MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: PaulieWalnuts on June 14, 2011, 21:43
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Is this something new? I just stumbled on it. You drag and drop an image into it and it finds identical and also similar images.
Kind of like Tineye but this actually works. I've been dumping my stock stuff into it and it's doing a pretty amazing job of finding where images are being used.
One possible downside is for thieves who want to find unwatermarked stock.
http://images.google.com/ (http://images.google.com/)
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Where do you drag the images from and where to you drag them to?
Can't figure out what you're saying... :P
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Are you talking about the "Similar" link underneath the image?
That's been there for a long time.
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You just drag an image right into the text box where you normally type words to search for an image.
Here's an overview of how it works (http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searchbyimage.html)
Really slick. I can't believe how many images it's finding. Addicting.
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I'm not seeing this yet - Google's help says if you don't see it, check back over the next day or so. I guess it rolls out around the globe but hasn't gotten to me yet :(
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not working for me on Firefox. Camera icon not showing up.
IE works fine.
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Since I don't use IE I read the last line on the Google page.
To search by image even faster, download the Chrome extension or the Firefox extension. With the extension installed, simply right-click an image on the web to search Google with that image.
And since I'm lazy, that sounds like the easiest way? :D
not working for me on Firefox. Camera icon not showing up.
IE works fine.
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god, how user friendly... >:(
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OMG! Thank you! For me it doesn't work with IE9 so it appears but it worked in Firefox.
Well I know what I'm going to be busy with the rest of tonight ;)
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Just to be honest I don't have a clue what the drag and drop means. Drag and drop what and how? If I'm on one page, how do I drop something on the other page? Cut and paste the link? Nah, it just gives an error. Wait maybe I have to own a MAc to make it work?
I right click, with the plugin, and just get my own images on SS and IS, so no help there. I guess I need to try the plugin with Chrome and see how that works? Also not much better than TinEye or the others, where I'm great for finding my images, where they are for sale, and nearly nothing for finding them in use.
That was using my best selling SS image, right click and guess what comes up? My image on SS. Hmm, that's not very exciting. :)
I suppose I should be happy that it doesn't come up on some free downloads site? LOL
OMG! Thank you! For me it doesn't work with IE9 so it appears but it worked in Firefox.
Well I know what I'm going to be busy with the rest of tonight ;)
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Very cool feature. Thanks for posting this.
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this is the coolest tool ever....I am finding SO many images of mine in use.....this tool beats tineye hands down...amazing!
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realy great tool, its addicting ;-)
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thanks for the post! this is really cool...
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Just to be honest I don't have a clue what the drag and drop means. Drag and drop what and how? If I'm on one page, how do I drop something on the other page? Cut and paste the link? Nah, it just gives an error. Wait maybe I have to own a MAc to make it work?
I right click, with the plugin, and just get my own images on Shutterstock and IS, so no help there. I guess I need to try the plugin with Chrome and see how that works? Also not much better than TinEye or the others, where I'm great for finding my images, where they are for sale, and nearly nothing for finding them in use.
That was using my best selling Shutterstock image, right click and guess what comes up? My image on Shutterstock. Hmm, that's not very exciting. :)
I suppose I should be happy that it doesn't come up on some free downloads site? LOL
I have a folder open on my computer where my images are and I clicked and dragged it with the mouse to the search box. I think I've only found a few with tineye.
I also found a few of my images still with the SS watermark on them so that's not cool :-\
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Interesting... Found - One of my images with no downloads (but looks like a thumb with watermark semi skilfully removed). Found one photo with only one downloads used by about five different users; Found one photo claiming to be taken of a particular location by a particular photographer and then picked up by the location where photographer claimed to have taken it and used in all their advertising material (It's actually a photo of somewhere totally different!); found two vectors being used as logos in contravention of itsock's licence. Plus lots of interesting uses I haven't seen before. Including one of my eldest daughter as a poster child for autism (I don't think I'm going to tell her about that!!)
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Not sure if I want to find out who has stolen my images. I do hope google are working on a way to make money from this, by selling a license for our stock images, hopefully with a decent commission for us.
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im just curious if google stores the image you drag to the search area somewhere. I would hope not but worry that it is being added to their database somehow.
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Just found one of my images on the Oprah website!
EDIT: make it, the same image used at least five times...
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One thing I'm already seeing a pattern with is how effective watermarks are.
I have some images at Flickr and my personal sites with different watermarks. Some have the small faint watermarks at the bottom left or right. Some have a faint bigger watermark in the middle similar to Istock's.
Guess which ones I'm finding being used illegally. Right, small bottom watermark. So whoever says watermarks don't make a difference, wrong.
Time to start registering copyrights on all my images.
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Wow this actually works!! (as opposed to tineye)
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Fun! Thanks...
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Oh geez, this is too depressing. Every image I drop in it has got countless violations all over the internet.
I posted a couple of the sites in the Image sleuth section but I need to stop looking now, making me too angry arghhhhhhhh
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Too funny. Way more efficient than Tineye!
Love to see how people modify my images for their needs. Although it's mainly to the worse :D
Lots of watermarked images in use as well, which is bad but I don't bother contacting any of them for a 30 cent settlement by pointing them to the stock sites
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Btw if you're an illustrator and people are using your work as (a sort of) logo for their company, remember to check if they have a photo page on their website. Found one of mine on a big sign that way
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Since I have the house to myself today, I can already see I will get nothing done playing with this thing!
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Since I have the house to myself today, I can already see I will get nothing done playing with this thing!
Plus, we'll get many angry posts here today. Should be a fun day 8)
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They have some interesting ideas of "similar" pics too. I searched for uses of an emergency first aid image that has sold well and found some, but the similars were mostly color-releated. My image is heavy in red tones and the similar pics were red belts, red flowers, red table settings and a few women in red boudoir scenes LOL
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They have some interesting ideas of "similar" pics too. I searched for uses of an emergency first aid image that has sold well and found some, but the similars were mostly color-releated. My image is heavy in red tones and the similar pics were red belts, red flowers, red table settings and a few women in red boudoir scenes LOL
I think they want to offer different images with the same color scheme, so if image researchers (who use Google Images) are looking for content they might actually be interested in other images with the same color tones. I think it's pretty neat (not if half naked women appear next to your daughter's holiday shot though...).
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I don't see the camera yet.
I hope the agencies are geared up for dealing with all the 'found but never downloaded' images, or wrongly used images etc.
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One thing I'm already seeing a pattern with is how effective watermarks are.
I have some images at Flickr and my personal sites with different watermarks. Some have the small faint watermarks at the bottom left or right. Some have a faint bigger watermark in the middle similar to Istock's.
Guess which ones I'm finding being used illegally. Right, small bottom watermark. So whoever says watermarks don't make a difference, wrong.
Time to start registering copyrights on all my images.
really true. on my website, I place watermarks across the middle (or most important portion) of my image. I realize it can make the image less attractive, but so be it...
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I don't see the camera yet.
I hope the agencies are geared up for dealing with all the 'found but never downloaded' images, or wrongly used images etc.
I am in Germany. No camera for me either.
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One thing I'm already seeing a pattern with is how effective watermarks are.
I have some images at Flickr and my personal sites with different watermarks. Some have the small faint watermarks at the bottom left or right. Some have a faint bigger watermark in the middle similar to Istock's.
Guess which ones I'm finding being used illegally. Right, small bottom watermark. So whoever says watermarks don't make a difference, wrong.
Time to start registering copyrights on all my images.
really true. on my website, I place watermarks across the middle (or most important portion) of my image. I realize it can make the image less attractive, but so be it...
Well, after playing with this thing I also found a bunch with the bigger center watermark also. But the smaller one still has more thefts.
Another issue this resurrects is with RF licensing. Without watermarks how do we really know which images were licensed properly or stolen? If a designer buys an image and posts the XXXL size on their website what's to prevent another hundred people from stealing it and using it? How would we know which is legit? RF doesn't track anything. RM tracks customers and usage so it's pretty easy to get a report on who's licensing it and who's in violation.
If for every one image that's purchased it's getting stolen 5/10/25 times, that's a lot of money out of our pockets. We need a hybrid license that offers the buying simplicity of RF with some of the tracking capabilities of RM.
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If it's so easy to trace all these stolen images now, I wonder if it would be worth the sites getting together and making an example of some of these thieves? The music industry has gone after people file sharing, why can't the microstock sites do something similar? They could be losing a lot of money from this.
I also wonder if this could boost our sales? If potential buyers see something they like, hopefully they will now be able to easily find it on one of the sites and buy a license.
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If it's so easy to trace all these stolen images now, I wonder if it would be worth the sites getting together and making an example of some of these thieves? The music industry has gone after people file sharing, why can't the microstock sites do something similar? They could be losing a lot of money from this.
I also wonder if this could boost our sales? If potential buyers see something they like, hopefully they will now be able to easily find it on one of the sites and buy a license.
Micro agencies don't give a f*ck about going after thieves to increase profits, because if they see their profit margin drop, they simply cut the photographer commission. They get away with it 100% of the time and we end up here complaining but not doing anything about it.
In fact, if it weren't against the law the micro owners would use us as slave labor. I have absolutely no doubt about it. And I'm not joking.
The music industry had to do something about it because they cannot easily replace an artist or band. With us, that's very far from the truth since people even offer images for free just to see them on print.
Today I've already sent half a dozen mails to sites demanding for them to delete the image or pay the license. But that's only on my RM collection. It's impossible to do anything about RF.
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Well, after playing with this thing I also found a bunch with the bigger center watermark also. But the smaller one still has more thefts.
Another issue this resurrects is with RF licensing. Without watermarks how do we really know which images were licensed properly or stolen? If a designer buys an image and posts the XXXL size on their website what's to prevent another hundred people from stealing it and using it? How would we know which is legit? RF doesn't track anything. RM tracks customers and usage so it's pretty easy to get a report on who's licensing it and who's in violation.
If for every one image that's purchased it's getting stolen 5/10/25 times, that's a lot of money out of our pockets. We need a hybrid license that offers the buying simplicity of RF with some of the tracking capabilities of RM.
And also what we need a is a technology that embed in the image, information about the buyer and the end client so we can detect abusive uses. I think that technology already exists for may years but stock agencies don't seem to be interested in using it. They can always cut commissions to increase profit.
Will it kill stock photography? Yes, but the agencies always looked at microstock as a short term thing. Just see how they are happy to sell when a good offer comes up...
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This thing really works.
PaulieWalnuts, thanks for sharing this.
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....Micro agencies don't give a f*ck about going after thieves to increase profits, because if they see their profit margin drop, they simply cut the photographer commission. They get away with it 100% of the time and we end up here complaining but not doing anything about it...
I don't think that's quite true. I'm doing lots about the commission cuts, it's virtually stopped my microstock production and I'm working towards other ways of making money. I'm not the only one that isn't going to take commission cuts until there's nothing left. And the sites that have cut commissions the most don't look to be doing that well, istock and FT look like they have a flawed strategy to me.
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@PaulieWalnuts - I believe that technology will be a big part of how tracking works moving forward. And didn't Getty just buy into one of the companies which has been developing tracking / digital watermarking technology ?
On the subscription side I suspect that sooner or later content will be literally linked to a subscription - such that the content and user agreement expires if the subscription lapses. Subscription based services are potentially easier to control.
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Doesn't work for me - I don't see any camera neither in Firefox nor Chrome or IE
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I don't have the camera icon either via Mac Firefox 4.0.1. I can't wait to try it.
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I don't have the camera icon either via Mac Firefox 4.0.1. I can't wait to try it.
Same here. I guess we'll just have to wait a bit more.
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I see the camera, how do I download the plugin?
First try, just got a watermarked image! Oh well.
http://theenglishstars.blogspot.com/2010/06/airport.html (http://theenglishstars.blogspot.com/2010/06/airport.html)
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I have no idea why the delay in the roll-out on this feature. That camera icon looks suspiciously like one of mine.
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So, this first image led to several FT watermarked version spread in many sites, mostly blogs.
A couple of unwatermarked ones are available in the original large size. What can we do about this, contact the user and request that he respects the size limit of the agreement?
