My headshot is on another therapy website
Photo copies are visceral - your face, someone else's page - and they are also winnable, provided you start from an honest fact most advice skips:
Who actually owns your headshot
Usually the photographer. Copyright belongs to whoever took the photo, from the moment they took it. Unless you photographed yourself, bought the copyright in writing, or your session contract assigned it to you, the strongest legal claim over the image belongs to your photographer - not you.
This changes tactics, not outcomes:
- You hold the rights (selfie, purchased rights, written assignment): send a DMCA notice for the image yourself - clean, fast, effective.
- The photographer holds them: ask them to send the notice. One short email - photographers dislike unlicensed use of their work and most will act the same week. Meanwhile, YOUR profile text on the same page is your copyright, and a notice for the text alone still forces the page down or gutted.
The sequence
- Screenshot the page with URL and date.
- Check what else was copied - headshot pages usually carry your bio text too, which is your own claim.
- Removal request + copyright notice per the removal guide - image claim from whoever holds it, text claim from you.
- Host escalation via ICANN lookup if the site ignores notices.
If the photo is used to impersonate
A page using your face to actually offer therapy - booking, payment, messaging clients as you - is beyond content copying: license-misuse case 3 applies (board report), and platforms' impersonation-report flows apply on social sites.
Common questions
Q: My photographer is unreachable or the studio closed. Am I stuck?
A: No - the profile-text claim is yours regardless, removal requests don't require copyright at all, and hosts act on partial claims. The photo-rights question narrows one tool, not the case.
Q: Does a watermark or "© my name" on my website change ownership?
A: A notice doesn't create ownership - the copyright sits where the law put it at creation. It does strengthen the record that copying was knowing.
Q: How would I even find these copies?
A: Perceptual image matching - comparing candidate pages against your headshot's fingerprint - is part of what Therapist Watch monitors continuously; the free scan is the starting snapshot.
Check your own name now. The free scan looks for your profile on directories you never joined - no account, private report. Continuous monitoring: Therapist Watch from $9/month.
Related answers
- How to remove your profile from a therapist directory
- Someone is using my license number online
- The therapist-directory "renewal" email scam
Therapist Watch provides monitoring assistance, not legal advice, and is not a licensing board. Findings are similarity signals that require your confirmation - they are not accusations about any website, directory, or person.