It’s Monday morning and the staff of Copyright Agent A/S begin to arrive at their offices in Copenhagen, Denmark. As they sit down at their desks and open up their laptops, you might ask yourself what it is that they are going to be doing, which is a fair question. For the unenlightened among you, Copyright Agent is a Legal Tech company operating within the sphere of copyright law. Identifying and mediating copyright infringements of their partner’s photographic archives is their bread and butter, but there’s another aspect, a more nuanced perspective; Copyright Education, a facet which can be seen on the company’s LinkedIn profile in articles on their blog about topics as diverse as how to identify Copyright Trolls to How to avoid a Copyright Claim in the first place through compliance and via their educational blog here.
From Humble beginnings
- Business established in Denmark, 2016
- International presence: now active in 23 countries and growing
- Leaders in global Intellectual Property Rights as a Service (IPRaaS) Industry
- AI monitoring technology facilitates the protection of millions of images
- They represent international and national image agencies as well as independent content creators, photographers and influencers
- Copyright Agent is an entirely legitimate entity, acting in accordance with legislation around the globe
Established in 2016 and starting out initially in Denmark, Copyright Agent have grown over the years and have become the standout leader in the copyright protection industry with their operations now spanning across the US, Canada, the EU, Australia, New Zealand and as far south as Chile. Their core mission however remains the same. Protecting the Ecosystem of Originality.
Copyright Agent’s Chief Visionary Officer and founder Henrik Eggert, originally a trained engineer, notes “We are in a digital age where people think that everything is free”. From this startpoint, and through working closely with photographers concerned about losing income when their work was published without their consent, Henrik established Copyright Agent with a mission to challenge the status quo, protect photographers rights and safeguard originality.
Copyright Protection as a Service
The scale of the issue quickly became apparent and what followed was a journey through the legal world, with a deep-dive into the world of Tech. Copyright law can often be complicated and inaccessible and many photographers struggle with knowing their rights, but Copyright Agent set out to simplify it through a thorough understanding of the market, the issue, and where the challenge stems from. As the company grew, in-house legal advisors joined the team. The advisors collaborate with local legal experts to ensure compliance with local laws and to facilitate escalation of claims where necessary.
The expertise accumulated through working with multiple legal systems is apparent in Copyright Agent’s team of experts, composed of a diverse group of individuals from across the world. This multiculturalism, coupled with legal documentation presented in native languages has proven to be a strong winner for rights holders and photographers alike, facilitating previously unreachable parties being held to account for their copyright infringements.
Once the issue was diagnosed, the scale at which copyright infringements existed caused it to quickly become clear that a technical solution to this ever growing problem was needed. The development of Copyright Agent’s proprietary monitoring technology ensued. While reverse image search technology was nascent at the time, the ability to do so on a large scale, and thereby to protect many images simultaneously, is what makes Copyright Agent’s software special. Their technology leverages advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence in order to be able to handle millions of images, identify unique features of each image, compare these against internet based indexes of images and turn the results into something which humans can quality control. This approach has been heralded as revolutionizing content protection in Scandinavia.
Innovators in the field
This pioneering use of technology to approach a classically legal issue has allowed for growth while simultaneously facilitating Copyright Agent’s ability to process multiple claims, in multiple jurisdictions, simultaneously. This is something previously only an army of lawyers could have hoped to achieve.
The end result is verified copyright infringement claims, individually approved by the rights holder of the image, and meticulously researched. All of this is presented in a neat online portal which the recipients of claims can review and pay any outstanding compensation to the rights holders.
Danish Roots
One of the hallmarks of Danish society is a concept of egalitarianism; the principle that people are equally deserving of rights and opportunities. It is with this in mind that Copyright Agent represents partners both large and small, ranging from international and national image agencies to independent content creators, photographers and influencers, who share their ethos. As their umbrella of copyright protection expands so does the mission scope to educate the recipients of copyright infringement claims to help them not reoffend again in the future.
Copyright infringement is something that affects photographers worldwide, they work hard to produce the images we all love, the images that keep us informed on current global affairs, and the images that inspire the imaginations of billions.
Ensuring that these photographers have their rights respected, their work held aloft and celebrated, and that they receive reasonable compensation when these rights aren’t respected, continues to be the guiding principle of Copyright Agent as they expand their operations and work towards a future where website owners pay for the photographs they use.