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This is neat, I found one of my stethoscope images in a poster for this clinic.
http://www.centremediclaboral.com/tabid/417/language/ca-ES/Default.aspx (http://www.centremediclaboral.com/tabid/417/language/ca-ES/Default.aspx)
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On the subscription side I suspect that sooner or later content will be literally linked to a subscription - such that the content and user agreement expires if the subscription lapses. Subscription based services are potentially easier to control.
I think I'm misunderstanding what you mean - could you clarify please?
Thinkstock for one has in their user agreement that images may not be used after a subscription expires (except where it has already been put into use) so you're not supposed to 'stash' images. From the user point of view, the stashing of images must be an attraction of subs.
It has been generally agreed when this point has been made that it would be impossible to police.
But I think you must mean something else.
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Thanks for posting this. Google just rocks at everything they do!
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Ok, this is where we can ghet the plugin from:
http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searchbyimage.html (http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searchbyimage.html)
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anyone know anyone that works at google??? I know the employees can devote one day a week to a project they choose to work on. Someone whisper into their ears about creating something that will benefit the artists and provide an alternative to the agencies! Those geeks can think something up!!!
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Ok, this is where we can ghet the plugin from:
[url]http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searchbyimage.html[/url] ([url]http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searchbyimage.html[/url])
Yes, scroll down to the bottom of the page and you download the extension for firefox or chrome. I just did it and you just right click on an image...it shows up underneath the Tineye extension and works basically the same way. So much easier than using google image search.
PS Thanks Paulie.
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Thanks for the tip, I even found a few without watermark, that looked legit.
This one was so sweet that I almost can forgive him for stealing my picture and claiming copyright to it...
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I think I'm misunderstanding what you mean - could you clarify please?
It would be possible to build a subscription service such that the images would stop working if the subscription ended. Even before that, digital watermarking already exists. It is possible to track every copy of an image sold.
But I suppose this sort of thing doesn't work if a user wants to alter the image or use it in design.
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Well, I found one of my images right away with no watermark, but credited to another site which has three of my images probably legitimately purchased. So I guess they just 'lifted' the image from the other site.
One of my top-sellers, so apparently 10 pages of hits. That was just the first one, on a tumblr, whatever that is.
Of course, once someone posts a photo without a watermark, even if licensed, that's it up for grabs.
Later - I've just found many incidences of one image on different sites with exactly the same crop. Coincidence? I don't think so!
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tumblr -
It's a free blog service that's easy to use and really pretty cool.
Tumblr, sometimes styled as tumblr., is a microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use.
As of May 1, 2011 Tumblr included more than 5 billion total posts and over 17.5 million total blogs.
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tumblr -
It's a free blog service that's easy to use and really pretty cool.
Tx for the info.
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wow, yeah a lot of results.
On my first test, on tineye I got 1 result, on google i got 431 results. This could be bad news for tineye.
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wow, yeah a lot of results.
On my first test, on tineye I got 1 result, on google i got 431 results. This could be bad news for tineye.
Correct, probably since Google is indexing everything anyway they just dig in their database (which must be huge) to pull out those results.
That's pretty much the end of using Tineye for me.
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The words public domain and download free wallpaper next to my photos are really starting to freak me out. Kinda wish I'd never seen this :(
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The words public domain and download free wallpaper next to my photos are really starting to freak me out. Kinda wish I'd never seen this :(
Yeah, for some reason I started seeing a lot of those lately.
Must be profitable to set up one of those cluttered sites where no one really knows which one is free and which one is "premium".
Maybe some visitors get so confused that they unknowingly purchase credits and actually DO buy our images. Who knows...?
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At first, I was really happy and enjoyed this feature. Very fun.
I see alot of people here talking about "stolen" images. How does one know if images were stolen or rightly purchased?
Perhaps More Importantly:
Then just now I tried something. I wanted to see how many hits a popular istock photo gets. So i tried DrGround's Good news Travels Fast (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-2807197-good-news-travel-fast.php?st=2571c00). You get tons of hits. but then, i can sort them by size. Hey look, if i do that I get a high-resolution, non-watermark image that a site is using somewhere. for this image, you can get a 6MP version. Now, it's not legal to take this 6MP image and use it anywhere... but it sure makes it easy...
In short, you can go to a stock site, decide which picture you want, go to google images and get a High-Res, non-watermarked version, quickly. I'm not worried (being a small-timer), but it may be an interesting issue to bring up?
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You forgot to label your post:
How to get stock images for free
You are correct. That's why I have been sending out DMCA notices to everyone that is hosting my images in high res.
Everything usually over 800 pixels is not allowed for web use.
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You forgot to label your post:
How to get stock images for free
You are correct. That's why I have been sending out DMCA notices to everyone that is hosting my images in high res.
Everything usually over 800 pixels is not allowed for web use.
:) Sorry, I don't mean to promote it (obviously).
The 800px rule (btw, 800px in higher dimension, you mean?) is actually part of the contract of a sale? Is it true for all agencies?
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The 800px rule (btw, 800px in higher dimension, you mean?) is actually part of the contract of a sale? Is it true for all agencies?
Dreamstime:
... For Web use, you must not use the image at a width exceeding 800 pixels unless it is included in your site's design. If the image is part of a design and manipulated accordingly, the image width can be higher than 800 pixels. ...
Shutterstock:
... a)
On web sites, provided that no Image is displayed at a resolution greater than 800 x 600 pixels;....
iStock
... Displaying an original image digitally on-screen larger than 1200 x 800 pixels; video image size limitation is 640 x 480. Any size reproduction is acceptable with substantial changes to the content. ...
huh, didn't remember that one... interesting, quite large though :P
so i guess the rest is about the same
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The 800px rule (btw, 800px in higher dimension, you mean?) is actually part of the contract of a sale? Is it true for all agencies?
Dreamstime:
... For Web use, you must not use the image at a width exceeding 800 pixels unless it is included in your site's design. If the image is part of a design and manipulated accordingly, the image width can be higher than 800 pixels. ...
Shutterstock:
... a)
On web sites, provided that no Image is displayed at a resolution greater than 800 x 600 pixels;....
iStock
... Displaying an original image digitally on-screen larger than 1200 x 800 pixels; video image size limitation is 640 x 480. Any size reproduction is acceptable with substantial changes to the content. ...
huh, didn't remember that one... interesting, quite large though :P
so i guess the rest is about the same
even at 1200, the (easy-to-steal) problem doesn't go away. but still, good point. Practically speaking, what does it mean "included in the site design"? sounds subjective to me.
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Well, I'm already finding some of the stuff I mentioned earlier about people just copying what's already out there.
I found one of my more popular images with some simple text added to it. One designer probably modified it and it's now on at least 75 other websites.
I'd love to know for each image sold how many are copied. 75 from one image is pretty bad.
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Well, I'm already finding some of the stuff I mentioned earlier about people just copying what's already out there.
I found one of my more popular images with some simple text added to it. One designer probably modified it and it's now on at least 75 other websites.
I'd love to know for each image sold how many are copied. 75 from one image is pretty bad.
I experienced the same. I think we would all be doing really well if all our images would be licensed properly, even at micro prices.
So sad that those cheap ba$tard$ out there can't even spend a few bucks on an image... >:(
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Not to mention all the high res files of Vetta and Agency - ouch.
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Well, I'm already finding some of the stuff I mentioned earlier about people just copying what's already out there.
I found one of my more popular images with some simple text added to it. One designer probably modified it and it's now on at least 75 other websites.
I'd love to know for each image sold how many are copied. 75 from one image is pretty bad.
I experienced the same. I think we would all be doing really well if all our images would be licensed properly, even at micro prices.
So sad that those cheap ba$tard$ out there can't even spend a few bucks on an image... >:(
I'm not sure everyone is actually a cheap *insult removed*... honestly, before I bought a DSLR I didnt' know anything about these rules and photos and licenses. I vaguely assumed that you can do anything to any photo and re-post it just fine... It was a simpler time...
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Hopefully now with this better technology people will start getting busted more often.
But still, something needs to change. RF licensing can't be tracked. Looks like I'll need to try more RM until there's a solution.
Why wouldn't an agency be interested in this? Istock made one sale and lost 75. Istock is making about $10 per download from me so that's $750 worth of lost sales just from one image. With millions of images that's gotta be tens of millions of dollars just falling out of their pockets every year.
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Why wouldn't an agency be interested in this? Istock made one sale and lost 75. Istock is making about $10 per download from me so that's $750 worth of lost sales just from one image. With millions of images that's gotta be tens of millions of dollars just falling out of their pockets every year.
Nah... a 75x rate is for a specific image you estimated. On average, that factor is probably much much smaller - and where it is, it may be a ton of work to do anything about it (many sites are outside the jurisdictions in which istock sells its licenses, for example). I'm guessing it's a ton of work, for a very small potential $$ increase, and agencies judge that the same work can be put to developing the agency in some other way. Just my guess...
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Well, I'm already finding some of the stuff I mentioned earlier about people just copying what's already out there.
I found one of my more popular images with some simple text added to it. One designer probably modified it and it's now on at least 75 other websites.
I'd love to know for each image sold how many are copied. 75 from one image is pretty bad.
I experienced the same. I think we would all be doing really well if all our images would be licensed properly, even at micro prices.
So sad that those cheap ba$tard$ out there can't even spend a few bucks on an image... >:(
I'm not sure everyone is actually a cheap *insult removed*... honestly, before I bought a DSLR I didnt' know anything about these rules and photos and licenses. I vaguely assumed that you can do anything to any photo and re-post it just fine... It was a simpler time...
Yeah, I think that's a big reason. Most people have no idea or just don't think it's that big of a deal. That needs to change.
A friend of mine has a business partner who made the mistake of copying a Getty image. They went after her with a threat letter and invoice. They didn't tell me what it said but I'm guessing it was a pay-or-be-sued type of deal.
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Lots of my uses are on pages that aren't in English... about 5 of my dad on Thai people's facebook pages. I presume if you bought it that is legal as far as the stock sites are concerned, but I am not sure FB would be happy about it (and I doubt they were bought for this use).
Some of the European ones were sellers with links back to DT or other stock sites - presumably partner sites?
Interesting, it sure does bring up a lot more than tineye ever did.
--=Tom
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Yeah, I think that's a big reason. Most people have no idea or just don't think it's that big of a deal. That needs to change.
A friend of mine has a business partner who made the mistake of copying a Getty image. They went after her with a threat letter and invoice. They didn't tell me what it said but I'm guessing it was a pay-or-be-sued type of deal.
I would have guessed a 'cease and desist' rather than pay or be sued. they'd have to actually commit to taking someone to court to see any monetary compensation for usage.
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The feature showed up in my neck of the woods this afternoon, and yes, it's a ton better than TinEye. Not perfect, but really useful.
I found a few uses that made me laugh - several builders with images in their "portfolio" which were my house or my friends' beach house. Then I found a site that had used several images of me to illustrate a story about "Jane" who had a horrible skin condition but then used their wonderful product to fix it. Didn't exactly say that the pictures were of Jane, so it wasn't strictly an endorsement.
Then there was the company selling greeting cards - cheaper than the store. I sent them e-mail asking them to confirm that they had purchased an extended license to allow making greeting cards with my image. Depending on what sort of answer I get, I'll post here if it sounds fishy. A couple of agencies had in the past done deals to allow them to buy small images and only purchase the EL if they sold cards. If they're one of those, I guess there's no problem.
The site honeyfund.com is using thumbs of images on multiple "customer" pages - I'm not sure how that sort of use would be classified. It's not a template exactly, so perhaps it's just like using an image in more than one place on a business web site. It's a registry of sorts for engaged couples to try and get money for their honeymoon from wedding guests. The thumbs are of places they want to go or ways of getting there.
There were one or two images where Google couldn't identify it well at all - made a suggestion that wasn't even close - but for the most part, it did really well at matching.
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Yeah, I think that's a big reason. Most people have no idea or just don't think it's that big of a deal. That needs to change.
