The State of Photo Theft in 2016

The folks over at the image tracking service Pixsy have released an infographic about the state of photo theft in 2016. As 64% of you have personally experienced, photo theft remains a serious and widespread problem in our digital age.

To gather its data, Pixsy ran a survey that had 800 respondents. The findings “provide useful, illuminatory information on how photographer’s work had been stolen, and the measures they took (or were unable to take) to protect their work over the past year,” Pixsy tells PetaPixel.

Here are some of the interesting stats: 64% of photographers experienced image theft this past year, 50% of the thieves were bloggers and social media users, and 84% of photographers never register their photos with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Yeah, the infographic cards above are a slick piece of marketing for Pixsy’s copyright protection services, but they also offer an interesting glimpse into what photographers are experiencing in this area in 2016.