The magic of RF - you don't know who licensed it for what use.

All you can look at is things like watermarks on images, or bigger sizes than allowed online.  Or anything else that explicitly goes against the license.

@sjlocke:

With an image ID and a license/download ID there is no need for me to know who licensed it for what use. License/download ID may be something like a timestamp (date and time of the download). Together with the image ID it's unique and anonymous.

If I find one of my images with those IDs on one website and I find this image and license IDs in my list of downloaded files, then usage mostly will be legal.
If I find more than one website using one of my images with identical IDs, it mostly will be illegal use (only one use can be legal). In this case I would fight against.
If I find one of my images without those IDs, it mostly will be illegal use. I would fight against.

Such an unique (and anonymous) license ID would give us control over legal/illegal use of our images in internet (and over agencies).

Watermarks may be fine things, but:

• Visible watermarks (i.e. of FT) are deleted in a few seconds in Photoshop (content aware fill - a highlight of PS5, even for illegal use).
• Invisible watermarks (i.e. Digimarc watermarks used by FT as declared in their blog) I didn't find. So I don't know, if they are used or not.

That's why I do not want to rely on watermarking.

@ click_click:

I don't bother as long as it's not on a product for resale or over 800 pixels width.

(Quote from http://www.microstockgroup.com/image-sleuth/an-experiment-about-watermarked-images-in-use/)
...
Picscout has already established that 9 out of 10 images online are used without a license. Speaks volumes...

This shows that your commission could be about 9 times higher, if all illegal users would pay for the licenses.

A 9 times higher commission would make me happy - and I think all the other contributors too. But you don't bother?

Your other post I will reply later.

PS:
... I asked FT about the legal/illegal use of my image two weeks ago - no answer so far.

FT Germany answered today in German, therefore in short (and without comments):
The operator of the website is located in US. The operator could not be assigned to a member account on Fotolia. They will notify me once they receive feedback from US.
"... Please understand that Fotolia in the pricing of the microstock market is not able to check every image usage without specific cause. If you have any helpful hints that constitute an abuse, we take it gladly."

Once you have your system running with a rate of 5 times higher (not necessarily 9) PM me and I will sign up without even knowing your name.

It's not a system or a machine, it will be hard work for the contributors to convince the agencies.

The agencies would have to create a datafield "license ID" in their databases, which is filled when a legal download happens. Not just difficult (I think something like that already exists but not visible for the contributors). It has to be switched visible in the list of the downloads for the contributor.

The second thing is, that the image ID and the license ID have to be written in the image file information (IPTC etc.) before the image is downloaded legally.  I think that's no problem. In the image file information (IPTC) is a datafield "Copyright information". I.e. FT puts the contributors name in this datafield and adds "- Fotolia", when the file is downloaded legally. They are able to write other datas too.

I explained my idea and I want you - the distributors - to think about the idea and work on the project.

This idea has to be checked and has to be realized. There is a lot to do:

• The work plan has to be made.
• The agreements of the agencies have to be read.
• The results have to be written down.
• The suggestions for the agencies have to be made.
• We will have to find an agencie for testing.
• We will have to convince the agencies.
• The posts in the forums of the agencies have to be made, to get their members too (most of them are not active at this site).
• etc..............

This is a little like working in a union. But this "ad hoc union" would have a clear mission: Find tools for recognizing illegal use of our work.
This union could go to the agencies and say: "Let's all together earn more money." And that's because not only the contributors would earn more money, even the agencies would, by selling more licenses.

I think this is a better mission for a union than saying: "Give us higher commissions." (Look at: http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/how-to-fight-against-lower-and-lower-commisions!/ and http://www.microstockgroup.com/fotolia-com/new-commissions-at-fotolia/ and others.

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PS:
@ click_click:

...
Real world sucks.

They suck our images illegally - we want to suck their money but legally.

Adding Exif/IPTC data is pointless. It can all be easily removed. This is just one program that will strip data from a photo, there are many others.

Batch Exif Tag Remover - ExifCleaner

ExifCleaner is a handy batch utility that lets you to erase/remove Exif tags, geotags, IPTC, Adobe XMP, and other photographic metadata from JPEG pictures. This protects your privacy, helps you to hide unneeded, undesirable or sometimes sensitive information � about the image, photographer and location. Did you know that every digital photo produced with a modern camera or a smartphone contains it? Removing metadata saves disk space and server bandwidth, reduces download times � that is especially evident on small-sized, or on a large amount of images. Exif cleaner can also be useful for photo professionals, to strip out Exif data in photomontage works.