A friend of mine has a business partner who made the mistake of copying a Getty image. They went after her with a threat letter and invoice. They didn't tell me what it said but I'm guessing it was a pay-or-be-sued type of deal.
I would have guessed a 'cease and desist' rather than pay or be sued. they'd have to actually commit to taking someone to court to see any monetary compensation for usage.
Your guess is incorrect, certainly in the UK. I personally know of two clients who have received such letters from Getty both for over 1000 Gbp who paid up immediately. ( Not in relation to any work my company did by the way)
Whether the threats were enforceable was a risk they were not prepared to take, and many others do the same thing as a result of the publicity that surrounds these letters. Google such terms as 'getty images scam' 'getty threatening letters' 'getty fsb'. The FSB is the Federation of Small Businesses and has been covering this topic for many years.
Here's an example of the sort of publicity Getty letter receive:
http://copyrightaction.com/forum/the-real-cost-of-being-sued-by-getty (http://copyrightaction.com/forum/the-real-cost-of-being-sued-by-getty)
Getty going after small legitimate businesses and gaining publicity for copyright issues is one thing but I doubt such education reaches or effects the actions of the bulk of the unlawful users of images that these google searches will unearth. And I also wonder whether actual copyright owners get the recovered amounts from those that pay.
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Hopefully now with this better technology people will start getting busted more often.
I'm not sure. As I posted above, I found at least 50 uses of one of my images with exactly the same crop, mostly on blogs etc. In all sorts of languages etc, so not convinced it was one legitimage buyer. I doubt if iStock would pursue each one of them, and that was only one pic from one subscriber.
Another type of use I've seen a few of is where one site is linking to another and quotes a few paragraphs as a 'teaser' with a link to the original article, and they've also 'lifted' the accompanying image.
More likely as mentioned above, it will be a great way for users to get free images. Although to be fair, that would be people deliberately stealing images, whereas I think a lot of people think you can legitimately just 'lift' images from the web, especially if its for non-commercial use.
And another thing I've seen a few times is that a lot of sites seem to allow you to click on a larger size - larger than permitted - and encourage visitors to 'download the larger size image'. Huh >:( I can't even do that with non iStock images.
A big downer for the RF model: if iStock employed students on minimum wage during the summer holiday working on this all day, would it be financially worth their while?
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Dead giveaway: one of my icebergs on a blog with the title, "I'm not sure where this is ..." - the location is pinned right down in the iStock description, so it must have been lifted from another site.
... and at the bottom of the page, someone has written in for permission to use one of the pics (all of which he's trawlled from the net) [not mine] and he's said, "Take any pic you want." [including mine], which obviously is then an invitation to anyone else visiting that page.
Hey, this is too timeconsuming and too depressing and the sky is blue. I need to get out and do some photography!
Later: well, that didn't work, I'm still googling. And another giveaway. I found a use where the bottom corner had been cut off, for no obvious reason: all the other pics on the page are rectangular, and there is nothing in the image that needed to be cut off (a pic of stepping stones in a stream, and the 'cut off' bit was a bit of stream). Then I found the same pic in another use, with the corner cut off, but stuck into a black box so the cut off corner really stuck out. Haven't found the original 'cutter', though; I guess someone did it to fit in with their wordflow or something!
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Well, I'm already finding some of the stuff I mentioned earlier about people just copying what's already out there.
I found one of my more popular images with some simple text added to it. One designer probably modified it and it's now on at least 75 other websites.
I'd love to know for each image sold how many are copied. 75 from one image is pretty bad.
And nothing guarantees that the designer that originally modified the image has bought the image himself! The plot thickens...
;)
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Hopefully now with this better technology people will start getting busted more often.
But still, something needs to change. RF licensing can't be tracked. Looks like I'll need to try more RM until there's a solution.
Why wouldn't an agency be interested in this? Istock made one sale and lost 75. Istock is making about $10 per download from me so that's $750 worth of lost sales just from one image. With millions of images that's gotta be tens of millions of dollars just falling out of their pockets every year.
RM also has its problems. A buyer can license an image in a UK stock agency like alamy to use it in South Africa, for example. Says it's going to be used in a textbook in the editorial market, with small number of prints, and end up using it in advertising everywhere. Pay a few bucks in a use that would cost hundreds or thousands. And in the RM license you always get the hi-res file no matter the end use. Unless it's posted in the web or live in the country where the image was used you'll never know if it's been used incorrectly. And an agency in the UK does not have the chance to police the correct use of every image.
But in RF is much worse, anyway.
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Hey, an unexpected positive: I was checking one of my pics, and found the actual name of a feature within the image that I didn't know - and which is even in iStock's CV! So I got an important keyword. :D
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Hopefully now with this better technology people will start getting busted more often.
But still, something needs to change. RF licensing can't be tracked. Looks like I'll need to try more RM until there's a solution.
Why wouldn't an agency be interested in this? Istock made one sale and lost 75. Istock is making about $10 per download from me so that's $750 worth of lost sales just from one image. With millions of images that's gotta be tens of millions of dollars just falling out of their pockets every year.
RM also has its problems. A buyer can license an image in a UK stock agency like alamy to use it in South Africa, for example. Says it's going to be used in a textbook in the editorial market, with small number of prints, and end up using it in advertising everywhere. Pay a few bucks in a use that would cost hundreds or thousands. And in the RM license you always get the hi-res file no matter the end use. Unless it's posted in the web or live in the country where the image was used you'll never know if it's been used incorrectly. And an agency in the UK does not have the chance to police the correct use of every image.
But in RF is much worse, anyway.
At least you know who the customer is and what they're supposed to be using it for. If an RM image has had 5 sales and it's on 75 sites it wouldn't be too hard to figure out which is stolen.
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I certainly wish there was some sort of note on the Google page about copyright issues. Especially since more than half of the searches don't seem to 'find' my image on iStock, so there's nothing to indicate that it's a stock photo.
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Another dead giveaway that an image has been lifted from another site: several instances with an image of exactly the same measurements in each site, which isn't a directly offered size from iStock. No chance of that happening randomly with different buyers, and extremely little chance that one buyer of an image would used it at exactly the same cropped down size on several projects.
And another: exactly the same size and generic text over the photo and the credited web designer is totally different on each (tiny chance that a designer has moved agencies, I suppose).
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Yeah, I think that's a big reason. Most people have no idea or just don't think it's that big of a deal. That needs to change.
A friend of mine has a business partner who made the mistake of copying a Getty image. They went after her with a threat letter and invoice. They didn't tell me what it said but I'm guessing it was a pay-or-be-sued type of deal.
I would have guessed a 'cease and desist' rather than pay or be sued. they'd have to actually commit to taking someone to court to see any monetary compensation for usage.
Nope.
http://www.bradino.com/news/getty-images-suing-website-owners/ (http://www.bradino.com/news/getty-images-suing-website-owners/)
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As much as I hate Getty for everything else, I love them for sending out those letters.
They seem to be the only ones taking real action to sort out all the theft going on.
Even if contributors don't get the money, at least it will scare a couple of people out of stealing others work.
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As much as I hate Getty for everything else, I love them for sending out those letters.
They seem to be the only ones taking real action to sort out all the theft going on.
Even if contributors don't get the money, at least it will scare a couple of people out of stealing others work.
I have to agree. At least they are on top of the whole thing. I wish more of the micro agencies would be this heavy-handed when finding thieves.
It really is depressing to think that one's hard work will soon be absolutely worthless because of how much stealing and re-stealing is going on.
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As much as I hate Getty for everything else, I love them for sending out those letters.
They seem to be the only ones taking real action to sort out all the theft going on.
Even if contributors don't get the money, at least it will scare a couple of people out of stealing others work.
nah, they achieved next to nothing (atually even lost some cases that went to court), only made the general public hate them, and others associated with this business (that incudes you). I wouldn't be suprised if theft and hacking had asceleted just becasue now many started to take this matter to a personal/pride level, and sought to teach them a lesson... and I'm afraid they can. Getty can't win this, photogs neither: these ppl are crowdsourcing toobasically. I know it sounds awful, but you better leave these ppl alone, many of them are spiteful, and they just can't wait to show their buddies how skilled they are by kicking you or someone else around really bad. Look at piratebay, it's still up after years of attack by the biggest companies in the unvierse... or look at porn industry, they'v simply taken it down effortlesly, tho those had all the resources and money....
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As much as I hate Getty for everything else, I love them for sending out those letters.
They seem to be the only ones taking real action to sort out all the theft going on.
Even if contributors don't get the money, at least it will scare a couple of people out of stealing others work.
nah, they achieved next to nothing (atually even lost some cases that went to court), only made the general public hate them, and others associated with this business (that incudes you). I wouldn't be suprised if theft and hacking had asceleted just becasue now many started to take this matter to a personal/pride level, and sought to teach them a lesson... and I'm afraid they can. Getty can't win this, photogs neither: these ppl are crowdsourcing toobasically. I know it sounds awful, but you better leave these ppl alone, many of them are spiteful, and they just can't wait to show their buddies how skilled they are by kicking you or someone else around really bad. Look at piratebay, it's still up after years of attack by the biggest companies in the unvierse... or look at porn industry, they'v simply taken it down effortlesly, tho those had all the resources and money....
So basically it sounds like you suggest giving up, rolling over and taking a beating from the bullies. Cower in a corner from all the intimidation. Don't dare send a DMCA notice or else you might be murdered by the "microstock" mob. ???
Back to the topic...
I did a couple of searches yesterday of 2 of my bestsellers. I found a couple that were suspect, but for the most part, the ones I found "seemed" to have been used legally, but it's difficult to tell. I'm not by any stretch saying images aren't being stolen, because I have already found a ton of mine that have...I just didn't take a lot of time yesterday to track down suspect ones like you guys did. This tool will help a lot.
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Yeah, I think that's a big reason. Most people have no idea or just don't think it's that big of a deal. That needs to change.
A friend of mine has a business partner who made the mistake of copying a Getty image. They went after her with a threat letter and invoice. They didn't tell me what it said but I'm guessing it was a pay-or-be-sued type of deal.
I would have guessed a 'cease and desist' rather than pay or be sued. they'd have to actually commit to taking someone to court to see any monetary compensation for usage.
Nope.
[url]http://www.bradino.com/news/getty-images-suing-website-owners/[/url] ([url]http://www.bradino.com/news/getty-images-suing-website-owners/[/url])
Yeah, I like that this person is angry that Getty is just not telling them to take it down. So they want to steal and if they get caught just remove it. And the threat to never use Getty is funny. If they stole it in the first place they never were going to buy anything at Getty anyway.
I think Getty is right to scare the crap out of these people. The more this happens the more the word gets around and people will think twice about copying stuff.
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Yeah, I think that's a big reason. Most people have no idea or just don't think it's that big of a deal. That needs to change.
A friend of mine has a business partner who made the mistake of copying a Getty image. They went after her with a threat letter and invoice. They didn't tell me what it said but I'm guessing it was a pay-or-be-sued type of deal.
I would have guessed a 'cease and desist' rather than pay or be sued. they'd have to actually commit to taking someone to court to see any monetary compensation for usage.
Agree.
By the way, could someone post an standar text for a Cease & Desist e-mail?
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Hopefully now with this better technology people will start getting busted more often.
But still, something needs to change. RF licensing can't be tracked. Looks like I'll need to try more RM until there's a solution.
Why wouldn't an agency be interested in this? Istock made one sale and lost 75. Istock is making about $10 per download from me so that's $750 worth of lost sales just from one image. With millions of images that's gotta be tens of millions of dollars just falling out of their pockets every year.
RM also has its problems. A buyer can license an image in a UK stock agency like alamy to use it in South Africa, for example. Says it's going to be used in a textbook in the editorial market, with small number of prints, and end up using it in advertising everywhere. Pay a few bucks in a use that would cost hundreds or thousands. And in the RM license you always get the hi-res file no matter the end use. Unless it's posted in the web or live in the country where the image was used you'll never know if it's been used incorrectly. And an agency in the UK does not have the chance to police the correct use of every image.
But in RF is much worse, anyway.
At least you know who the customer is and what they're supposed to be using it for. If an RM image has had 5 sales and it's on 75 sites it wouldn't be too hard to figure out which is stolen.
