[Lightstalkers] TinEye & finding image theft

TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:47:54 +0000

It's a crap morning here in Durban, so I thought I'd give the TinEye technology a quick test to see how it has evolved, and it turned up an amazing piece of blatant image theft, from the most unlikely source http://stateoftheart.popphoto.com/blog/2007/10/james-nachtweys.html Turns out that Jay Defoore loved my Nachtwey image so much, it was happily used without any reference to who the owner/copyright was. All this from a well-respected magazine. Charming...

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:20:25 +0000

Send the buggers an invoice! http://www.fota.mota.ru/albums/a0547c600e8c91c18042de23e65cb97c/image/9.html hows this for blatant theft-they even included my copyright notice!!

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:02:29 +0000

The TinEye plugin for Firefox is actually pretty damn impressive. I know a few years ago I looked at using Steganography to embed copyright into your image, which then makes it easier for the owner to work out if it has been used elsewhere. It seems that TinEye have taken a similar approach, which allows for us to find the sods who think it's ok to use our toys without paying. Give it a whirl, you might be surprised* *not being paid by them Turns out even more sods have approached the five-finger method. http://text.hmmm.co.za/2008/11/image-theft.html

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:09:43 +0000

Thanks for posting this. Within a couple minutes I found a travel company that lifted at least 4 photos of mine. I love these guys, statutory damages brings in much more $$ than if they had bought a license...

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:31:08 +0000

Heres another..... http://www.ingatlanmagazin.com/read/1447 (poker player) Again lifted complete with my copyright logo...... ingatlan magazine-anyone heard of them?

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:40:17 +0000

thanks d j.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:15:46 +0000

You have to laugh at some of the responses I am getting "we have using that picture for promoting 'War Photographer' movie , this is "fair use" for the spanish law." So using, modifying and promoting someone other work with my image is all "fair use" under Spanish law.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:36:13 +0000

I know, I know-it's cobblers isn't it. Unfortunately the bastards realise that the time, effort and money to prosecute them under INTERNATIONAL copyright law means it's unlikely that an individual photographer will bother to go down that road. Some bugger has even stolen one of my photos then put their own script across it. The chances of winning any copyright theft case where the perpetrator is in Russia and I'm in the UK are pretty much zero though :-(

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:43:20 +0000

Sorry to bump the post, but does anyone know any real person at PopPhoto? Seems all e-mail to editor@popphoto.com is ignored.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:31:43 +0000

Tinyeye is great, I hope they can grow into a full business - I'd pay for that service.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:04:39 +0000

Yes I agree I was already asking my self a few years ago why a program like that wasn't just included in google. Now it is tineye...perfect! But they are not reading meta data...I was kind of interested in that too.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:20:45 +0000

Here's one of mine from China.... http://www.shxb.net/html/20070810/20070810_63691.shtml How do I go about it???

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:05:11 +0000

Hi Alex, Dunno about extracting the cash, but here is what I did about just one of mine.... http://www.jr-photos.com/blog/2008/11/tin-eye.asp

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:19:34 +0000

using macbook pro & firefox. when i try to get the tineye plug-in, it downloads "tineye_image_search-0.4.xpi" to the desktop but nothing appears to be installedand it doesn't open with any applications i have. any idea what i'm doing wrong?

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:51:18 +0000

same here, on my former computer i did not have this problem, i guess we are not doing anything wrong, but something is missing in the computer to make this run properly. actually when downloaded, a window opens and ask with what application i want to open it. this means my computer need 'something' to open it.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:59:20 +0000

go to file, open file and select where you downloaded it and then it should kick in the import process.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:11:16 +0000

If you drag & drop the .xpi file on to the open firefox window then it should open the file.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:07:22 +0000

gracias, yolanda- that did it!

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:07:06 +0000

or you can use the Bookmarklet version. I'm using it on a PB G4 OSX and Flock. http://tineye.com/bookmarklet

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:26:04 +0000

thanks, now it's ok!