Adding Exif/IPTC data is pointless. It can all be easily removed.

If image ID and license ID are removed the image looks like in illegal use. I would send a notice about that to the site owner.

It cannot happen. Period. It can not!

For this to work you will have to work with ALL possible agencies in the world!

Please read this again: All - agencies - in - the - world!

Not even if all members on this forum would help we couldn't do it. Too much work!

You don't know who is submitting his/her images to which agency so it is important that every agency on this planet is working with this system.

Secondly, you are not going to pay money to the agency to make all necessary changes to their database and testing the system.

Do you really think the agencies do all that work for free? What are their benefits?

Are you going to share your lost revenue 50/50 with the agencies?

If 12,483 agencies in the world participate but iStock doesn't, then what?

Designers select, copy and paste parts and bits of pieces of our images. Tons of images are being manipulated that way and therefore lose the IDs. How do you prevent that? Prohibit the act of designing?

Come on, go shoot some pictures. It ain't gonna happen.

...
For this to work you will have to work with ALL possible agencies in the world!
Please read this again: All - agencies - in - the - world!
Not even if all members on this forum would help we couldn't do it. Too much work!
You don't know who is submitting his/her images to which agency so it is important that every agency on this planet is working with this system.

There is no need to get all agencies in the first step, but some of the top and middle tiers, especially the agencies I'm uploading to and the most of us distributors too. If one of the agencies makes the necessary changes, we could give them our new uploads. Others would follow us - and other agencies would follow, too (or they wouldn't get new uploads).

Secondly, you are not going to pay money to the agency to make all necessary changes to their database and testing the system.
Do you really think the agencies do all that work for free? What are their benefits?

Yes, I think they have to do it for free, because they would sell more licenses and get their commissions.

Are you going to share your lost revenue 50/50 with the agencies?

If the agencies would fight against illegal usage, they would sell licenses and the agency and the contributor get their commission. If I would have to fight against illegal use, there is no need to share the revenue with the agencies.

If 12,483 agencies in the world participate but iStock doesn't, then what?

If iStock wouldn't participate I wouldn't care, because I don't upload to them. If you would further upload to iStock, you would have to live with their decision.

Designers select, copy and paste parts and bits of pieces of our images. Tons of images are being manipulated that way and therefore lose the IDs. How do you prevent that? Prohibit the act of designing?

I don't want to prohibit the act of designing - I want to prohibit the act of using our images illegally without paying for our work. The designers want to be paid for their work too. I don't know how to prevent your described case at this time, it's part of working out the plan.

In the first step we will not find all images in all cases of illegal use. But let's begin to fight against illegal use.

In all examples of my entry post the owner of the sites try to make money with the help of the images. I think at least the half are in illegal use. Some are used in composits. If I can't see image ID and the license ID of my images in the image file information, I would write a notice about that to the owner of the site.

In the past music industry wasn't very successful in preventing illegal usage of music files. But there is a difference between music industry and microstock image industry. Most of illegal users of music files have downloaded them to hear the music alone or with their friends, not public. Most illegal users of images want to show them public, in paper prints or in the web - and in the web we have the chance to catch them worldwide.

Microstock images became an industry - there is no industry without politics. We have to work on politics - no one else will do this for us. But it's not a thing one can do alone.

Who is interested in working on that plan?

Who has some experience in international group working via web?

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PS:

Come on, go shoot some pictures. It ain't gonna happen.

Yes, click_click, I want to shoot some pictures - for two or three hours a day. But I don't want to add up to 24 hours a day working for the illegal users - I do need my sleep really.

After I've telephoned with Fotolia I don't think that Digimarc watermarks are really practiced at Fotolia. I wrote them a notice.

After I've telephoned with Fotolia I don't think that Digimarc watermarks are really practiced at Fotolia. I wrote them a notice.

I'm a little slow on this. Your images are only for sale on FT?

You plan of registering licenses, but hidden from the artists view, makes no sense. How does someone who sells on 25 agencies find out which one sold the image? Ask all of them to go through and see if they have a sale at XYZ site for that shot? Wed' have to check every use we find, then write to every agency and have them check for licenses?

Please explain.

You plan of registering licenses, but hidden from the artists view, makes no sense.

If an image is used with a purchased license, you can't use a visible watermark, because the image would be worthless for the buyer. So you have to use an invisible sign. This could be an invisible (Digimarc) watermark. My idea is to use a unified license ID in the image file information (IPTC data).