In fact I've found several images that I only have on alamy and my website and know that haven't been licensed. And in the two cases that has been licensed it were for a different countries of the country website. Since they've credited with my name and alamy and I've not been paid, I've already contacted the agency asking why I haven't seen the money for those uses. Let's see how alamy solves this.
And from the mails I've sent I've already received replies with the take down of images.
Nevertheless the abuse I've been witnessing is demoralizing.
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As much as I hate Getty for everything else, I love them for sending out those letters.
They seem to be the only ones taking real action to sort out all the theft going on.
Even if contributors don't get the money, at least it will scare a couple of people out of stealing others work.
nah, they achieved next to nothing
Sorry but I know plenty of people who sh*t a brick when they got one of those letters and will certainly make sure they license images properly in future. Yes they hate Getty now, but they ain't gonna f*ck with them either.
Last time this cam up a few other people also said that they knew business owners who had the same reaction.
It's about the only thing that I know has had at least some success getting the word out there that just taking other people's images is not okay.
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As much as I hate Getty for everything else, I love them for sending out those letters.
They seem to be the only ones taking real action to sort out all the theft going on.
Even if contributors don't get the money, at least it will scare a couple of people out of stealing others work.
nah, they achieved next to nothing (atually even lost some cases that went to court), only made the general public hate them, and others associated with this business (that incudes you). I wouldn't be suprised if theft and hacking had asceleted just becasue now many started to take this matter to a personal/pride level, and sought to teach them a lesson... and I'm afraid they can. Getty can't win this, photogs neither: these ppl are crowdsourcing toobasically. I know it sounds awful, but you better leave these ppl alone, many of them are spiteful, and they just can't wait to show their buddies how skilled they are by kicking you or someone else around really bad. Look at piratebay, it's still up after years of attack by the biggest companies in the unvierse... or look at porn industry, they'v simply taken it down effortlesly, tho those had all the resources and money....
So basically it sounds like you suggest giving up, rolling over and taking a beating from the bullies. Cower in a corner from all the intimidation. Don't dare send a DMCA notice or else you might be murdered by the "microstock" mob. ???
Back to the topic...
I did a couple of searches yesterday of 2 of my bestsellers. I found a couple that were suspect, but for the most part, the ones I found "seemed" to have been used legally, but it's difficult to tell. I'm not by any stretch saying images aren't being stolen, because I have already found a ton of mine that have...I just didn't take a lot of time yesterday to track down suspect ones like you guys did. This tool will help a lot.
No, I just don't bother to get pent up on a thing that I can do nothing about thats not counterproductive... but plz go ahead, any of you, tell me what you plan to do thats gonna change the situation.
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As much as I hate Getty for everything else, I love them for sending out those letters.
They seem to be the only ones taking real action to sort out all the theft going on.
Even if contributors don't get the money, at least it will scare a couple of people out of stealing others work.
nah, they achieved next to nothing
Sorry but I know plenty of people who sh*t a brick when they got one of those letters and will certainly make sure they license images properly in future. Yes they hate Getty now, but they ain't gonna f*ck with them either.
Last time this cam up a few other people also said that they knew business owners who had the same reaction.
It's about the only thing that I know has had at least some success getting the word out there that just taking other people's images is not okay.
I read into it, most ppl asked around, and were told to ignore it, so they did and nothing happened. Few might have payed up. Meanwhile, you can download 30 gig packages of stock photos just from p2p. The pissard thing is that ppl. who resell the shots in templates etc, or hype up a domain with 'free whatever', might just make more money than some photogs with their own shots, but I personally think its the micro Rf thing that got to the point where everyone gets ok money/work out of the shots except the photographer.
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Then there was the company selling greeting cards - cheaper than the store. I sent them e-mail asking them to confirm that they had purchased an extended license to allow making greeting cards with my image. Depending on what sort of answer I get, I'll post here if it sounds fishy. A couple of agencies had in the past done deals to allow them to buy small images and only purchase the EL if they sold cards. If they're one of those, I guess there's no problem.
You should buy a card from them using your image! Then they must purchas an EL and you will come out way ahead! If they don't purchase an EL, get the micro to chase them down for an EL. :-)
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I read into it, most ppl asked around, and were told to ignore it, so they did and nothing happened. Few might have payed up. Meanwhile, you can download 30 gig packages of stock photos just from p2p. The pissard thing is that ppl. who resell the shots in templates etc, or hype up a domain with 'free whatever', might just make more money than some photogs with their own shots, but I personally think its the micro Rf thing that got to the point where everyone gets ok money/work out of the shots except the photographer.
I agree with you aboutthe part where there are a TON of stolen stuff on the net, but I have had good luck with the people I have chased down using my images illegally. I send a DMCA notice and tell them that they must remove the image or purchase a license and I provide a link for that. Most, of course, take the image down, but with all of that plus an explanation on copyright infringement, I would like to hope I am educating some of the public. Of course there are always a*sholes that are, well, just that, and will seek revenge. Not much you can do with stupid.
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Someone above asked why the photos were all cropped to a rectangle... why that's because they are being offered as free wallpaper downloads and being downloaded not only for wallpaper but for whatever else.
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And what about the license attached to the use of this Google service? What do you think about it?
11. Content license from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.
11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.
11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.
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And what about the license attached to the use of this Google service? What do you think about it?
I think you're just basically giving them permission to give you the service.
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"Getty letters" is the best that have been ever done in this field. Infractors can get angry, but most of them don't try it again. And it's not necessary to go to trial; one good lesson for the thieves is losing their customers, when the customer feels that has been put in trouble by the designer.
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Huh, I've just found the same pic on two different blogs, both credited to House Beautiful. I guess it's off the HB site, as that site didn't show up on the search. As they are blogs, I've given them the benefit of the doubt and assumed it was done out of ignorance, not malice. So I've emailled them.
However, one I found watermarked on a Norwegian site, with three other iStock pics watermarked, I passed on to CE.
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And what about the license attached to the use of this Google service? What do you think about it?
I think you're just basically giving them permission to give you the service.
First of all you, as an exclusive iStock contributor, you should read really carefully the 11.2 point.
And I don't think I understand exactly what you mean. To me it sounds like a rights grab. English is not my first language but it seems clear what the sentences in bold say.
For example:
"By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services."
This doesn't sound like I'm giving them permission for me to use the service. In fact that sounds a little non-sense to me... I read that as they have the right to use any content I submit to the service in any way they want . If I'm wrong please clarify it to me.
The point 11.2 refers again to the "Content" as to what the user submits to service provided by Google and implies a loss of exclusivity of any content submited to the service.
And in the point number 11.3:
"Google (...) may (a) transmit or distribute your Content (...) and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary (...) You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions."
I remember a controversy with license terms similar to these upon the launch of Google Chrome, to the point that Google had to change those terms.
Again, English may not be my first language but when I read "your content" or "Content which you submit" I understand it as the images dragged and dropped to the search box, since that is the ONLY content I own in all the process.
If I'm wrong I'd appreciate an explanation.
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"This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services"
"for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services"
"the required technical steps to provide the Services"
How do you expect them to provide you with the service if you don't give them permission?
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"This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services"
"for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services"
"the required technical steps to provide the Services"
How do you expect them to provide you with the service if you don't give them permission?
If it's them who own the service, and I am the user who goes to their site and use it (not being forced to) where am I in any position to give them permission for anything? Aren't they the ones that allow me to use it?
And even if it refers to the "storage", use or modification of the images so that the service can technically function I don't think it does answer to the "your Content" question completely.
The point 11.2 refers to "a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies", being the "such Content" what is referred in point 11.1 as "any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.".
I'm not the only one reading these terms like this and the other people (in alamy forum for example) are native English speakers. It continues to sound like the rules of many of the photography contests available nowadays.
But as someone said in the alamy forum: "Even with the worst interpretation of those conditions it would be worth it to refute a claim that one of your pictures was orphaned works. "
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Your guess is incorrect, certainly in the UK. I personally know of two clients who have received such letters from Getty both for over 1000 Gbp who paid up immediately. ( Not in relation to any work my company did by the way)
Whether the threats were enforceable was a risk they were not prepared to take, and many others do the same thing as a result of the publicity that surrounds these letters. Google such terms as 'getty images scam' 'getty threatening letters' 'getty fsb'. The FSB is the Federation of Small Businesses and has been covering this topic for many years.
Here's an example of the sort of publicity Getty letter receive:
[url]http://copyrightaction.com/forum/the-real-cost-of-being-sued-by-getty[/url] ([url]http://copyrightaction.com/forum/the-real-cost-of-being-sued-by-getty[/url])
Getty going after small legitimate businesses and gaining publicity for copyright issues is one thing but I doubt such education reaches or effects the actions of the bulk of the unlawful users of images that these google searches will unearth. And I also wonder whether actual copyright owners get the recovered amounts from those that pay.
that's good...I'm glad to be wrong. though I'd guess many times the letters are sent to people who inadvertently abused a license or something. I can't see many image thieves--who operate unscrupulously as a rule--shaking in their boots over letters from Getty. and I don't think there's much you can do about those kinds of thieves on the internet.
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I've just found a complete rip-off of one of my illustrations on Shutterstock. Reported it to IS, but you couldn't get more blatant.
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pfff.... a new way to find lots of watermarked (and obviously unpayed) images in use.
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And what about the license attached to the use of this Google service? What do you think about it?
I think you're just basically giving them permission to give you the service.
Really? What about the modify, distribute, and royalty-free?? Those are odd terms for this type of service, or not?
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pfff.... a new way to find lots of watermarked (and obviously unpayed) images in use.
Sent a note to FT.
I found one of my images watermarked from Fotolia in several sites:
[url]http://theenglishstars.blogspot.com/2010/06/airport.html[/url] ([url]http://theenglishstars.blogspot.com/2010/06/airport.html[/url])
[url]http://www.infoaviacao.com/2010/02/em-marco-tem-novas-turmas-de-check-in.html[/url] ([url]http://www.infoaviacao.com/2010/02/em-marco-tem-novas-turmas-de-check-in.html[/url])
[url]http://machhen-travel.blogspot.com/[/url] ([url]http://machhen-travel.blogspot.com/[/url])
[url]http://deliraradois.blogspot.com/2010/08/checking-in.html[/url] ([url]http://deliraradois.blogspot.com/2010/08/checking-in.html[/url])
[url]http://taxitravel.com.br/[/url] ([url]http://taxitravel.com.br/[/url])
[url]http://ulatenglishbox.wordpress.com/2010/05/page/5/[/url] ([url]http://ulatenglishbox.wordpress.com/2010/05/page/5/[/url])
Answers:
Fotolia : Thank you for the email we will make an effort to resolve the issues.
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for iStock contributors, they've posted an admin update regarding this issue. I think exclusive iStock contributors in particular are better to send these issues through admin to handle communication. it seems already a number of people are going off half-cocked and contacting sites with images on them and I think in some cases it may be a honest mistake, or a customer who purchased a license. in cases where there is an infringement, I think it should be handled by those in the legal know.
I'd hate to see potential or current buyers turned off an agency because of interaction with an angry contributor.
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Really? What about the modify, distribute, and royalty-free?? Those are odd terms for this type of service, or not?
Is anyone actually reading these terms or just pulling out bits?
Seriously, you can upload or send any image online there, not just stuff you hold copyright on. Just because I send a picture of the Mona Lisa through doesn't mean I'm telling google they can use it in an ad.
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Really? What about the modify, distribute, and royalty-free?? Those are odd terms for this type of service, or not?
Is anyone actually reading these terms or just pulling out bits?
Seriously, you can upload or send any image online there, not just stuff you hold copyright on. Just because I send a picture of the Mona Lisa through doesn't mean I'm telling google they can use it in an ad.
I only pull out tidbits that help support my agenda.
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for iStock contributors, they've posted an admin update regarding this issue. I think exclusive iStock contributors in particular are better to send these issues through admin to handle communication. it seems already a number of people are going off half-cocked and contacting sites with images on them and I think in some cases it may be a honest mistake, or a customer who purchased a license. in cases where there is an infringement, I think it should be handled by those in the legal know.
