Serban Enache, CEO of Dreamstime has explained in a
blog post how Google’s new image search techniques make it more likely that unauthorized use of your images will increase. Every image producer should read this story.
Go to
http://images.google.com, search for images on any subject and check out how the new system works.
When Google posted information about this change on their blog they titled it “
A faster image search” and said, “Based on feedback from both users and webmasters, we redesigned Google Images to provide a better search experience.” Of course, what the majority of users and webmasters want is a faster way to find images they can use for free. There is no indication that Google solicited any input from image creators or distributors.
In an answer to a question in a recent
Wired Magazine interview Google CEO Larry Page said, “Our philosophy has always been to get our products out to as many people as possible. Unfortunately that’s not always ease in this day and age. The web has been great; we were able to get products out to everyone quickly and with high quality. Now we’re going backward with a lot of the platforms that are out there.
Companies are trying to wall everything off, and I think that impedes the rate of innovation.” (italics mine)
Page seems to think that if a product can be delivered on the Internet then it should be FREE to everyone.
Freely available information is fine for most businesses because they want more people to know about their products and services. Advertisers want to place their ads alongside information about their products and services. But there are some businesses - like ours - where the only way to make people aware that the product exists is to show the whole image on the Internet before anyone has paid a dime to cover the cost of creating, or using it. Images are not a product that has to be delivered by truck or post. They are not a service that someone must be contracted to actively perform. If what we produce can be used without any compensation then there is no incentive to produce.
The same is true to a certain extent of newspapers, magazines and books. However, in these cases it may be possible to provide a teaser for readers that gives them some sense of the whole story which they must then pay, in some way, to read. With images you either show the whole image or you show nothing.
Page seems to think the idea of “walling off” any information is, if not evil, at least anti-American, anti-world, anti-Internet and is unwilling to acknowledge that in certain cases a little judicial “walling” might actually promote creativity and innovation.
With the company’s resources Google could:
1 - Stop stripping file info data from images and encourage creators to place info in their image files.
2 – Encourage equipment manufacturers (camera and phone) to build in systems that automatically embed creator information in each file at the moment of creation and make that information at least as difficult to strip out as removing a tree from a landscape image.
3 – Search the IPTC header for “Creator” when someone clicks “view original image” and place the creator’s name under the image.
4 – Provide a link to the creator’s website (which they would also get from the IPTC header) so someone interested in licensing the image could easily learn where to go to get a license.
5 – Stop hiding behind the “Image may be subject to copyright” statement without providing the viewer any practical way to determine how to properly license use of the image.
But it seems unlikely that Google won’t do any of these things. Instead the company with the motto “Don’t Be Evil” prefers to encourage – maybe facilitate is a better word – stealing.
Google has even made it more difficult for people to find the web site that originally used the image (which, of course, may have nothing to do with who created the image). Previously, a view of the web site where the image appeared was behind the image. Now the viewer must click on “View page” to get that information.
Serban points out that, “Google’s phrase ‘Google Images lets you find images posted on the Internet’ doesn’t tell the whole story. Before Google’s recent change, Google’s phrase could have more accurately been described as: ‘Google’s Images lets you find images posted on the Internet so that you can visit the website hosting such images.’ After the latest Google change, the phrase could more accurately read: ‘Google’s Images lets you find images posted on the Internet and to download such images without ever going to the website that offered the image to the Internet community.’ Even prior to this latest change in Google’s search results, the download rate directly from Google image search results was mind blowing.”
It is worth letting Google know your feelings on this subject. Go to their
blog post about the roll out and post a comment. Interestingly, not all the 179 comment so far are supportive of Google. A number of them focus on the copyright issues. It wouldn’t hurt to have more.