How does someone who sells on 25 agencies find out which one sold the image? Ask all of them to go through and see if they have a sale at XYZ site for that shot? Wed' have to check every use we find, then write to every agency and have them check for licenses?

When FT sells a license today, they put a copyright phrase (i.e.: "ingwio - fotolia") and the image ID of FT into the image file information. Please look at my example 4 in the opening post. I think other agencies handle it similar, I did not check this so far.

The copyright phrase and the image ID show you, which agency has sold a license for an image with a special ID, but it is not a unified sign for a purchased license. Worldwide everyone could copy the image and when you find it on a site, it looks like a purchased license. Only the agency could find out, whether it's a legal license purchased by the owner.

I do not want to find out whether an image is in legal usage. I want to find the images without a license and would like the owners of these sites to purchase a license or remove the image. I.e.: An image is sold 30 times and used 60 times on web. Today you can't find out on your own which one is in use without a purchased license. Only the agency would be able to check, but it's hard work, because they had to check each website on which the image is used. They would not do that. And users who haven't purchased a license don't say: Look, here is an image in illegal use.

Therefore we - the contributors - need to distinguish legal from illegal use and fight against illegal (non purchased) use. Therefore I started this thread.

I thought the OP meant that every image will have a license ID attached to the IPTC data of the file.

Each agency could have license IDs starting with the first three letters of their name followed by a 30-digit number.

Once you would find an image of yours online and check the IPTC (if it hasn't been stripped...) you could then match it up with other sites using that same image. If any of them have the identical license ID it would either mean that it was purchased by the same buyer but used multiple times or... and that's the idea of the OP, the file is stolen.

My idea is to use a unified sign in the image file information - like a passport. Then we can check and do the following:

• The image has a passport and is only found once: Legal use, nothing to do.
• The image has a passport and is found more than once: Maybe legal use, nothing to do. Maybe illegal use, send a notice to the agency (when exclusive image) or to the owners of the sites (when non-exclusive image).
• The image has no passport: Maybe illegal use. Send a notice to the agency (when exclusive image)  or to the owner of the site (when non-exclusive image).

In my idea of a simple unified sign (passport) it should have the following elements: agency, image ID, license ID.

In the image file information (part IPTC-Status) of an image licensed by FT we find the following data already today:
datafield Copyright: artist and agency (i.e.: ingwio - fotolia)
datafield Source: image ID of the agency (i.e.:22390470)

This data is written into the image file information, when a purchased download occurs at FT. Only the license ID is missed.

In a simple way the license ID could be the timestamp for that moment the image with the purchased license is downloaded. This data you find already in the artist's list of sold files at at FT (and in the buyer's list of purchased files too). With the format string "yyyymmddhhmmss" and the download date/time 2011-08-24 02:39:54 pm you would get 20110824143954 for the license ID, which could be added in the datafield Source (i.e. 22390470-20110824143954).

The license ID isn't a new idea. The IPCT, "International Press Telecommunications Council" (http://www.iptc.org/site/Home/), defined and described the datafields of image file information. Especially for Adobe users is the "IPTC File Info panel in CS5 User Guide" (http://www.iptc.org/std/photometadata/documentation/IPTC-CS5-FileInfo-UserGuide_6.pdf), read pages 14-16, 22-25. Implementing this would be hard stuff for the agencies, therefore my idea of timestamp as a simple license ID.

That's a lot of effort for a very low chance of making valid claims. The agencies would have to invest a lot of money and resources to implement that system and in the end it still has to be verified manually if two images may or may have not been used legally.

It's like treading water IMO.

I can't see that the agencies would have to invest a lot of money and resources to implement the additional image ID as I described above. I.e. at FT it looks more like a little finger exercise for a programmer at the beginning of his career: formatting date/time of the purchased download and writing it to the image file information together with the image ID.

@ click_click:

Now I've read about your opinion why an image ID would not work.

But what about your answers to my other questions in the opening post?

• Have the buyers to put copyright information in the files, when they use our images in their images?
• How do you recognize a legal/illegal use of your images?
• What do your agents do to prevent illegal use?
• What do you do to let the agencies prevent illegal use?
• What would you prefer instead of a license ID for recognizing legal/illegal use?

Your idea seems to be to produce more images instead of fighting against the illegal use of images.

This would be like drawing water out of a boat which has a big leak IMO.