I'd hate to see potential or current buyers turned off an agency because of interaction with an angry contributor.
Hmmm. We'll see.
Of the two I contacted yesterday (very mildly and before Joyze posted), both using the same image credited to 'House Beautiful', one has got back to me already, very apologetic and said it's a personal, non commercial blog (clearly true) and she can't pay for images and has taken the image down. She also mentioned she'd have to buy ten credits to get one pic costing, as she put it, 'somewhere between 2 and 5 credits'.
However, that's an immediate Result inasmuch as she has taken the pic down.
I'm finding very few of mine with iStock watermarks, and those I've found have been in forums, asking a question or illustrating a point. Like I said above, I have contacted CE about one forum with four watermarked images. Had a reply back from CE telling me that it would be dealt with in due time, when it came to its turn. Would someone pay for an illustrative image to go on a forum? We'll see. Is that considered 'fair use'? I've seen watermarked images on both the iStock forum and here. Maybe they're always images by the posting contributor. What about hotlinking? Years ago, I contacted CE about a hotlinked image of mine, and months later it was still hotlinked to (with the istock watermark) on the same site.
I can tell quite easily (as previous posts) that someone has copied an image from another site, e.g. if it's credited to another site (several instances), or in the case I mentioned, when the blogger said, "I don't know where this is, but it's really cool" (and invites people to download the pic from his site). On iStock, I have the location mentioned down to about 1/2 mile. Will this guy buy an image to put on his site when he can't invite people to download? I think he's probably a kid who doesn't know anything about stock agencies or copyright. I hardly think so, his whole site is like that: just collections of 'cool natural phenomena' that have caught his eye.
If there are a lot of uses with exactly the same crop and size, clearly most are copied from each other, but it would be more difficult for me to establish who legitimately bought the image. Again, many of these seem to be used in forums.
So, what's more important? He won't become a buyer, and all the time I'd wait for CE (weeks/months), people could be downloading the image to their heart's content, thinking it's OK. If I write to him directly, he might take it down today.
Much as it might surprise people here, most 'civvies' think you can download any images from the web, especially for personal/non-profit use. Even if they would never steal a photo from an agency and remove the watermark, if they found an image on a site with the invitation to download, they're probably not going to check whether that is a legitimate invitation. Even Google, gazillions of miles above TinEye as it is, doesn't record a fairly high proportion of my images as being on iStock, so even someone who went to that trouble wouldn't always know.
I'd certainly contact CE if it were a commercial use, but that would be more difficult unless it had a watermark - not likely to be credited to another site or 'I don't know what this is, but it's cool' - or no download shows. So far, I haven't found any of my 0 dl files in use, so I'm pretty sure that files in many cases are being 'lifted' from other sites.
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ShadySue,
It happened to me once to find an image of mine in a business blog credited to a webiste. I assumed that the website had purchased a license, and the blogger used it without knowing this was wrong. I sent them an email explaining the situation, offering a link to one of the stock sites to purchase it, they apologized for the mistake and removed the image.
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Really? What about the modify, distribute, and royalty-free?? Those are odd terms for this type of service, or not?
Seriously, you can upload or send any image online there, not just stuff you hold copyright on. Just because I send a picture of the Mona Lisa through doesn't mean I'm telling google they can use it in an ad.
11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.
If you don´t have the rights you cannot give google a licence.
If you upload your own work - then you are opting in and giving them a licence simply by uploading.
Push comes to shove, you have granted google a licence legally and thats that - don´t use google services and you don´t
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I'm finding quite a few images that are the exact size as a site's thumbnails.
I highly doubt someone would buy an XS at around 424 x 283 and resize it to 110 x 74.
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There seems to be a lot of confusion about the purpose of DCMA takedown notices - the aim is to get third parties such as web hosts to take down your images, not as a remedy against the person who has stolen the images themselves.
For example - userX posts your image on flickr. You send the DCMA notice to flickr to take down the images. If you know who userX is, you can sue them for stealing your work. If userx has their own website userx.com, you send the DCMA notice to their web host to take down the content. If flickr or the webhost don't do it, they themselves risk becoming liable for the copyright infringement.
Getty sending letters of demand when they find a culprit is absolutely the correct way of enforcing copyright. In some cases people have a legitimate way of getting around copyright violations - for example they paid a web developer to build a site for them, the web developer stole the images without the knowledge or consent of the client - but in that case the web developer is still liable for the copyright breach, and can be sued themselves and the website owner still needs to pull down the images. If someone gets caught out without a valid excuse or defence, then paying up is probably the best thing they can do, (or hope that they're too small a fish for someone to worry about frying).
Basically you should be sending DCMA notices to Google, Yahoo, Webhosts, etc. Letters of demand for damages for past copyright violation and takedown notices to anyone who is actually stealing your work. If you do this, remember to document violations with screenshots etc & probably include them in any correspondence.
To me this tool seems to be a way of making it much easier to track down violations of copyright, and should see an increase of legitimate uses, rather than the opposite. Lets see how it pans out.
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There seems to be a lot of confusion about the purpose of DCMA takedown notices - the aim is to get third parties such as web hosts to take down your images, not as a remedy against the person who has stolen the images themselves.
For example - userX posts your image on flickr. You send the DCMA notice to flickr to take down the images. If you know who userX is, you can sue them for stealing your work. If userx has their own website userx.com, you send the DCMA notice to their web host to take down the content. If flickr or the webhost don't do it, they themselves risk becoming liable for the copyright infringement.
Getty sending letters of demand when they find a culprit is absolutely the correct way of enforcing copyright. In some cases people have a legitimate way of getting around copyright violations - for example they paid a web developer to build a site for them, the web developer stole the images without the knowledge or consent of the client - but in that case the web developer is still liable for the copyright breach, and can be sued themselves and the website owner still needs to pull down the images. If someone gets caught out without a valid excuse or defence, then paying up is probably the best thing they can do, (or hope that they're too small a fish for someone to worry about frying).
Basically you should be sending DCMA notices to Google, Yahoo, Webhosts, etc. Letters of demand for damages for past copyright violation and takedown notices to anyone who is actually stealing your work. If you do this, remember to document violations with screenshots etc & probably include them in any correspondence.
To me this tool seems to be a way of making it much easier to track down violations of copyright, and should see an increase of legitimate uses, rather than the opposite. Lets see how it pans out.
I totally agree with what you are saying but I don't see any harm in sending DMCA notices to individuals, either. You are talking about suing, but in most instances, for most contributors, that isn't going to happen. A good portion of the people using watermarked images are just ignorant of the copyright violation. For the thieves who are posting hundreds or thousands of stolen images, most definitely it should be reported to the ISPs.
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There seems to be a lot of confusion about the purpose of DCMA takedown notices - the aim is to get third parties such as web hosts to take down your images, not as a remedy against the person who has stolen the images themselves.
For example - userX posts your image on flickr. You send the DCMA notice to flickr to take down the images. If you know who userX is, you can sue them for stealing your work. If userx has their own website userx.com, you send the DCMA notice to their web host to take down the content. If flickr or the webhost don't do it, they themselves risk becoming liable for the copyright infringement.
Getty sending letters of demand when they find a culprit is absolutely the correct way of enforcing copyright. In some cases people have a legitimate way of getting around copyright violations - for example they paid a web developer to build a site for them, the web developer stole the images without the knowledge or consent of the client - but in that case the web developer is still liable for the copyright breach, and can be sued themselves and the website owner still needs to pull down the images. If someone gets caught out without a valid excuse or defence, then paying up is probably the best thing they can do, (or hope that they're too small a fish for someone to worry about frying).
Basically you should be sending DCMA notices to Google, Yahoo, Webhosts, etc. Letters of demand for damages for past copyright violation and takedown notices to anyone who is actually stealing your work. If you do this, remember to document violations with screenshots etc & probably include them in any correspondence.
To me this tool seems to be a way of making it much easier to track down violations of copyright, and should see an increase of legitimate uses, rather than the opposite. Lets see how it pans out.
I totally agree with what you are saying but I don't see any harm in sending DMCA notices to individuals, either. You are talking about suing, but in most instances, for most contributors, that isn't going to happen. A good portion of the people using watermarked images are just ignorant of the copyright violation. For the thieves who are posting hundreds or thousands of stolen images, most definitely it should be reported to the ISPs.
Its just not what the notice is for. I don't see why I should identify myself and provide all my details to someone who has stolen my work. Its much easier to track down their ISP in any case, and more effective.
Sending out the notice to those who have knowingly or unknowingly done the wrong thing perpetuates the idea that a takedown notice is the worst thing that can happen. I don't see what's wrong with asking them at the very least to purchase a legitimate license. Its not like the images on microstock sites are particularly expensive.
In many cases violators are using your copyrighted work to generate traffic on their website through google adsense or similar programs. In that case, report them to Google and get them banned from adsense for violating the terms of that program. If their page is indexed in google and your images are showing up in the search, sending the DMCA notice to google will make them remove the page and images from the search and penalise that person's website by cutting off traffic.
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So, I have my second reply, an apology and a removal from her website, so two within a day. Better than CE can manage, as they had a backlog. It'll be interesting to see if they can 'convert' from an apology to a sale. If not, faster to do it myself.
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I read into it, most ppl asked around, and were told to ignore it, so they did and nothing happened. Few might have payed up. Meanwhile, you can download 30 gig packages of stock photos just from p2p. The pissard thing is that ppl. who resell the shots in templates etc, or hype up a domain with 'free whatever', might just make more money than some photogs with their own shots, but I personally think its the micro Rf thing that got to the point where everyone gets ok money/work out of the shots except the photographer.
I agree with you aboutthe part where there are a TON of stolen stuff on the net, but I have had good luck with the people I have chased down using my images illegally. I send a DMCA notice and tell them that they must remove the image or purchase a license and I provide a link for that. Most, of course, take the image down, but with all of that plus an explanation on copyright infringement, I would like to hope I am educating some of the public. Of course there are always a*sholes that are, well, just that, and will seek revenge. Not much you can do with stupid.
I understand your motives and I would kinda agree witrh you, but it really is waste of time especially if they don't even buy it afterwards. You can go crazy hunting the web if you take this too seriously, there's just an army of millions and millions vs. you. IMHO: hopeless. : /
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I understand your motives and I would kinda agree witrh you, but it really is waste of time especially if they don't even buy it afterwards. You can go crazy hunting the web if you take this too seriously, there's just an army of millions and millions vs. you. IMHO: hopeless. : /
I agree, it sure feels hopeless sometimes. I do what I can and let the rest go. :)
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So, I have my second reply, an apology and a removal from her website, so two within a day. Better than CE can manage, as they had a backlog. It'll be interesting to see if they can 'convert' from an apology to a sale. If not, faster to do it myself.
I agree...faster to do yourself. But as pointed out by Holgs, if people think they are only going to get a slap on the wrist, they will likely do it again.
But I don't see any other way, because the agencies must also be inundated with stolen image sites, and copyright infringement shouldn't only be handled if a contributor is exclusive. In many cases, the watermark is still on the image, so being non-exclusive doesn't mean one doesn't know where the image came from, an argument exclusives frequently use to discount complaints by non-exclusives. But I would much rather admonish a thief and have my image removed than do nothing at all. At least there's a 50/50 shot they might NOT use stolen images the next time around, and they might purchase a proper license.
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So, I have my second reply, an apology and a removal from her website, so two within a day. Better than CE can manage, as they had a backlog. It'll be interesting to see if they can 'convert' from an apology to a sale. If not, faster to do it myself.
I agree...faster to do yourself. But as pointed out by Holgs, if people think they are only going to get a slap on the wrist, they will likely do it again.
What else do they get from CE?
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I got a nice e-mail back from the greeting card company with the information about the EL they purchased (I had asked if they'd purchased an EL and from which agency) and it checks out. I also found one of my images with some text added being offered at a free wallpaper site (www.wallpapersbot.com (http://www.wallpapersbot.com)), e-mailed them, and got e-mail back that it had now been removed.
