Author Topic: Agencies giving away images for free in Google image search (not istock) (Read 7515 times)

Tror · « **on:** February 13, 2013, 21:27 »

Hi Folks,

I just did a little test search on Google (search term: "flower pattern").
As a result I get TONS of photos in a resolution of 1000x1000px or close from Depositphotos, 123 and other sites.

This is just ridiculously lousy protection. Who will want to buy images for any web usage if you can just download them for free from the agency? Beyond that, still tons of Highres material when searching for "shutterstock". As someone else pointed out the license of SS forbids web exposure of original images in high res. What is SS doing about this violation of Terms and in order to protect the contributor?

elvinstar · « **Reply #1 on:** February 13, 2013, 22:24 »

I just tried that search and all of the images that I looked at (which admittedly wasn't all of them) were watermarked by the hosting agency. In addition, clicking on the image brings you (just like it does with any Google image search) to the page on the hosting agency.

Am I missing something?

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #2 on:** February 14, 2013, 01:43 »

123RF seems to have done something to tell Google's Image search that its images are 1200 x 1200 even though all you really get is a small watermarked thumb if you look at the original image. I suspect this is on purpose to get a higher ranking in the search results.

Deposit photos appears to be doing something similar - it's watermarked images are larger than 123RF but aren't as big as the dimensions shown.

I think the agencies are trying to game Google's system to get better placement without giving away anything. Within a broken system, this is probably a reasonable response

elvinstar · « **Reply #3 on:** February 14, 2013, 04:11 »

That's what I was seeing, too. I thought that maybe I was crazy after reading the OP.

Mars · « **Reply #4 on:** February 14, 2013, 09:36 »

Quote from: jsnover on February 14, 2013, 01:43

123RF seems to have done something to tell Google's Image search that its images are 1200 x 1200 even though all you really get is a small watermarked thumb if you look at the original image. I suspect this is on purpose to get a higher ranking in the search results.

That's clever.

Anyone know how they do this? I'd like to do this on my site.

dingles · « **Reply #5 on:** February 14, 2013, 10:29 »

This was brought up by Sean I believe over at iStock also. Issue is that naive buyers are hosting large images on their sites and just shrinking them down with HTML. Obviously the issue is Google can index the file at the hosted resolution. Most agents have limits the size you can host on the web(although not sure how they can track everyone's use), but with resolutions being much larger, I can see the need sometimes for larger images. Glad to hear that there has been progress made by some stock agents and Google to help reduce this...

steheap · « **Reply #6 on:** February 14, 2013, 12:16 »

You would think that Google would be able to read the copyright status in the file itself (I'm sure all our stock images have the copyrighted field completed in our JPEGs, and, as far as I know, that is generally carried forward with the licensed copy). If they did that, they could mark the file as such on the screen and also try to avoid direct file downloads from their search page. Not beyond their capabilities!

Steve

PixelBytes · « **Reply #7 on:** February 14, 2013, 12:37 »

Quote from: steheap on February 14, 2013, 12:16

You would think that Google would be able to read the copyright status in the file itself (I'm sure all our stock images have the copyrighted field completed in our JPEGs, and, as far as I know, that is generally carried forward with the licensed copy). If they did that, they could mark the file as such on the screen and also try to avoid direct file downloads from their search page. Not beyond their capabilities!

Steve

Agreed, they could do it. But why bother when stealing our content is so much more lucrative for them, and nobody seems to be stopping it.

Jonathan Ross · « **Reply #8 on:** February 14, 2013, 12:50 »

Hi All,

I think a smarter approach to all of this that might have made the situation a bit better for everyone would have been to keep the photographers credit and even promote the name so it directed buyers towards our portfolios if they liked what they found in the Google Doc image collection. Then we would have our images in front of many users that might see our names and look for more of our work or similars in the market place for future purchase. At least with that approach we would have gotten some marketing out of the deal and the agencies might have made future sales from Google doc users. As it stands the end user has no way of finding out the creator of an image I think that hurts all parties. Just a thought.

Cheers,
Jonathan

bruce_blake · « **Reply #9 on:** March 04, 2013, 23:07 »

This is fine as 1000x1000px images shown in Google search result are watermarked images. It is like when user click to enlarge the image. Google robot did that as well. So I think it is not a problem at all, instead, it helps to promote your image, as it will provide searcher the original link back to your image page.

However, of course nonono if an agency site fail to protect our original images from being retrieved by Google.