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:54:08 +0000

John Watts-Robertson:Heres another….. http://www.ingatlanmagazin.com/read/1447 (poker player) Again lifted complete with my copyright logo…… ingatlan magazine-anyone heard of them? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hi John, This Hungarian website is engage with immovable estate. As I see. The publisher: Arkon Zrt Address: 1135 Hungary, Budapest, Csata street. 8. Phone: +36 1 237-2060 Fax: +36 1 237-2069 Editor in Chief: Jamrik Levente email: jamrik.levente@ingatlan.com If you need any help I try to help you. Cheers Gyula

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:35:06 +0000

Many thanks Gyula-I'm off out now but will PM you on my return-and obviously keep other LS'er's informed as to the outcome! Do other photogs send an invoice for unauthorised useage or just ask for removal of the stolen image? Best wishes, JR.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:52:04 +0000

John, I wish I could even get some of them to respond, it seems the bigger the site, the more you have to struggle to get contact. I have yet to hear from PopPhoto's editors, and i've sent e-mails and phone calls. The next step is to get a DMCA against them, as they don't seem to respond well. Honestly makes you wonder if there is any point in trying.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:07:33 +0000

I've now issued a DMCA against PopPhoto.com, not sure how their domain admit will act, but all attempts at contacting the editor have been met with total silence from PopPhoto and the image is still there. four letter words can be used to describe them at this point

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:19:49 +0000

This is an amazing tool! although it's not working very well fr me, i tested it against a couple of pictures i know for a fact were stolen by some website and it found 0 results.
But i almost wish i didn't know who else steals my photos...
Thanks for the link Daniel.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:15:18 +0000

Daniel, don't suppose you registered the photo with the copyright office? If so, it shouldn't be too hard to get a copyright lawyer to work on a contingency basis, esp against an American company with decent pockets.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:20:31 +0000

The thieves need to be shocked in order to extract money from them. We need to send a copy of the image stolen on the website side by side with the one you have to demonstrate the theft. I sent my invoice to three persons related by slow mail earlier this year to an Austrian church organization involved with this theft. Two replied me by e-mail. One of them was a webmaster for the church, and he eventually paid my PayPal invoice probably from his own fund as it was only 60 Euros. I have not tried TinEye yet.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:56:46 +0000

Tommy, afraid not, i guess this could be my downfall. Out of interest, does everyone do this with every image they place online?

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:09:29 +0000

If your stolen image has/had a your watermark on when stolen (quite often they would remove it to put it on the Web), at least you have a point without the registration. It is possible to send a printed composite image of two images, one used by a thief and one on your site by slow mail. (it is better be a slow mail rather than e-mail which can get trashed, but they are more likely to respond by e-mail). Daniel, don`t give up just because you have not registered your image with the US Copyright Office. I have gotten money from an American campany who used my watermarked image for a commercial purpose. Now the stolen image has been registered with the US Copyright Office, but I did not realize that I have a case without the registration owing to my Japanese citizenship. There is an international treaty, but each country has its own copyright law. In the US, you get less of protection unless you register your image. In Japan the copyright of a photograph or other intellectual property is created the minute it is finished and they do not require registration.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:06:27 +0000

Yes, this is a fantastic tool but as others have noted it is not at 100% yet. I searched several photos of mine that are legally posted on websites and it did not find any of them. They claim themselves that they are not up to speed yet as their program has a lot more web crawling to do. Eventually this will be a great resource.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:51:44 +0000

Alex, There is domain name info at whois.domaintools.com. There is info on the Chinese domain site where your photo(s) are being used. http://whois.domaintools.com/shxb.net Make a copy of the images along side by side with your own image and send that along with your invoice to the administrator of the domain by snail mail.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:37:53 +0000

Thank you Tomoko, you are super :) !! Hope all is well.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:26:20 +0000

Hi Alex, you are welcome. While I was grounded on Monday, I am well enough and hope to be really heading to Tokyo on Sunday.

Re: TinEye & finding image theft

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:47:54 +0000

Oh man! Sorry to hear of this... but thanks for reference to TinEye. Going to try it out... though, I'm not sure I want to know. ;-)