Seems to me that if it becomes known that you can easily be found when you lift things you shouldn't, it may decrease this sort of thing over time. I know people are worried about Google's search increasing unpaid for uses, but I have to think that this balances out overall to a benefit for those of us selling images.
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So, I have my second reply, an apology and a removal from her website, so two within a day. Better than CE can manage, as they had a backlog. It'll be interesting to see if they can 'convert' from an apology to a sale. If not, faster to do it myself.
I agree...faster to do yourself. But as pointed out by Holgs, if people think they are only going to get a slap on the wrist, they will likely do it again.
What else do they get from CE?
Likely nothing, but you mentioned you were hoping they could "convert" into a sale.
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snip
Seems to me that if it becomes known that you can easily be found when you lift things you shouldn't, it may decrease this sort of thing over time. I know people are worried about Google's search increasing unpaid for uses, but I have to think that this balances out overall to a benefit for those of us selling images.
I'm operating on the same theory.
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So, I have my second reply, an apology and a removal from her website, so two within a day. Better than CE can manage, as they had a backlog. It'll be interesting to see if they can 'convert' from an apology to a sale. If not, faster to do it myself.
I agree...faster to do yourself. But as pointed out by Holgs, if people think they are only going to get a slap on the wrist, they will likely do it again.
What else do they get from CE?
Likely nothing, but you mentioned you were hoping they could "convert" into a sale.
I just wondered what they would do/say to make that more likely.
The email I sent the two bloggers (using same pic copied from same magazine site):
Hello, Xxxxxxx,
I see that you have one of my images on your website, credited 'House
Beautiful', by which I assume that you copied it from their site.
I have full copyright to, and own all rights on this photo, which you can license from iStockphoto,
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-4515461-window-box.php?st=2065230. (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-4515461-window-box.php?st=2065230.)
Selling photos through agencies is how I earn my living.
However, since your blog is non-commercial, I'll hold off contacting iStock's compliance enforcement department,
to give you time to purchase a license to use the file.
Thanks for your attention,
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I just wondered what they would do/say to make that more likely.
The email I sent the two bloggers (using same pic copied from same magazine site):
Hello, Xxxxxxx,
I see that you have one of my images on your website, credited 'House
Beautiful', by which I assume that you copied it from their site.
I have full copyright to, and own all rights on this photo, which you can license from iStockphoto,
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-4515461-window-box.php?st=2065230.[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-4515461-window-box.php?st=2065230.[/url])
Selling photos through agencies is how I earn my living.
However, since your blog is non-commercial, I'll hold off contacting iStock's compliance enforcement department,
to give you time to purchase a license to use the file.
Thanks for your attention,
That's an excellent way of putting it. I always gave a choice, either take it down or purchase a license, but I like your approach better. No choice...buy a license. Thanks for posting that. :)
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I wouldn't say "However, since your blog is non-commercial", because that sounds like being non-commercial makes a difference. I'd allude that you are just giving a grace period before the notification.
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I just wondered what they would do/say to make that more likely.
The email I sent the two bloggers (using same pic copied from same magazine site):
Hello, Xxxxxxx,
I see that you have one of my images on your website, credited 'House
Beautiful', by which I assume that you copied it from their site.
I have full copyright to, and own all rights on this photo, which you can license from iStockphoto,
[url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-4515461-window-box.php?st=2065230.[/url] ([url]http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-4515461-window-box.php?st=2065230.[/url])
Selling photos through agencies is how I earn my living.
However, since your blog is non-commercial, I'll hold off contacting iStock's compliance enforcement department,
to give you time to purchase a license to use the file.
Thanks for your attention,
That's an excellent way of putting it. I always gave a choice, either take it down or purchase a license, but I like your approach better. No choice...buy a license. Thanks for posting that. :)
That was my intention, but it didn't work. Both just removed the pics.
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I understand your motives and I would kinda agree witrh you, but it really is waste of time especially if they don't even buy it afterwards. You can go crazy hunting the web if you take this too seriously, there's just an army of millions and millions vs. you. IMHO: hopeless. : /
I'm afraid I have to agree on this one. Just reading through this thread and seeing the amount of time people are spending chasing down misuse makes me hesitant to even try the service.
Not that I am okay with people stealing my images and using them for free. Just that if I spent all my time policing use of my images, with little chance of compensation, I wouldn't have time to actually shoot and upload new images.
Seems like a case of prioritizing your time.
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Just had another thought ~
It's now much easier for potential customers to check images in online adverts which claim to actually be a product - just prompted by finding some of my (probably legitimately purchased) images purporting to be something else entirely.
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I think people became more wary about sharing music files online when bodies like the RIAA started taking legal action against them and it received lots of publicity. I don't think we have anything like that but I think the sites should go after a few of the more blatant copyright infringers. It should be quite straightforward when some of these people have watermarks on their images. A few legal cases would receive publicity and I think that would do a lot more than us sending requests to individuals that are probably just going to remove the images at best.
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How do I issue a DMCA notice on a site with no contact info?
http://wallpapersnova.com (http://wallpapersnova.com)
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How do I issue a DMCA notice on a site with no contact info?
[url]http://wallpapersnova.com[/url] ([url]http://wallpapersnova.com[/url])
Registrant Info: (FAST-14069216)
Tahir Qureshi
2130, Street 33, Sector I-10/2
Islamabad, Islamabad Capital Territory 44000
Pakistan
Phone: +92.3335580603
Fax..:
Email: [email protected]
Last modified: 2009-11-19 12:37:40 GMT
Your DCMA notice won't have any effect outside the US.
Added:
You may have more luck via their host, however:
Technical Info: (FAST-12785240)
Bluehost.com
Bluehost Inc
1958 South 950 East
Provo, Utah 84604
United States
Phone: +1.8017659400
Fax..: +1.8017651992
Email: [email protected]
Last modified: 2010-12-06 18:43:32 GMT
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Thank you.
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Sorry Guys have not read this whole thread however have to say that not sure it was a good thing reading istocks Forum this morning about Google Image search lol
Seriously I have spent the best part of the morning requesting the removal of just one of my best selling Images from a selection of websites selling free wallpapers (groan) one in particular has had the said landscape Image of mine 1600x1200 for a year with Total free Downloads: 1,791 :o >:(
Have lodged a DMCA Copyright Violation as being Independent doubt IS will get on the case any day soon
You may want to check this web site http://www.desktopnexus.com/ (http://www.desktopnexus.com/)
Not sure if I dare look for my other files with GIS to distressing ;)
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You may want to check this web site [url]http://www.desktopnexus.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.desktopnexus.com/[/url])
That's ironic, they have a DCMA copyright link on the bottom of their home page, which leads you to this:
http://www.desktopnexus.com/dmca (http://www.desktopnexus.com/dmca)
Interested to see how fast they resolve your issue.
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I understand your motives and I would kinda agree witrh you, but it really is waste of time especially if they don't even buy it afterwards. You can go crazy hunting the web if you take this too seriously, there's just an army of millions and millions vs. you. IMHO: hopeless. : /
I'm afraid I have to agree on this one. Just reading through this thread and seeing the amount of time people are spending chasing down misuse makes me hesitant to even try the service.
Not that I am okay with people stealing my images and using them for free. Just that if I spent all my time policing use of my images, with little chance of compensation, I wouldn't have time to actually shoot and upload new images.
Seems like a case of prioritizing your time.
I totally agree with you, but on the other hand, how motivated am I to work my a*s off shooting more photos, knowing that if NOTHING gets done about the whole problem, I am totally wasting my time, too, because all of my images will be for FREE! After seeing all these sites, it's no wonder all of our sales are tanking. Between greedy agencies and thieves... ::)
I won't spend all my time chasing down thieves, but just think about the impact we could have if each one of us contributors (and how many of us are there...tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands?) sends out a couple of notices every week or two. On top of reporting them all to the agencies (if the image is watermarked and we are certain where it came from). I don't see it any different than any other business, where you do work for someone, they don't pay the bill, and you put a certain amount of time in every week making collection phone calls.
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You may want to check this web site [url]http://www.desktopnexus.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.desktopnexus.com/[/url])
That's ironic, they have a DCMA copyright link on the bottom of their home page, which leads you to this:
[url]http://www.desktopnexus.com/dmca[/url] ([url]http://www.desktopnexus.com/dmca[/url])
Interested to see how fast they resolve your issue.
Yes thats the link I followed, will keep you posted ;)
BTW if you look under 'Photograpy' there are an awful lot of high Quality Images I recognize and whats more alarming is the amount of DL's, obviously a very opular site ::)
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You may want to check this web site [url]http://www.desktopnexus.com/[/url] ([url]http://www.desktopnexus.com/[/url])
That's ironic, they have a DCMA copyright link on the bottom of their home page, which leads you to this:
[url]http://www.desktopnexus.com/dmca[/url] ([url]http://www.desktopnexus.com/dmca[/url])
Interested to see how fast they resolve your issue.
Yes thats the link I followed, will keep you posted ;)
BTW if you look under 'Photograpy' there are an awful lot of high Quality Images I recognize and whats more alarming is the amount of DL's, obviously a very opular site ::)
I guess we'd need to find some iStock exclusive pics there, then they might take it up.
Better still, Getty.
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I found one of mine in several folders like this:
http://www.dncs.com.au/hosting/ebay/yellow/ (http://www.dncs.com.au/hosting/ebay/yellow/)
Using TinEye I was able to find some of them in microstock and even at Getty. Thumbnails, unwatermarked.
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Amazing feature. About time Google implemented it.
I only looked up one image and found lots of infringements... 30 on DT alone so I've reported them. I figure it's worth it because it's a level 5 image and there are so many! I think this Google feature will give us a chance to start educating people. There are lots that steal knowing full well they're stealing but there are also plenty that believe anything on the net is up for grabs. I remember when napster first came out. The majority of people were downloading music without even knowing they were doing anything wrong. Nowadays people think twice before downloading anything from a P2P site. It's the same in the this case, we need to educate people. It's not really the designers that need educating, it's more blog and website owners. That's where I'm finding most of them.
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I think people became more wary about sharing music files online when bodies like the RIAA started taking legal action against them and it received lots of publicity. I don't think we have anything like that but I think the sites should go after a few of the more blatant copyright infringers. It should be quite straightforward when some of these people have watermarks on their images. A few legal cases would receive publicity and I think that would do a lot more than us sending requests to individuals that are probably just going to remove the images at best.
Yes! We as individuals should not have to pursue infringers. That will not work. It should be the job of the microstock sites. With some of them taking up to 85% commissions from us, they should have money to get some IP lawyers and public relations people on this IMO.
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I agree that bloggers are probably among the most common infractors - they are for sure when it comes to watermarked images.
I found an image of mine in several blogs, all in 400x300, which is the regular XS size. It's an image that sells well indeed, but I wonder if really all those bloggers purchased a license. Maybe they did, and I am just hunting ghosts. :)
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So far, I haven't found many "infringements", aside from XXL images hosted online. Maybe that speaks to selling exclusively. Or maybe the thieves think my stuff is garbage. :) I am going to have someone go through my portfolio looking for things to send to CE.
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Found numerous free wallpaper sites with one of my images. Have contacted some of them and gotten replies stating the image would be removed.
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I think people became more wary about sharing music files online when bodies like the RIAA started taking legal action against them and it received lots of publicity. I don't think we have anything like that but I think the sites should go after a few of the more blatant copyright infringers. It should be quite straightforward when some of these people have watermarks on their images. A few legal cases would receive publicity and I think that would do a lot more than us sending requests to individuals that are probably just going to remove the images at best.
Yes! We as individuals should not have to pursue infringers. That will not work. It should be the job of the microstock sites. With some of them taking up to 85% commissions from us, they should have money to get some IP lawyers and public relations people on this IMO.
Indeed the should, but that would eat into their highly prized short-term profitability, so it's not going to be high on their priority list.
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So far, I haven't found many "infringements", aside from XXL images hosted online. Maybe that speaks to selling exclusively.
It's hard to trace infringements other than watermarked images, large sizes and uses that require EL. Maybe not much to do with being exclusive, but not being in sites that sell subs (given that IS' subs is a totally different concept).
