Licensable images info on Google images search

[AM Chang]

Google starts to display licensing information about content that appears in Google Images.

When the mouse is pointed on the images appears the "Licensable" text.
When image is clicked (ex. Alamy images) "Get this image on: Alamy | License details" is displayed.

 

Stay safe,

 

andre

Edited August 28, 2020 by AM Chang

[Robz]

It's in Beta at the moment at Google - do we know if Alamy will be adding this as a feature - it requires either additional properties in the structured data schema, or additional IPTC fields on the image.

 

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/image-license-metadata

[AM Chang]

I have seen the feature live today in G images search and I'm looking forward to how this can somehow influence the licensing of images.

[Panthera tigris]

Photoshleter sent out an info mailer on this a few days ago as well. It apparently needs two associative URLs lodged in the HTML associated with the image. One for the image location and one for contact details I seem to remember.

[geogphotos]

The problem is that Google Images isn't much use for finding images - certainly not compared to a stock photo site,

[Travelshots]

Not yet perhaps , But supposing google charged a small fee to an agency , a group of photographers could set up an online e commerce  agency and display its images on worldwide google with the copyright link. The client can then buy an image from the small agency charging just a small commission to its own photographers, There would be no more selling people , very low costs and 100% of the fee which each photographer could set. No more paying 80% to big G or even 50% to Alamy.  It is getting your images in front of clients that is the thing that an individual photographer cannot easily do.. Google could do it for you ?? who knows ??  

[John Mitchell]

12 hours ago, Panthera tigris said:

Photoshleter sent out an info mailer on this a few days ago as well. It apparently needs two associative URLs lodged in the HTML associated with the image. One for the image location and one for contact details I seem to remember.

 

I too read the PS mailer and asked them to add the necessary URL's to all the images on my website, which they did right away. Can't say that I have a lot of faith in being able to license images on my own thru Google Images. However, I figured that I might as well take advantage of this development. The system seems (?) to be working as licensing info is now available for my PS images that come up in GI searches.

Edited August 29, 2020 by John Mitchell

[Robz]

11 hours ago, geogphotos said:

The problem is that Google Images isn't much use for finding images - certainly not compared to a stock photo site,

I once sold an image from my website to an ad agency for 10's of £K - I asked them how they found the image, and it was from a Google search. My website was not even set-up to sell images, it was just a showcase, and for me that particular image was a "throwaway" shot, interesting but not what my other clients at the time wanted. They are a big ad agency and use both photo agencies and commission photographers, but they could not find anything suitable from an agency and did not have the time (and probably didn't want the expense - the shot involved 15 people, non identifiable) to commission the shot. Although its just one personal example, and has never happened again (although for a while they used to contact me to ask if I had any images to match other briefs), I always think its worth ensuring your images are discoverable from Google images, and this makes it even easier to sell should such an occasion arise.

[geogphotos]

10 hours ago, Robz said:

I once sold an image from my website to an ad agency for 10's of £K - I asked them how they found the image, and it was from a Google search. My website was not even set-up to sell images, it was just a showcase, and for me that particular image was a "throwaway" shot, interesting but not what my other clients at the time wanted. They are a big ad agency and use both photo agencies and commission photographers, but they could not find anything suitable from an agency and did not have the time (and probably didn't want the expense - the shot involved 15 people, non identifiable) to commission the shot. Although its just one personal example, and has never happened again (although for a while they used to contact me to ask if I had any images to match other briefs), I always think its worth ensuring your images are discoverable from Google images, and this makes it even easier to sell should such an occasion arise.

 

 

Sure, I submitted my site map to Google. They have indexed around 5k pages and ignored the other 60k - which their 'bots' have found but not indexed. 

 

What I mean is best shown through an example. Using my small village of Shottisham. GI shows two pages of results and then a message comes up saying:

 

'Looks like you have reached the end'

 

The images that feature highest are local businesses, estate agent adverts, newspaper reports - in other words where the image is valued by GI because it is in the context of lots of words. What it values much less is pages which have similar layout and which are mainly about the image - GI seems to regard this as repetition/duplication. 

 

I count a total of 13 Alamy images listed by GI for that single word search 'Shottisham'. On Alamy there are 1104. 

 

More positively I do now see some of my Photoshelter images appearing - that is an improvement over the trough that PS SEO had fallen into after being fairly good a few years ago. So the work that John Mitchell referred to does seem to be having a positive effect. 

