photo agencies scour the web for copyright violations

[muchlove]

By VAUHINI VARA
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
October 14, 2005

Bloggers, beware: That photo of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes on your Web site could be fodder for a lawsuit. Stock photography companies like Getty Images Inc. and Corbis Corp. are using high-tech tools to crack down on Web site owners who try to use their photographs without paying for them.
While music and movie studios remain suspicious of the Internet, many stock photography companies have digitized their collections so that customers can easily access them online. At sites like GettyImages.com and Corbis.com, advertisers, publishers and others looking to license professional photographs can browse and purchase millions of high-quality images. In making it easy for customers to find pictures, though, the sites have also made it easier to swipe a copy of an image and post it on the Web.
"On our Web site, we try to post high-quality examples of the imagery you can license," said John Lapham, the vice president who runs Getty's legal team. "Because of that, the resolution of the photos is good enough that if you'd like to cut and paste that photo for your 'We Love Christina Aguilera' Web site, you can."
Image-search tools from the likes of Google Inc., along with cheap or free editing and blogging software, are sending those images bouncing all over the Internet, making it difficult for their owners to track them. It's not just bloggers who are stealing snapshots; Getty says its images have been used without permission on the Web sites of a regional utility company, an auto dealership and a gym.
Scanning the Web
Some stock photography companies are trying to combat copyright infringement by using a high-tech approach to tracing their images through the Web. This year, Getty beefed up its in-house technology to determine whether a photo is being used without permission and signed up for a service from an Israeli company called PicScout Inc. PicScout creates digital "fingerprints" for images, allowing it to locate pictures even if a stealthy thief changes a photo by cropping it, resizing it, altering its color or changing its filename. It then sends Web crawlers scurrying through the Internet looking for images, trying to match them to the more than four million copyrighted photos in its database.
PicScout said it charges corporate clients like

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[SVZ]

hmmm it looks likes we're OK for one we comment on the photos, we don't use the images for profit, and we don't host them (image shack does and we hot link )

[SammysMom]

Holy McMoly !!!

[Tiara]

Yes but when we paste pictures from Getty they have a copyright logo over the top, so when you think about it, we're advertising for them so... they should be paying us!!! :p

Plus, I would never have know about Getty Images if it wasn't for this site

[muchlove]

I'm thinking we're ok, too... we aren't using the pics for profit or anything, and we tend to link or source them... but it's still the slightest bit worrisome if they decide to get gung-ho about it.

[SVZ]

yeah..

Corbis's licensing fees vary from $49 to more than $50,000, though Mr. Weiskopf said most of the images the company discovers being used illegally online would cost between $700 and $2,000 each to license for the WebCorbis's licensing fees vary from $49 to more than $50,000, though Mr. Weiskopf said most of the images the company discovers being used illegally online would cost between $700 and $2,000 each to license for the Web

49 dollars and up a photo?????? see if it were a subscription service i may be inclined to pay for it...we could put a gossip rocks tag on it and get some self advertising that way.

[AliceInWonderland]

^ your so smart SVZ