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So far, I haven't found many "infringements", aside from XXL images hosted online. Maybe that speaks to selling exclusively. Or maybe the thieves think my stuff is garbage. :) I am going to have someone go through my portfolio looking for things to send to CE.
Your images are probably subject to more infringements than all of us combined but yours don't stick out with a watermark. You've sold so many and your images rank so high in google that people will obviously pinch the image without the watermark than with it. They don't have that luxury with my images... yet.
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Okay just a follow up for you Guys regarding the web site DesktopNexus a popular Website for free Wallpaper where I found one of my best sellers being flaunted as desktop candy on its welcome page
http://www.desktopnexus.com/ (http://www.desktopnexus.com/)
I ended up contacting the offending member direct using the below Shutterstocks DMCA Notice from shutterbuzz and bam! it was removed immediately with an email of apology.
http://buzz.shutterstock.com/tips/protecting-your-content (http://buzz.shutterstock.com/tips/protecting-your-content)
.... of course the damage has already been done with nearly 2,000 downloads no doubt now in possession of individuals who think they can make the file available elsewhere for free ::)
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I haven't even had a receipt of email re the two infringements I sent to CE after the first one (that I got a reply to, that it would be dealt with in the order it was received).
IMO, they are, as expected, inundated since this Google feature was introduced. For myself, I will send emails to personal sites where it is pretty certain that someone has 'stolen' a file inadvertantly, especially if they are telling the public they can download it at will. I'm sure all I'll get is the image taken down, but if that stops others downloading them, it's a result. I don't think iStock would be any better than me in getting a private user to pay for a usage, and they say they give them the option. That being the case, I'd rather that it was removed from a site sooner rather than 'in the order it was received'.
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Lucky me, my stuff isn't good enough to steal. ::)
I haven't read everything in the thread, but it's been fun. For something else interesting people might try entering their name with the word photo after it (or you pseudo and photo after it) and see where your photos are being used. I did find one unauthorized use, but since it was SpeedTV and it's four years old, I look at it as free publicity. Checked my Micro Pseudo that I've started using and found one on PBS.org, which was funny. Here's a shot with one sale in two years and I found it?
Oh yes, I was surprised that Alamy came up, but I thought only the most recent, then I came up with the theory that only the first page from Alamy comes up. Which in my case is all of the same driver and car which I sent in when he was nominated for an award. I need to upload new mix. Maybe someone can check and see what their Alamy looks like from Google? It searches the Account Name apparently not the individual pseudonyms. It displays the first page of your complete collection (latest uploads)
I have one image, lets call it my best seller, so I did a search. I found it on SS where it's for sale, that's it? :D
side note:
Dear GazoPa Users,
Thank you for using GazoPa services. GazoPa.com started at TechCrunch50 in September 2008 and has grown to more than 90,000 unique users per month. However, we have decided to put our time and efforts to BtoB business and have discontinued our BtoC services on June, 2011. We have received lots of inquiries from all over the world and decided to focus on BtoB market especially in China where e-commerce grows dramatically.
When we started our service in 2008, some people were skeptical about our activity. But Since then, the number of images and videos on the internet are increasing and the demand to a navigation tool is growing as well. Considering inquiries that reach to us, we believe similar image search engine would be becoming must-have tool in various kinds of fields. Due to our limited resources, we have had to make the hard decision to shut down our BtoC sites and decided to focus on BtoB market.
We'll be launching a new image search site mainly for research purpose in near future as an alternative tool for our current users.
If you have any questions, please email
One again, thank you all for your support over the years.
Sincerely,
The GazoPa team
Well, I'm already finding some of the stuff I mentioned earlier about people just copying what's already out there.
I found one of my more popular images with some simple text added to it. One designer probably modified it and it's now on at least 75 other websites.
I'd love to know for each image sold how many are copied. 75 from one image is pretty bad.
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So far, I haven't found many "infringements", aside from XXL images hosted online. Maybe that speaks to selling exclusively. Or maybe the thieves think my stuff is garbage. :) I am going to have someone go through my portfolio looking for things to send to CE.
I think part of the reason you haven't found many is because you're knowledgeable enough to recognize legitimate vs. illegitimate uses. I haven't found many infringements and in most cases I'm cringing reading about contributors contacting 'violators' directly. but I guess for non-exclusives they'd rather not wait for the agency to intervene. It's my guess that in many cases actual clients are being wrongfully contacted. and those who have stolen are a waste of time to contact. they'll take your image down (maybe) and just steal someone else's.
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So far, I haven't found many "infringements", aside from XXL images hosted online. Maybe that speaks to selling exclusively. Or maybe the thieves think my stuff is garbage. :) I am going to have someone go through my portfolio looking for things to send to CE.
I think part of the reason you haven't found many is because you're knowledgeable enough to recognize legitimate vs. illegitimate uses. I haven't found many infringements and in most cases I'm cringing reading about contributors contacting 'violators' directly. but I guess for non-exclusives they'd rather not wait for the agency to intervene. It's my guess that in many cases actual clients are being wrongfully contacted. and those who have stolen are a waste of time to contact. they'll take your image down (maybe) and just steal someone else's.
It's pretty obvious which images have been used illegitamately. I've only looked up one image (I'm too scared to look at the rest just yet) and found 30 with the Dreamstime watermark mostly on blogs. Those are definitely illegitamate. Ones that require a print or web EL are easy to spot too if you haven't sold any for those images you find.
I'm also cringing about contributors contacting violators but apparently Dreamstime have wiped their hands off it and passed the ball back to us. Pretty crappy move! Risky too I might add. Image some irate contributor sending out an email filled with "F" & "C"s. It could make Dreamstime look very unprofessional. I suggested in the forums that they at least hand us over some standard document to forward with our email but they haven't replied. I personally think they should take their time, hire temp staff if need be and handle it themselves. If Google hadn't provided this feature, we would still be oblivious to what's going on so I don't see any reason why anyone should panick about it.
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Alert: Hijack completed in seven pages. ;)
For SNP let them steal someone else's images then. That's the whole idea. Not letting them use our work for free because we'll roll over and play dead, due to difficulty in finding abuse, profit or prosecution. You just don't care enough to even write them an email and protect your work. You must be French Canadian - let them eat cake?
Someone please search on your name and see what comes up for Alamy? Just the first page of your main pseudo? My pseudos are all variations on my name, it won't work for myself. Someone with distinctive names would be a better test.
pseudonymous and others. Exactly the problem, you are correct. The agencies don't protect us and don't GAS. The reason the laws are so protective and punishing for music (which stops nothing but it looks good on the news) is the record companies are protecting the industry as a group. You will see Disney, Warner, Sony and the big ones, but it's the industry as a whole that is behind this.
Now who's making the money on photography? We should see Getty, Corbis, MSN and ??? (whoever owns the five biggest collections in the world) and they should be fighting for stronger laws for their own sake, which will protect us bottom feeders and independent artists. Why don't they care?
So far, I haven't found many "infringements", aside from XXL images hosted online. Maybe that speaks to selling exclusively. Or maybe the thieves think my stuff is garbage. :) I am going to have someone go through my portfolio looking for things to send to CE.
I think part of the reason you haven't found many is because you're knowledgeable enough to recognize legitimate vs. illegitimate uses. I haven't found many infringements and in most cases I'm cringing reading about contributors contacting 'violators' directly. but I guess for non-exclusives they'd rather not wait for the agency to intervene. It's my guess that in many cases actual clients are being wrongfully contacted. and those who have stolen are a waste of time to contact. they'll take your image down (maybe) and just steal someone else's.
It's pretty obvious which images have been used illegitamately. I've only looked up one image (I'm too scared to look at the rest just yet) and found 30 with the Dreamstime watermark mostly on blogs. Those are definitely illegitamate. Ones that require a print or web EL are easy to spot too if you haven't sold any for those images you find.
I'm also cringing about contributors contacting violators but apparently Dreamstime have wiped their hands off it and passed the ball back to us. Pretty crappy move! Risky too I might add. Image some irate contributor sending out an email filled with "F" & "C"s. It could make Dreamstime look very unprofessional. I suggested in the forums that they at least hand us over some standard document to forward with our email but they haven't replied. I personally think they should take their time, hire temp staff if need be and handle it themselves. If Google hadn't provided this feature, we would still be oblivious to what's going on so I don't see any reason why anyone should panick about it.
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I think part of the reason you haven't found many is because you're knowledgeable enough to recognize legitimate vs. illegitimate uses. I haven't found many infringements and in most cases I'm cringing reading about contributors contacting 'violators' directly. but I guess for non-exclusives they'd rather not wait for the agency to intervene. It's my guess that in many cases actual clients are being wrongfully contacted. and those who have stolen are a waste of time to contact. they'll take your image down (maybe) and just steal someone else's.
It has NOTHING to do with waiting for the agency to intervene. In most cases, there is no intervening. Perhaps for you there is, but for the rest of the tens of thousands of contributors on microstock, there isn't. I'm pretty sure that most of us, by now, know when our images are being used wrongfully. As was mentioned earlier by Race Photo, let them steal someone elses (maybe even yours...I've seen plenty of istock and getty images floating around on the rapidshare sites). But I'm going to do what I can to stop it when I see my images being misused. So far, I have had good luck with people taking my images down.
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Lucky me, my stuff isn't good enough to steal. ::)
I haven't read everything in the thread, but it's been fun. For something else interesting people might try entering their name with the word photo after it (or you pseudo and photo after it) and see where your photos are being used. I did find one unauthorized use, but since it was SpeedTV and it's four years old, I look at it as free publicity. Checked my Micro Pseudo that I've started using and found one on PBS.org, which was funny. Here's a shot with one sale in two years and I found it?
I tried my name and photo and found nothing untoward. Annoyingly, the Google search has deteriorated recently, and one way is that if you search "John Doe" photo, after a page or two, "John Doe" isn't held together, and you get hits on photos of John Smith shooting a doe. (hypothetical example). As my surname is one spelling variant of a city, the search soon deteriorated - Shame on you Google, don't 'fix' what ain't broke.
Although my name is unusual, I have a namesake who is a serious investigative journalist in the USA (I'm so proud of her!) who shows up in a lot of searches!
On your second point, although with the new Google search, I can't find one of my flaming images, with sufficient XSm sales to imagine there must be a few on the web; even with TinEye, I found in-uses for two images that have only sold once each, and had no reason to imagine they weren't the actual sales.
[Off-topic] Is it EVER going to stop raining here. >:(
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It has NOTHING to do with waiting for the agency to intervene. In most cases, there is no intervening.
This is actually amazing to me. They don't bother at all! I have reported watermarked images to several sites, they always reply something like "we will send this to our legal department" or something of that sort, but I'm sure they do nothing, because the watermarked images remain! Last time DT said I could contact the infractor directly.
Maybe if it is the case of an EL issue they do something, but they don't bother waste 30s of their time with a website or blog using the images, just because it isn't worth the time, regardless of the moral, ethical or legal aspects of copyright infringement.
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It has NOTHING to do with waiting for the agency to intervene. In most cases, there is no intervening.
This is actually amazing to me. They don't bother at all! I have reported watermarked images to several sites, they always reply something like "we will send this to our legal department" or something of that sort, but I'm sure they do nothing, because the watermarked images remain! Last time Dreamstime said I could contact the infractor directly.
Maybe if it is the case of an EL issue they do something, but they don't bother waste 30s of their time with a website or blog using the images, just because it isn't worth the time, regardless of the moral, ethical or legal aspects of copyright infringement.
That's the problem with the tiny prices: nothing in the budget for chasing up infractions.
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I have had success contacting Dreamstime. Not with dozens or hundreds of infractions, but with the occasional odd watermarked image. They've been very responsive IMO.
I don't go looking for misuse, but in the (rare) situations I have run across it, Dreamstime and Shutterstock have been the most helpful agencies in dealing with it. I get the idea that they take protecting contributor's rights very seriously.
Are you guys who haven't gotten responses contacting them for a lot of different infractions? I can see how if you are finding dozens a day with this new feature they may not have the staff to follow up with a high volume of requests.