 

So Google Images might be making changes to move into the marketing of stock images but this change on its own doesn't seem to me to be a real game changer - as yet. 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2020 by geogphotos

[geogphotos]

This has gone live. Not all Alamy images covered as yet.

[hotbrightsky]

Am I right in thinking that this feature has now prevented the practice of Alamy linking to other contributors' photos from individuals' Google Image search results? It used to be the case that clicking on my images took me to a much larger set of related Alamy search results where it was extremely difficult to find the image I originally clicked on. That doesn't appear to be the case any longer. Related?

[hotbrightsky]

The Google Images License specification places a lot of emphasis on 2 IPTC fields:

 

1. Web Statement of Rights

2. Licensor URL

See https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/image-license-metadata

 

The latter seems to rely on an obscure field which Lightroom Classic doesn't even support as a Metadata Preset option.

 

This will not be a problem for commercial stock agencies but it seems deliberately designed to make life difficult for everyone else.

Edited September 1, 2020 by hotbrightsky

[Craig Joiner]

17 hours ago, hotbrightsky said:

The Google Images License specification places a lot of emphasis on 2 IPTC fields:

 

1. Web Statement of Rights

2. Licensor URL

See https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/image-license-metadata

 

The latter seems to rely on an obscure field which Lightroom Classic doesn't even support as a Metadata Preset option.

 

This will not be a problem for commercial stock agencies but it seems deliberately designed to make life difficult for everyone else.

 

Lightroom Classic does support Licensor URL but I might have read somewhere it was a relatively recent metadata field so possibly only available in later Creative Cloud versions. It's under 'IPTC Extension'. Scroll down to 'Rights' and 'Licensor' is there. Click on that and it'll open up with a number of fields including the Licensor URL field. Relatively easy to create a preset in LR and then apply it to all existing images and on import.

 

More info at: https://iptc.org/standards/photo-metadata/quick-guide-to-iptc-photo-metadata-and-google-images/

 

Edit:

You cannot add the licensor details directly to a preset Lightroom. You have to first add it to an image in Lightroom and then create (or modify) a template based on the metadata for that image.

 

Craig

Edited September 2, 2020 by Craig Joiner

[Harry Harrison]

1 hour ago, Craig Joiner said:

I might have read somewhere it was a relatively recent metadata field so possibly only available in later Creative Cloud versions

I seem to have 'URL' under the Licensor section  in Lightroom 6.14 Perpetual together with various address, phone and email details

 

It's under 'IPTC Extension' in the Metadata panel. Haven't tried using it in relation to this though.

[hotbrightsky]

3 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

I seem to have 'URL' under the Licensor section  in Lightroom 6.14 Perpetual together with various address, phone and email details

 

It's under 'IPTC Extension' in the Metadata panel. Haven't tried using it in relation to this though.

 

Yes, it is in the Metadata panel for each image but it is not a Metadata Preset so it would have to be added to each image manually. I'm not sure what Craig means about modifying a template.

[Harry Harrison]

3 minutes ago, hotbrightsky said:

I'm not sure what Craig means about modifying a template.

No, neither do I, but I'm hoping to find out....

[Harry Harrison]

7 minutes ago, hotbrightsky said:

I'm not sure what Craig means about modifying a template.

It looks to me that if you have a metadata preset for that image and manually add 'URL' to that image under Licensor then you can go to 'Edit preset' and add 'URL' to that preset. Still ,as I say, I've not looked into this and was just pointing out for Craig's benefit that it is at least part of 6.14 perpetual.

[hotbrightsky]

1 minute ago, Harry Harrison said:

It looks to me that if you have a metadata preset for that image and manually add 'URL' to that image under Licensor then you can go to 'Edit preset' and add 'URL' to that preset. Still ,as I say, I've not looked into this and was just pointing out for Craig's benefit that it is at least part of 6.14 perpetual.

 

Yes, however according to IPTC the precise fields Google demands (rather than acceptable substitutes) only became standard 2 days ago!

 

"Web Statement of Rights (in use since 31 August 2020)"

 

"Licensor URL (in use since 31 August 2020)"

https://iptc.org/standards/photo-metadata/quick-guide-to-iptc-photo-metadata-and-google-images/

Annoying URLs beginning "www" will not be accepted, only "http://" or "https://". Which invalidates my entire image collection to date.

