Photographers with a limited number of images that they market directly from a single online site may want to check out the Australian company
Searchmyimages.com. For a reasonable monthly fee photographers can upload their images to this site. Searchmyimages will then constantly search the web for these images and informs the photographer when and where uses are found.
This service can be a real time saver compared to using
www.tineye.com or
https://images.google.com/ to search for images one at a time. Todd Klassy whose images are mostly available on Flickr says that thanks to Searchmyimages he has generated “WAY more money” recovering payments for unauthorized use than he would have made preparing his images for licensing through a stock photography website.
Interested photographers can upload up to 50 images for free; 50 to 1000 for $10 per month and 1000 to 3000 for $20 per month. For larger numbers check with
fnz@frnepuzlvzntrf.pbz.nh.
This tool can be very useful for photographers who handle all the licensing of their work themselves, and always deal directly with end users. It tends to break down when the images are also available for licensing through one or more stock distributors. In most cases distributors supply very little detail about who has used an image and the rights granted. Also, with most traditional distributors there tends to be a huge lag time between the time the images was actually used and when the use is reported to the photographer.
Thus, while Searchmyimages may be able to supply the photographer with details about when and where an images was actually used if often becomes impossible to determine if the image was properly licensed, or not.