Jump to content

Mass reverse image search


Recommended Posts

I often search for my own images this way, but if someone has stolen one they are unlikely to post a credit to you. Having said that, I have recently seen a photo I sold of a hovercraft appear on Pininterest. Someone has actually got a credit to me there but they didn't pay for it. It's also on an MSN site, who I assume are the people who bought it (the details don't specify this). I haven't followed this up as all that'll happen is they'll have to remove the image, as someone like you or I using Pininterest is unlikely to want to cough up money for it. So I thought it might be best to leave it there with my name credited.

The problem with leaving it is that it will be pinched from Pinterest, and so on, cascading down. I get things removed if I can.

As we all know you can't eat credit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok thanks guys. 

I have tried my name and Alamy etc and its been useful. 

Interesting pinterest seem to have posted a few of my photographs. I will try and chase them up for these. Is there a good guide/template email which can help me send infringement emails to them?

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I often search for my own images this way, but if someone has stolen one they are unlikely to post a credit to you. Having said that, I have recently seen a photo I sold of a hovercraft appear on Pininterest. Someone has actually got a credit to me there but they didn't pay for it. It's also on an MSN site, who I assume are the people who bought it (the details don't specify this). I haven't followed this up as all that'll happen is they'll have to remove the image, as someone like you or I using Pininterest is unlikely to want to cough up money for it. So I thought it might be best to leave it there with my name credited.

 

Did the MSN site have a Pinterest icon with the image?

 

Jill

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes it did Jill. I didn't even know what Pinterest was until I saw that and did some research.

 

Then you can't do a takedown. I believe we give the rights to share our images on social media.

 

I had an image in the Guardian of a Flyboarder and it ended up (along with the article) in a number of blogs. The share button is there, so the blogger is not doing anything wrong, neither is the Pinterest user.

 

Jill

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I often find that no matter how careful you are, if an image sells it's then stolen from the site that uses it. There's no protection there. It's a free for all. This for me is where it falls down. Often the person or site that steals it doesn't have contact info and you're told it's not worth chasing. While this is happening your image is passed about all over the place and who loses out? you! 

 

I've had to go through Image Rights for a few of my cases, and it takes so long to sort out. All the while, the site is still using your image. Welcome to the digital age where everything is free until you get caught. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello,

 

Until recently I have never tried to look for copyright infringement. I'm wondering if there is a way, software or website to reverse image search many images at once?

 

Jonathan

 

I ended up writing my own. It goes through my website and does a google image search against each one and then emails me the result. Not perfect but fine for my own use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Hello,

 

Until recently I have never tried to look for copyright infringement. I'm wondering if there is a way, software or website to reverse image search many images at once?

 

Jonathan

 

I ended up writing my own. It goes through my website and does a google image search against each one and then emails me the result. Not perfect but fine for my own use.

 

 

Thats fantastic, fancy sharing hehe?

its exactly what im after. It would be fab if there was a programme you can link your alamy page to which would notify you if it found a matching image pop up somewhere. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Hello,

 

Until recently I have never tried to look for copyright infringement. I'm wondering if there is a way, software or website to reverse image search many images at once?

 

Jonathan

 

I ended up writing my own. It goes through my website and does a google image search against each one and then emails me the result. Not perfect but fine for my own use.

 

 

Thats fantastic, fancy sharing hehe?

its exactly what im after. It would be fab if there was a programme you can link your alamy page to which would notify you if it found a matching image pop up somewhere. 

 

 

I would love to but it is not in a form to release easily. It is a PHP script that I run on a Linux box at a scheduled time each day. At the moment, it gets the list of files from the database of my website. If there was an easy way for me to get a list of my Alamy pictures, then I could convert it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Hello,

 

Until recently I have never tried to look for copyright infringement. I'm wondering if there is a way, software or website to reverse image search many images at once?

 

Jonathan

 

I ended up writing my own. It goes through my website and does a google image search against each one and then emails me the result. Not perfect but fine for my own use.

 

 

I've been thinking of doing this for a long time, but I always assumed that Google would block me after a while when their server detected that it was getting hundreds of accesses from the same place in quick succession. Presumably you haven't had any such problem?

 

Alan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ah shame, thats very clever. Maybe a boffin can come along and write a script to scan our alamy portfolios.

One day, I think people would pay good money for that.

If it works, I'll do it. But see my reply to Andrew above.

 

Also, I suspect Alamy would not be too happy at an automated bot making multiple accesses to their server either.

 

Alan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Yes it did Jill. I didn't even know what Pinterest was until I saw that and did some research.

 

Then you can't do a takedown. I believe we give the rights to share our images on social media.

 

Jill

 

It may or may not be the case. Just because msn.com had a pinterest share button over a licensed image, it does not mean the license terms allowed them to do that.

GI

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Hello,

 

Until recently I have never tried to look for copyright infringement. I'm wondering if there is a way, software or website to reverse image search many images at once?

 

Jonathan

 

I ended up writing my own. It goes through my website and does a google image search against each one and then emails me the result. Not perfect but fine for my own use.

