Free Service to Help Professional Photographers Identify Digital Image Theft
Powerful visual search technology detects photo copyright violations, stock photo piracy
Cambridge, Mass., June 29, 2010 /PN/ ImageRights International, Inc., a company that helps professional photographers and illustrators discover the illegal use of their intellectual property on the Web, is offering a free version of its online image recognition and recovery service to further expand efforts against image piracy.
With this new offering, the company’s advanced visual search and crawler technology will continuously scan websites and blogs to protect up to 10,000 images for professional photographers and illustrators. The crawler indexes millions of new images every month and uses powerful image recognition technology to compare customers’ photos and illustrations against images found on the Web. It then detects where the customers’ images have been used, even if the stolen photos have been altered, cropped, rotated or color adjusted. The customer receives a full report, including a picture of the original image, its use online, and the URL and ownership information for the website where it was found.
“As an advocate for photographers and illustrators, our goal is to help artistic professionals monitor how their work is being used on the Internet, and to partner with them to recoup lost profits when it’s being used illegally,” said Maria Kessler, senior vice president of business development at ImageRights and former president of the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA). “Image piracy is rampant online and by making these services more accessible, we’re enabling creatives to have more control over how their images are used, while sending a clear message that we are patrolling for unauthorized uses.”
Customers who take advantage of ImageRights’ free service may also participate in the company’s new, optional Recovery Program, which will launch next month to help photographers and illustrators obtain compensation for the unauthorized use of their images.
For information about ImageRights or to create your free account and start uploading your images now, go to www.imagerights.com
About ImageRights International
ImageRights International protects professional photographers and illustrators’ intellectual property online by identifying illegal use of images and providing a support system to receive proper compensation. With its industrial strength crawler technology continuously scanning business sites, blogs, news/media sites and more, ImageRights works as an agent to support proper compensation for image use. Founded in 2008, ImageRights International is a global company headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. It is a proud member of the APA (www.apanational.com), CEPIC (www.cepic.org), and PACA (www.paca.org).
A BIG THANK YOU FOR THIS!
Myriam says
I've been looking for something like this for a long, long time. Thank you!
Anonymous says
awesome!
Rahman says
The world wide web is overwhelmingly huge and I always wondered how your images can be really protected once you send them out there, even if on your own website or blog where you think they might be safe. This seems to be the solution for all photographers' worries. I will try this. Hope it really works.
Professional Photographer says
I just caught wind of this you published. Really it's a good stuff for those who are looking for Professional Photographer.I would like to tweet on it and keep my eye behind at every moment you blogging.
Gary W. Sherwin says
Don't get too excited! Be sure to read the
Terms of Service completely. You sign away lots
of financial rights, when you sign up for this
service. By my reading, the "Free" can become
Payment Required, without notice, while you have
agreed to pay any such assigned fees without dispute. Plus, it says that you must give them
bank account information. Why would they need
that if it is, "FREE".
YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING! No Thank You.
Charles Du3 says
Why all this panic, Garry? I've just checked their terms of service and the registration process and everything you say is distorted.
You say, for example: 'By my reading, the "Free" can become Payment Required, without notice, while you have agreed to pay any such assigned fees without dispute.', while they say 'you agree to pay all charges billed to you including applicable taxes, in accordance with ImageRights' billing plan' and 'We reserve the right to change the billing plan, policies and the subscription fees for the ImageRights Service at any time, upon prior notice to you.' This means that you pay for what you order. If you decide for a free account (which is a new service they offer) you don't need to pay anything, but they reserve the right to terminate the free service at any time and it's up to you if you upgrade to a paid service or give up their services.
Regarding the bank account information you say they require, I suppose you didn't notice on their front page two registration buttons: one for free sign up, and the other one for paid sign up. Now I guess you clicked on the paid one, so how else would you pay if they don't have your details. I just registered with the free account and they didn't ask for any such information.
Just check once again the terms if they worry you so much: https://www.imagerights.com/terms.php
I still need to check though how efficient their service is.