the notices, and keep going.
FAQs
Can I find leaked copies of my photos without paying for a service?
Yes. Free reverse image search tools such as Google Lens, TinEye and Yandex Images can find copies of your photos on indexed websites at no cost. Search your original files, try a second engine for anything Google misses, and repeat the search with different crops. Paid services add monitoring and bulk notices, but the finding itself is free.
How long does a DMCA takedown usually take?
Most legitimate websites act within a few days of receiving a complete notice, and many act faster. If nothing happens within a week, send a polite follow-up, then escalate to the site’s hosting provider or domain registrar. Some sites ignore notices entirely, so also ask Google and Bing to remove the search result while you escalate.
What should I do if a site ignores my DMCA notice?
Escalate to the companies the site depends on: its hosting provider, domain registrar, or content delivery network, all of which accept abuse reports. Ask Google and Bing to drop the search result so the copy is harder to find. If the leak is large or commercial, a solicitor’s letter or a paid takedown service may be worth considering.
Is it safe to use StopNCII.org for intimate images?
Yes, for adults. StopNCII.org creates a hash of your image on your own device and shares only that hash with participating companies, so the image itself is never uploaded. It reports a removal rate of over 90%. You must be the person in the image, have been 18 or older when it was taken, and still hold the image.
The same routine applies when the stolen work is a design rather than a photo or video: learn how to find copies of your design on print-on-demand stores and report each product listing.