 

 

I've been thinking of doing this for a long time, but I always assumed that Google would block me after a while when their server detected that it was getting hundreds of accesses from the same place in quick succession. Presumably you haven't had any such problem?

 

Alan

 

 

Sorry just seen this message. You need to pause between image searchs otherwise Google will stop you. They need to release a proper API to the image search.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is an easy way to search for your images, a few ways in fact.

 

The easiest maybe Google's own reverse image search function which they call "Search by image": 
https://images.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl  (Just click the camera icon in the search bar)

 

Some info on how to use the various google search functions below....

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/images/searchbyimage.html 

 

(for the techies)

 

Another reverse image search tool: www.tineye.com/ 

 

This should do what you want for single images at least but for those of you wanting to search all your images you may need to pay for a utility which does a batch search.

 

Their are also specific reverse image search engines for sites like flickr and some others if you google but in theory google should pick them up anyway.

 

Their is another method which is by performing a Md5# search if you understand what this is....you first need the Md5# signature of your jpeg then you then use a Md5# search engine, you can google for one! :)

 

If you need assistance with removing images from the internet take a look at this site, very well priced charging per domain name instead of per file regardless of how many images/files might be on that site.

 

Good Luck... (i hope i get some luck with my alamy sales :wacko:  current sales = 0  i've not given up hope yet! i have just 98 images up and am not using photoshop or anything so thats maybe why but their are so many images on alamy i often wonder how will anyone find my image as they have millions? billons? just getting a single view to my image page will be like winning the lottery soon!! :P )

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's my workflow:

 

I keep a lightbox of all my zooms for a year and a lightbox for all my sales for a year.

From time to time I run this bookmarklet with those lightboxes: ?¿ src-img

 

If you're really quick, Google sometimes protests a bit.

 

wim

 

edit:

for the advanced, why not run it against Summary or Pseudonym Summary? Those thumbnails are too small to be recognizeed by the bookmarklet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Try a google search for .... "Your name Alamy" 

Sometimes that finds things.

On rare occasions this works for me. But I've been frustrated that my name or pseudonym is almost never credited when I sell through Alamy. And Alamy also sells through third parties. This makes figuring out if a use is legit or not very difficult. As an example I do use Google and Tineye to reverse search for images that have been zoomed and sold on Alamy. Recently I found a Czech news site using three of my images and the credit showed: "foto: Profimedia". At first I thought somebody had stolen my images- but after a while investigating it looks like Profimedia is actually a stock agency I can only assume is working with Alamy. But I'm guessing that the half hour I spent trying to figure out if there was an infringement isn't worth the $20 I'm going to make from this if it is a legit use. 

 

One suggestion I would put forth for when pseudonym or name searches do work is to set up a notification with Google search. I have a few setup that send me an email when a new result is found with either my name "Michael Halberstadt" and Alamy, or my pseudonyms "SiliconValleyStock" or "Urbantexture" and Alamy. On rare occasions I then get a heads up where an image is being used.

 

I do really wish either Alamy would be more aggressive finding infringements or give us the tools to more easily enforce our copyright. Though I'm not sure how they would best do so since they aren't exclusively selling our images.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I presume your talking about Google Alerts, not sure if that is the same as google notifications?

 

google search alerts is where you get alerted to new search content appearing on google but i highly reccomend doing a search first and then seeing what non-relevent content appears along with your search and then adding a minus sign next to all the names which are non relevant to your search which will filter than all out if this makes sense otherwise you'll end up getting emailed each day with an alert, so your best creating the alert using inverted commers so search term would be for example:

 

"my alamy username" -anyrubbish -morerubbishresults  -nonrelevant content  

 

-  -   -etc etc.. if this makes sense,

 

you need to complete the search first on your username surrounded by those " " to see what non-relevant (or legitimate) results may show up when you do a search then take the titles from those reults and stick a - before them. This should get your notifications/alerts working perfectly.

Out of interest does anyone here opt out of the 3rd party distribution thing? i'm just wondering how if they notice their sales differ much after opting out? (also intersted to know what % divide do alamy work on with their partner distributors, do we get just 25% if sold via a partner? (eg. alamy sales to them as 50/50, 3rd party sells at 50/50 split, this is how many film distributors work it, curious if alamy do the same?)

 

It would be nice if alamy could actively work like ASCAP and collect on any images that are being used unlawfully or remove but in reality this would be difficult unless the image has been sold exclusively in which case i'd like to see them do this but as far as non-exclusive royalty free images go i think it's down to the image owner to police the internet for the pirates as sad as this is as Alamy does not know who else you may have sold the image to or where you may have uploaded it to legally so their job would be too difficult and after all they are only a sales agent. Once your image is online(like everything online!) it's their to stay... unless you can pounce on it as soon as it's copied and get it removed. Luckily their are some wewll priced removal services (one i linked to in a previous reply).

 

Technology is improving and the job of finding your images online is getting easier with new methods of image security tagging and digital watermarking being worked on and explored, i think things will become easier when the tech becomes more widely available.

 

I would be very interested to hear if anyone has successfully won a court case against someone misusing one of their images and actually got paid out after being awarded costs/damages...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.