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Author Topic: Google Images Search by Image (was Drag and Drop)  (Read 68995 times)

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« Reply #75 on: June 16, 2011, 00:25 »
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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.


« Reply #76 on: June 16, 2011, 01:41 »
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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

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.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #77 on: June 16, 2011, 03:46 »
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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?
« Last Edit: June 16, 2011, 04:07 by ShadySue »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #78 on: June 16, 2011, 04:20 »
0
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!
« Last Edit: June 16, 2011, 05:37 by ShadySue »

XPTO

« Reply #79 on: June 16, 2011, 05:06 »
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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...
 ;)

XPTO

« Reply #80 on: June 16, 2011, 05:13 »
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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.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #81 on: June 16, 2011, 05:28 »
0
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

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #82 on: June 16, 2011, 05:46 »
0
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.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #83 on: June 16, 2011, 06:07 »
0
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.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2011, 06:27 by ShadySue »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #84 on: June 16, 2011, 06:16 »
0
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).
« Last Edit: June 16, 2011, 06:18 by ShadySue »

« Reply #85 on: June 16, 2011, 06:53 »
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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/

Microbius

« Reply #86 on: June 16, 2011, 07:10 »
0
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.

« Reply #87 on: June 16, 2011, 07:17 »
0
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.

lthn

    This user is banned.
« Reply #88 on: June 16, 2011, 07:29 »
0
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....

« Reply #89 on: June 16, 2011, 08:01 »
0
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.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2011, 08:04 by cclapper »

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #90 on: June 16, 2011, 08:04 »
0
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/


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.

« Reply #91 on: June 16, 2011, 08:35 »
0
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?


XPTO

« Reply #92 on: June 16, 2011, 08:47 »
0
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.

Microbius

« Reply #93 on: June 16, 2011, 09:08 »
0
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.

lthn

    This user is banned.
« Reply #94 on: June 16, 2011, 09:09 »
0
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.

lthn

    This user is banned.
« Reply #95 on: June 16, 2011, 09:18 »
0
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.

« Reply #96 on: June 16, 2011, 09:27 »
0

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. :-)

« Reply #97 on: June 16, 2011, 10:00 »
0

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.

« Reply #98 on: June 16, 2011, 10:18 »
0
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.

XPTO

« Reply #99 on: June 16, 2011, 11:40 »
0
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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