[Harry Harrison]

1 minute ago, hotbrightsky said:

 

Yes, however according to IPTC the precise fields Google demands (rather than acceptable substitutes) only became standard 2 days ago!

 

"Web Statement of Rights (in use since 31 August 2020)"

 

"Licensor URL (in use since 31 August 2020)"

https://iptc.org/standards/photo-metadata/quick-guide-to-iptc-photo-metadata-and-google-images/

Annoying URLs beginning "www" will not be accepted, only "http://" or "https://". Which invalidates my entire image collection to date.

 

1 minute ago, hotbrightsky said:

Annoying URLs beginning "www" will not be accepted, only "http://" or "https://". Which invalidates my entire image collection to date.

Thanks, clearly an issue then, I do need to look into it certainly, mine have got nothing in that field at all, I've only used the 'Website' field in the standard IPTC panel up to now, and not with any real conviction.

[hotbrightsky]

It shouldn't really matter on sites like Alamy and PhotoShelter with their own licensing platform to promote. They will do the work for us. But sites like Flickr which have no obvious licensing option, yet still enjoy relatively high search visibility, will be a headache. Not sure what IPTC if any Instagram, Twitter, Facebook etc. supports.

Edited September 2, 2020 by hotbrightsky

[Craig Joiner]

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

It looks to me that if you have a metadata preset for that image and manually add 'URL' to that image under Licensor then you can go to 'Edit preset' and add 'URL' to that preset. Still ,as I say, I've not looked into this and was just pointing out for Craig's benefit that it is at least part of 6.14 perpetual.

 

Exactly right Harry. Sorry I should have been clearer (trying to multi task is never a good idea!) Just add the required details to one image then while that image is still selected create a preset (sorry I mistakenly said template originally) and you can add the Licensor metadata to your preset. And thanks for the v6.14 update. I see now that Licensor URL has been around since 2008 after the PLUS coalition got it added so relatively new but not new new.

 

1 hour ago, hotbrightsky said:

 

Yes, however according to IPTC the precise fields Google demands (rather than acceptable substitutes) only became standard 2 days ago!

 

 

It's been in beta for several months so although officially only became standard from 31st Aug when the Google Images change went live, it was agreed some time ago and has been in use during the beta.

 

1 hour ago, hotbrightsky said:

 

Annoying URLs beginning "www" will not be accepted, only "http://" or "https://". Which invalidates my entire image collection to date.

 

 

 

Indeed, a pain. But you can just simply point every image to the same generic page giving details of how to license your images rather than separate URLs for each image. This is the approach I took. I would prefer individual URLs to each image's 'home page' but I didn’t have the time to update every image individually. I may do this as a later project if I see any sign it would be worth my while.

 

Craig

 

[geogphotos]

Who knows perhaps this will evolve into something useful but as plenty of others have commented - who goes to Google Images to buy images?

 

Why would anybody actually do that?

[Craig Joiner]

9 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

Who knows perhaps this will evolve into something useful but as plenty of others have commented - who goes to Google Images to buy images?

 

Why would anybody actually do that?

 

Someone who has an image they want to use and they don’t know who the owner is? Wasn't that what the Orphan Works was all about?

I’m not expecting GIS to become a stock library and make us all rich of course, but this does make Google Images a slightly less hostile place for our images IMO. If it means a perspective buyer can find the image owner (or acting agent/library) with the click of a button and ultimately license the image then that has to be a good thing, right?

[John Mitchell]

4 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

Who knows perhaps this will evolve into something useful but as plenty of others have commented - who goes to Google Images to buy images?

 

Why would anybody actually do that?

 

Who knows. Maybe if there weren't so many images now available on stock agencies at low (and super low) prices. As mentioned, I used to get regular inquiries and make decent sales through my PS website. Now I use it mainly to point people to my collection here, which I know sounds counter-productive, but I realize that most photo-buyers wouldn't want to pay the prices that I'm asking. At one time, I was able to sustain a $100 minimum policy when licensing images on my own. But them days is gone. 🙁

 

 

[losdemas]

15 hours ago, geogphotos said:

Who knows perhaps this will evolve into something useful but as plenty of others have commented - who goes to Google Images to buy images?

 

Why would anybody actually do that?

 

Very rare admittedly, but it does happen. I had an author contact me (a few years back, I must confess) as a result of a GIS for images for a text book. Sold him 3 for a decent fee and a copy of the book.

Edited September 3, 2020 by losdemas