Sorry Fotographer   

Thank you Microbius 

No problem

Quote from: rubyroo on February 05, 2013, 13:40
Sorry Fotographer   

Thank you Microbius 

Thank you both.  I thought that I had tried that but must have still missed a bit off.

Quote from: rubyroo on February 05, 2013, 13:05
Someone's started a petition here:

https://www.change.org/en-IN/petitions/google-stop-hotlinking-copyrighted-images-of-web-
publishers

signed, though I don't imagine this will have any effect. Maybe every little bit helps, but the pressure must come from the big guns, and Google has ensured that they have the support of Getty. The whole google/getty deal takes on a whole lot more meaning as each day goes by.

You're welcome Fotografer (and sorry for spelling your name incorrectly - the stress of recent developments is clearly getting to me...)

I'm not really in the whole social media club (up until now I couldn't see the point - but I see now how useful Twitter is for getting the word out and garnering support).  If anyone can get that petition tweeted far and wide then hopefully it'll build rapidly.  i agree with you about the big guns Cathy, but as you say, every little helps.  At least on this one the concerns expressed are coming from webmasters and agencies too. 

Where is a problem? Google can not hack your PC, have not access to your HDD. If somebody placed on his web page full size unwatermarked image, purchased or stolen, yes, new layout helps better and faster find it and "Save as", but nothing more! If some agency sell photos without your permission, you can more easy find it. I can not understand, how this search engine upgrade decrease DT sales?

Left a comment + signed the petition.

Quote from: Grandpa on February 05, 2013, 14:56
Where is a problem? Google can not hack your PC, have not access to your HDD. If somebody placed on his web page full size unwatermarked image, purchased or stolen, yes, new layout helps better and faster find it and "Save as", but nothing more! If some agency sell photos without your permission, you can more easy find it. I can not understand, how this search engine upgrade decrease DT sales?

It is decreasing traffic to the hosts of the images (ie: DT) by not linking the image back to the original source. Decreased traffic = decreased sales.

Google is intentionally "educating" the general public that images are free for the grabbing by facilitating the process.  I believe this to be negligence on a grand scale and, due to Google's stature, they are likely legally liable for negligence of this nature. What is needed is a large group to go after them for damages actual and punitive.

Quote from: Kelly@GL on February 05, 2013, 04:02
Since buyers can now download/copy the image (watermarked or not) right from Google, there is no reason for the buyer to click the "Visit Page" link which would take them to the image purchase page. This "block" is preventing proper image licensing and possible new customer conversion. The math is pretty easy: lower traffic = lower sales.

Traffic is definitely lower this week. It's too early to tell how that will affect sales this month though. I'd like to give potential buyers the benefit of the doubt though that they are savvy enough to click through to the site. That and I assume that some people searching on Google Images have no intention of licensing images. I know I don't when I use it. I'm usually just interested in the images for things like the shape of a koala's ears or what color is a woodpecker.

I contacted the National Intellectual Property Rights department of the government today, and got back this response:
"Have you contacted Google, personally or through an attorney, and advised them to cease and desist?  Your works are protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), however, you must first advise Google of the violation and give them the opportunity to rectify the situation.  If this has already been done, then you can file action against them in court."

http://www.iprcenter.gov/

It sounds like as far as the government is concerned it isn't a problem because you can DMCA and have your work removed from the search results if you don't like it. I am sure Google would comply, you would also be seeing no sales through Google searches, which none of us could afford.
The problem of a virtual monopoly in internet searches.

Quote from: Microbius on February 05, 2013, 16:42
It sounds like as far as the government is concerned it isn't a problem because you can DMCA and have your work removed from the search results if you don't like it. I am sure Google would comply, you would also be seeing no sales through Google searches, which none of us could afford.
The problem of a virtual monopoly in internet searches.

The problem is that Google is not hosting the content.  The person hosting the content is probably legally using it.  It would only harm them to attempt to tell Google to block it.  It is the nature of the software itself, not individual stolen images, which is the problem.

They posted a way to block images from the search function here:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35308

So if you have access to your hosting, its pretty easy to do. I get the bigger picture (pardon the pun) issues though. Google is violating copyright.

Quote from: farbled on February 05, 2013, 16:48
They posted a way to block images from the search function here:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35308

So if you have access to your hosting, its pretty easy to do. I get the bigger picture (pardon the pun) issues though. Google is violating copyright.

