"THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR USING OUR PICTURES"

In the photo consumer sector Diddly.com is using the Google Advanced Image Search Technology and announced a new service called the "Random Personal Picture Finder": "All this thing does is create a random number and slap it into a filename that has the structure used by default in a few different digital cameras."

"Show me some pictures" doesn´t sound like a red-carpet treatment for the user but is soon becoming very exciting after some queries. Especially when you´re entering - within your query results- the pro area discovering some images for which their producers want to see money if used in any way. Instead: no advice, no suggestion... like another competitor, ditto.com, meanwhile does: "Should you wish to use any picture, photo or artwork you see during the search process, you must obtain the appropriate permission from the owner of the material."

Do you remember the old times? 1999? A company named Ditto.com was crawling the internet, showing the query results to every user, even the pictures of pros. Without paying them. This led to a somehow unfriendly discussion at Editorialphoto and at that time to a message in the EP-emailgroup which I consider to be a modern classic. I quote:

"For those who still have doubts that the Internet market is taking over the
print media in terms of volume for the usage of images, other people think
differently and are already making money, a lot of money. Last night, I was
at a reception in the Silicon Valley and I met a man who presented himself
as the CEO of ditto.com. He explained his business to me very briefly: it is
about crawling the Internet to look for pictures and indexing them as
thumbnails on his web site. I told him that someone else was doing it and it
was the famous Arribavista.com. Big smile. He is Arribavista.com, renamed
Ditto.com. I tell him that their method is not legal because they are using
photographers' work without their permission. Even if they were not selling
the images but just indexing them, they should request permission first
since they are stored on their server. He tried to convince me of the
opposite, how good it was for me to have my pictures on his web site, etc,
etc... Maybe I replied, but still, if you make money, I want my share. Then
I asked him why he does not do the same with music. What about having 15
seconds of Madona's latest song or Rick Martin, Impossible he said, they are
copyri...then he shut up. He realized what he was going to say. When I told
him that I was part of the lists on the internet where his case and the law
suits were discussed, he started getting a bit nervous then he said how
nice it was to meet me, blah, blah...and left. Later that evening, someone
told me that venture capitalists have raised 15 millions dollars on
Ditto.com. No wonder why the guy looked so happy. Fifteen million dollars!!!
And we are here discussing about "to markup or not to markup" while smarter
people are getting rich by displaying our work. It is going to be worse and
worse if we don't wake up. You know how I see ourselves right now??! . Like
a bunch of smiling nerds, their nikons around the neck, their pants down,
waving and smiling to the convoy of Rolls Royce cars passing in front of us.
We have a big banner above our heads that says: "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR
USING OUR PICTURES"
I have been trying to get myself ready for the Internet market but it is
going faster and faster. I have been looking for a way to control the usage
of our images over the Internet. It is very simple: if we cannot control it,
we will just loose. We already have a problem to control the print usage so
imagine the digital media. I have approached a lot of people regarding this
matter and there might be a way. People capable of creating the technology
to really control digital usage (Forget about digimarc, etc..) exist. They
are alive and live next door. If they have not done it yet, it is just
because no one has approched them with a business plan that shows that money
, a lot of money can be made. They are busy with other big money making
projects. They don't give a damm about our nice pictures, our vison, our
semi/half/full/outfocus/tilted/cross-processed pictures. They just want to
make millions like everybody else in the Silicon Valley."

[Written by Frederic Neema, Wed Aug 4, 1999 in message # 2631 with the subject "Internet market"]. I still keep this message. Editorialphoto finally went to law: "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR USING OUR PICTURES."

And today? The german website Onlinejournalismus.de claims to escort the development of journalism in the internet since the year 2000. In the forum "image usage rights" we have a posting of a guy named "netmeister". Obviously he is a long-term user and poster @Onlinejournalismus.de with a truely professional background as a picture buyer/editor and a keen insight: "I have to deal a lot with underpayed professional photographers finding one of their images via Google and coming up to us with a huge bill to pay...mostly we remain calm without paying...if they start to become a pain in the ass, then we´re paying...meanwhile we have an accrual for these cases...my advice: just rename the image files, then even Google won´t find them... ." Written March 17, 2004. "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR USING OUR PICTURES."

I cross-posted this with the link to Onlinejournalismus.de in the forum of Freelens, the german sister of ASMP and NNPA. Weeks later a forum-moderator of Onlinejournalismus.de wrote an addendum: the behaviour described by netmeister is illegal, against the law etc.

The answer of netmeister: "I just described our daily work...a copyright-law just for keeping jealous artist associations alive is bullshit...remember what is happenig in the music and film industry...the internet is about losing old-fashioned proprietary rights...if you don´t want your images to be seen on the internet, nail´em to the wall at your home". Written March 22, 2004. "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR USING OUR PICTURES."

I just learned that a new company called PicScout came up with an image monitoring technology for Stock Photos Agencies/Photographers to ensure copyright enforcements. More on this topic in the next days.

Comments

[mprints]

Very interesting post. I recall a recent U.S. Court decision where it was adjudicated that use of thumbnails is not actionable copyright infringement. I can't readily locate it, but it appears since 1999/2000 the law seems to be developing. In an interested related point, the Federal Court of Canada recently decided that simply placing music files in your folder, which can be accessed by others using Kazaa etc. is not copyright infringment (see http://www.cippic.ca). (described as 'shocking' by some). I believe this is relevant when it comes to digial images, as it represents the Court's recognition that there needs to be a balance of public and private interests in this Internet age. Using technology to enforce rights, like PicScout - is one valid solution. This is a very interesting topic. (Even though I thought Corbis and Getty Images owned every image in the world). I look forward to reading more.

[razzi]

I once did a short check on google using the search term 'razziphoto' and I already found an internet-magazine using one of my pictures (although they quoted me as a source; they've never asked for permission).
But agreed - there is no way one can determine the use of images and that's sometimes sad.

[Phototalk]

@mprints:
The night after mentioning Picscout here (I met them at a fair) I received the last Selling Stock Newsletter from Jim Pickerell. In his story "Story 630 - PICSCOUT IMAGE RECOGNITION" (http://www.pickphoto.com/sso/stories/st630.htm) he examines the PicScout image recognition software.
Since I didn´t had the time to read his story, I have no clue if it´s again a reprint of yet another press release, but for the moment I´d suggest to read his story.

[Herb Hover]

Can this be true???

[jhon]

I met PICSCOUT representative in a fair and saw the result in my own eyes. It is simply amazing!
We saw a cropped and colorized images being matched to the original images in les then sec. I am very glad some of the larger agencies start using this amazing technology. Unlike the music industry – we now have tools for the big copyright fight!

[Pretty f* great! The author of this comment also wrote a comment to another message ("Addendum to last posting (Gates/Corbis)", see the URL http://talks.blogs.com/phototalk/2004/04/addendum_to_las.html). However, he has two different names and emailaddresses, but always the same IP number... . Seems to be a clear case of self-advertisement (figure out yourself what the name of the company might be)]