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This tool is amazing and will help a lot of artists track down unlicensed images. Go get em guys!
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This tool is amazing and will help a lot of artists track down unlicensed images. Go get em guys!
You go get 'em. We shoot, create, you take care of our images.
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This tool is amazing and will help a lot of artists track down unlicensed images. Go get em guys!
You go get 'em. We shoot, create, you take care of our images.
Yeah, lol...
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I wonder how this google search 'by image' and 'similar' and 'more sizes' work. As I get different results using these methods. For the same image these different searches bring up different websites with my pictures. 'Search by image' shows new websites but it doesn't find websites I found using 'similar/more sizes'.
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Just wanted to thank Paulie, again, for this neat little tool.
I have a second shoot tomorrow with a teenage model who has been really disappointed not to find any of her pictures from our last session in action. Thanks to this google search thingy I found three in-actions for her. That should boost her confidence for our shoot tomorrow :D
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This tool is amazing and will help a lot of artists track down unlicensed images. Go get em guys!
You go get 'em. We shoot, create, you take care of our images.
And I do when they have our watermark. ;)
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Just wanted to thank Paulie, again, for this neat little tool.
I have a second shoot tomorrow with a teenage model who has been really disappointed not to find any of her pictures from our last session in action. Thanks to this google search thingy I found three in-actions for her. That should boost her confidence for our shoot tomorrow :D
I think this is a good time to start charging the models for the shoots ;)
Once they see that they are "famous" they'll probably just throw the money at you... Maybe. lol.
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I think this is a good time to start charging the models for the shoots ;)
Once they see that they are "famous" they'll probably just throw the money at you... Maybe. lol.
LOL!
I am embarrassed to admit that, for what I pay child models ($20), they might as well be paying me. ;)
Believe me, the thought of in-actions is the big draw for them :D
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I think this is a good time to start charging the models for the shoots ;)
Once they see that they are "famous" they'll probably just throw the money at you... Maybe. lol.
LOL!
I am embarrassed to admit that, for what I pay child models ($20), they might as well be paying me. ;)
Believe me, the thought of in-actions is the big draw for them :D
In the end it's great to see them being happy about it as well. It's a win-win situation. Everybody is happy.
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I think this is a good time to start charging the models for the shoots ;)
Once they see that they are "famous" they'll probably just throw the money at you... Maybe. lol.
LOL!
I am embarrassed to admit that, for what I pay child models ($20), they might as well be paying me. ;)
Believe me, the thought of in-actions is the big draw for them :D
The converse would be if you got any 'less pleasant' in-actions (I don't mean 'unallowed' necessarily, just maybe used for an 'embarrassing' product or with an 'ugly' manipulation etc.
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Just wanted to thank Paulie, again, for this neat little tool.
Oh, you're welcome. It took me a lot of time to create it but hey, anything for my contributor friends. ;)
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Just wanted to thank Paulie, again, for this neat little tool.
Oh, you're welcome. It took me a lot of time to create it but hey, anything for my contributor friends. ;)
Yeah thanks Paulie, it would have taken me years to pump out that code. You saved my life.
Keep up the great work!
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Hmmm, I just upgraded Firefox and lost the Google search by image, so went back to download it again and got a message that the extension is 'not compatable with Firefox 5. Anyone got a workaround?
TIA, but I'm going to bed RSN, so you won't get a proper thanks until tomorrow!
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This new google toy is really nice...
I discovered (amongst lots of other usages I hadn't seen before) one of my pictures being offered as products on a website. Because I never sold an EL for that picture, I sent them a short message via their contact form on their website asking (politely) if there has been some kind of error or oversight.
Today they called me and told me they contacted their supplier (looks like they are just a re-seller of products produced by someone else) and would take care of the issue.
Later the day I sold an EL for that file on Shutterstock.
That's how I like to see cases like this resolved....
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This new google toy is really nice...
I discovered (amongst lots of other usages I hadn't seen before) one of my pictures being offered as products on a website. Because I never sold an EL for that picture, I sent them a short message via their contact form on their website asking (politely) if there has been some kind of error or oversight.
Today they called me and told me they contacted their supplier (looks like they are just a re-seller of products produced by someone else) and would take care of the issue.
Later the day I sold an EL for that file on Shutterstock.
That's how I like to see cases like this resolved....
Awesome! :D
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This new google toy is really nice...
I discovered (amongst lots of other usages I hadn't seen before) one of my pictures being offered as products on a website. Because I never sold an EL for that picture, I sent them a short message via their contact form on their website asking (politely) if there has been some kind of error or oversight.
Today they called me and told me they contacted their supplier (looks like they are just a re-seller of products produced by someone else) and would take care of the issue.
Later the day I sold an EL for that file on Shutterstock.
That's how I like to see cases like this resolved....
Congrats Dirk! Very nice to hear stories like this one :)
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This new google toy is really nice...
I discovered (amongst lots of other usages I hadn't seen before) one of my pictures being offered as products on a website. Because I never sold an EL for that picture, I sent them a short message via their contact form on their website asking (politely) if there has been some kind of error or oversight.
Today they called me and told me they contacted their supplier (looks like they are just a re-seller of products produced by someone else) and would take care of the issue.
Later the day I sold an EL for that file on Shutterstock.
That's how I like to see cases like this resolved....
Excellent news!
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I found three of my images, with "Baylor" sign on them. I translated the site in English, and it's saying something about some illnesses... I don't have an idea what this Baylor is, and why it's embedded in my images...
http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=bayloryonsei&logNo=30101194966 (http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=bayloryonsei&logNo=30101194966)
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Thanks Paulie,
I just punched in my name and got 1,470,000 hits. This is crazy stuff and a fun tool that I now added to my bookmark bar.
Best,
Jonathan
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Thanks Paulie,
I just punched in my name and got 1,470,000 hits. This is crazy stuff and a fun tool that I now added to my bookmark bar.
Best,
Jonathan
Huh? Which tool are you using, are you just doing an old fashioned image search on your name?
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I found three of my images, with "Baylor" sign on them. I translated the site in English, and it's saying something about some illnesses... I don't have an idea what this Baylor is, and why it's embedded in my images...
[url]http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=bayloryonsei&logNo=30101194966[/url] ([url]http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=bayloryonsei&logNo=30101194966[/url])
This "Baylor" seems to be the name of a clinic. Perhaps there are using your images and the blog author just copied them.
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Hi Microbius,
I might be doing it wrong either way it is very interesting to see who has used my images. I get pages of images and they show me who purchased them and where they were used, if that isn't the correct info I would love help on getting to what Paulie is talking about. I am really enjoying seeing where all my images have been sold over the past 13 years of shooting stock. The number grows everyday I check and sometimes it's by a very solid number. I am checking under andersen ross my company name so it is not showing my Micro just my Macro sales for the past 13 years. If I am doing it wrong please let me know, something more detailed than this would be super cool.
Best,
Jonathan
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Hey Jonathan,
It's just the way that you said said you punched in your name. Paulie was talking about using that same search bar on Google image search, but now you can actually drag and drop a jpeg into the bar and it will search the internet for the same image (even if your name isn't with it).
Let me know if this makes sense! It might be what you were doing already and I misunderstood your post...
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Hi Microbius,
No, I wasn't dragging an image to the bar that sounds so cool. Thank you for explaining it to me I am just sitting down with my Sunday morning coffee and will try what you said. Thanks again for steering and old boat on the right coarse.
Best,
Jonathan
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Hi Microbius,
No, I wasn't dragging an image to the bar that sounds so cool. Thank you for explaining it to me I am just sitting down with my Sunday morning coffee and will try what you said. Thanks again for steering and old boat on the right coarse.
Best,
Jonathan
Be prepared for a massive amount of findings. The proportion of images I found which were not at all mentioning any copyright was far bigger than those correctly attributed to me. So if you already found so many hits by using your name...
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Hi Microbius,
No, I wasn't dragging an image to the bar that sounds so cool. Thank you for explaining it to me I am just sitting down with my Sunday morning coffee and will try what you said. Thanks again for steering and old boat on the right coarse.
Best,
Jonathan
No problem.
Good to hear you get to sit down and have a coffee every now and then. I imagine you never having the time or being still enough to have a sit down drink!
Let us know how you get on with the search, I gave up after just a couple of images, the number of stolen images is just too depressing.
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This new google toy is really nice...
I discovered (amongst lots of other usages I hadn't seen before) one of my pictures being offered as products on a website. Because I never sold an EL for that picture, I sent them a short message via their contact form on their website asking (politely) if there has been some kind of error or oversight.
Today they called me and told me they contacted their supplier (looks like they are just a re-seller of products produced by someone else) and would take care of the issue.
Later the day I sold an EL for that file on Shutterstock.
That's how I like to see cases like this resolved....
Not much of a deterrent for thieves... "Ah well, if I get caught I'll just buy a license THEN. No problem."
The following applies to most EU countries & N-America (if the respective image is registered for copyright there):
When I find one of my images being used without licensing (at least on a commercial site), I don't usually ask if there was a mistake. I send them a bill for violating copyright & my moral rights. And that bill is usually a three-digit US$ figure. (Getty asks for even more).
If I don't get a reply, I back this up with a letter (recorded delivery). If I don't get a reply within 2 weeks, I pass it on to an intellectual property lawyer.
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^^^Do you receive many payments? How much are the intellectual property lawyers costs?
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When I find one of my images being used without licensing...................
I'd had thought that was virtually impossible to judge for images that are for sale on microstock sites, images that are only available on your personal site, RM or even possibly macro RF (allowing for a long reporting period) you might be able to do it but I can't see how you could possibly keep track on standard license microstock images.
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I'd had thought that was virtually impossible to judge for images that are for sale on microstock sites, images that are only available on your personal site, RM or even possibly macro RF (allowing for a long reporting period) you might be able to do it but I can't see how you could possibly keep track on standard license microstock images.
That's right. I only do it for RM and images from my personal site. Most cases of image theft happen from images that I've got on FlickR. With FlickR, I've got "right click download" and "drag & drop to desktop" disabled. This means that any kind of image theft doesn't happen accidentally and HAS to happen willfully via screenshots. Which makes things easier should it ever go to court (never had that happen).
Pursuing infringements that happen within your own country of residence is never really a problem. Within N-America and the EU, it's pretty straight-forward as well. No experience apart from that.
Some IP lawyers charge a percentage of the infringement money, others want money upfront. It helps if you're a member of one of your country's photographers associations or unions. Some of them offer free legal advice for their members.
Copyright infringement for images I've got with Getty RM have to be pursued by Getty – in other words: I'm not allowed to do it myself. Never had it happen, but I've heard Getty sends out letters to the infringer, asking for about US$1500 – half of which goes to the photographer.
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... Copyright infringement for images I've got with Getty RM have to be pursued by Getty – in other words: I'm not allowed to do it myself. Never had it happen, but I've heard Getty sends out letters to the infringer, asking for about US$1500 – half of which goes to the photographer.
WOW. Good to hear that Getty actually does compensate the affected copyright holder with 50%. I always wanted to know that.
Thanks for posting!
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That's right. I only do it for RM and images from my personal site. Most cases of image theft happen from images that I've got on FlickR. With FlickR, I've got "right click download" and "drag & drop to desktop" disabled. This means that any kind of image theft doesn't happen accidentally and HAS to happen willfully via screenshots. Which makes things easier should it ever go to court (never had that happen).
I'm only recently on Flickr and have disabled these options, which of course make it less easy to check uses via GIS.
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The search results for the same image - a very recent NYC night shot - are example of how using images.google + tineye can be worthwhile - especially when interested in finding out about the subject/location of image, rather than "just" finding a true match:
http://tinyurl.com/google-images-02 (http://tinyurl.com/google-images-02)
http://www.tineye.com/search/9be7f4e9979776ea1deda80562f3395187828def/?pluginver=firefox-1.1 (http://www.tineye.com/search/9be7f4e9979776ea1deda80562f3395187828def/?pluginver=firefox-1.1)
images.google was bulls-eye about subject of poster; tineye was direct-hit (within inches) about location of overall shot