That does nothing since these images are not coming from "my site".

Quote from: rubyroo on February 05, 2013, 13:05
Someone's started a petition here:

https://www.change.org/en-IN/petitions/google-stop-hotlinking-copyrighted-images-of-web-publishers

Thanks for posting that.  I just signed.

Quote from: sjlocke on February 05, 2013, 16:45
The problem is that Google is not hosting the content.  The person hosting the content is probably legally using it.  It would only harm them to attempt to tell Google to block it.  It is the nature of the software itself, not individual stolen images, which is the problem.

So is it feasible to send a request to Google to cease and desist using the software to access our copyrighted images? If so, would it be beneficial to have a standard request letter drawn up by a willing attorney and those who want to use it can each pay the attorney a small fee (to license the letter, I guess).

Quote from: jbryson on February 05, 2013, 16:56

Quote from: sjlocke on February 05, 2013, 16:45
The problem is that Google is not hosting the content.  The person hosting the content is probably legally using it.  It would only harm them to attempt to tell Google to block it.  It is the nature of the software itself, not individual stolen images, which is the problem.

So is it feasible to send a request to Google to cease and desist using the software to access our copyrighted images? If so, would it be beneficial to have a standard request letter drawn up by a willing attorney and those who want to use it can each pay the attorney a small fee (to license the letter, I guess).

You can't define every single instance of our copyrighted images, though.  And that penalizes the licensor of the image as well.

Soon, we'll all be so busy policing our IP that we won't have any time or resources left to create new IP. Eventually, it will cease to be a problem, as creativity will simply die out like the dinosaurs. 

Quote from: jbryson on February 05, 2013, 16:56

Quote from: sjlocke on February 05, 2013, 16:45
The problem is that Google is not hosting the content.  The person hosting the content is probably legally using it.  It would only harm them to attempt to tell Google to block it.  It is the nature of the software itself, not individual stolen images, which is the problem.

So is it feasible to send a request to Google to cease and desist using the software to access our copyrighted images? If so, would it be beneficial to have a standard request letter drawn up by a willing attorney and those who want to use it can each pay the attorney a small fee (to license the letter, I guess).

I seem to remember I once DMCA'd Google about a site that was giving my images away to have their Google ADs removed, not realizing they weren't hosting just linking to images from elsewhere.

I got an email back saying they had removed those images from their search results (maybe they were using Google to return the results on their website?). So again, I think as copyright holder there is a way for you to request Google doesn't return your images in their searches and they will do it. That will cost you far more as a big volume of your sales are through Google searches I am sure.

As Sean says the issue is the software, but I predict Google's response will be much the same as the response Sean got from the government. "You don't like it? okay, we will stop returning your images in searches, and you can go find another career"

ETA two post went up while I was typing pretty much covering this

Is it feasible to form some kind of alliance, in which "dues" are used to make public service announcements educating the public that using images found in the Google searches may be illegal? Maybe we can't stop Google, but we can expose what they're doing for what it is.

Quote from: jbryson on February 05, 2013, 17:10
Is it feasible to form some kind of alliance, in which "dues" are used to make public service announcements educating the public that using images found in the Google searches may be illegal? Maybe we can't stop Google, but we can expose what they're doing for what it is.

There have been a couple of decent blog articles by repentant bloggers coming clean about using Google images and being caught. Warning others to make sure they license images correctly. I think stuff like that really helps.

Quote from: lisafx

PS - anyone else around her starting to feel a bit like Don Quixote?

Actually yes... right after he has been beaten by the windmills...

At this moment I'm so overwhelmed by the amount of consecutive bad news that I'm at the point of giving up to worry...

Quote from: XPTO on February 05, 2013, 17:19

Quote from: lisafx

PS - anyone else around her starting to feel a bit like Don Quixote?

Actually yes... right after he has been beaten by the windmills...

At this moment I'm so overwhelmed by the amount of consecutive bad news that I'm at the point of giving up to worry...

Yes, exactly the same situation here.  *, how much of this cr@p can we take and continue to produce creatively? 

Numbness is starting to creep in.  Maybe the time is coming to throw in the towel? 

Any idea why Serban's blog is not showing up in the list on the DT blog forum?  It's listed on the blog page.