IS SOMEONE STEALING YOUR IMAGES ONLINE?

[Greg Heath]

Hello APUG community I wanted to tell you about a cool website I found today.


It is a Free Reverse look-up Engine for images ...to see who is stealing your images from your online websites. It's free. I just helped my Cousin purchase a print of two cats from the original Photographer

http://www.tineye.com/

That photographer on Flickr is "AmesMonkey"....the photo is of two cats in an embrace, which is in a set called "forsale" apparently there are 55 copies floating around the internet.

Enjoy.... No this is not Spam.. Just check it out...
It will let you see IF your images are being stolen and used without your permission. I do recall Photoshop has something like this that is a paid plug-in, but this is a free service.

Enjoy...

Sincerely,

Greg Heath

[zsas]

Use them a lot, great site, always surprised me that the big G hasn't bought them out...

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I don't have a problem with simple folk using my pics for fun. But I do have a problem of big corporations with deep pockets using my images without paying. It they do that, they're depriving pro photographers a job. I have a problem with that. But this tool is a great equalizer.

[Poisson Du Jour]

Easily circumvented by jailbreaking image meta info, which is what so many do to get away with piracy/online theft.
Several cunning tricks can be employed too to further thwart pirates, but the safest way to go is not to post any images online. Pretty darned tight spot to be in when the internet plays such a big role now in getting artists' message across.

[Greg Heath]

didn't know people can jailbreak that info.. That stinks...

Greg

[Poisson Du Jour]

^ Images are traced by meta info embedded in the image — no secret there. Police and law enforcement always scrutinise meta data, especially if such images are being presented as evidence in court.
Once that meta info has been hijacked and replaced by something random, the image will not be located as rightfully yours. It makes me sick too, which is why I don't have a webpage. I've experienced image theft before (1999-2001 I think).

More reliable means of image protection are transparent gif overlays, black boxes... . Pointless tricks like right-click disable or Null-Save/Save to are also useless.
And the worst thing of all? It's that key on the top row of the keyboard that circumvents all anti-piracy tools. Can you guess what it is? We lose.

[John Austin]

QUESTION, not really a digression

I load my images as very low res' jpgs, can a digital thaumaturge download these and "replace" the lost information to make a sharp big file of them?

I are digitally disliterate, so wants some knowing

[Greg Heath]

The neat thing about this site was that IT does not LOOK at the meta data....it supposedly looks at the thumbprint of the image only....

So even if the Meta Data is changed the image should still be found... The video on the "about page" summed it up.

I guess it's pretty new as it's still in the beta stage. Not sure how you might prove your image was stolen not based on the Metadata though..

Greg

[brucemuir]

QUESTION, not really a digression

I load my images as very low res' jpgs, can a digital thaumaturge download these and "replace" the lost information to make a sharp big file of them?

I are digitally disliterate, so wants some knowing

No.

[Poisson Du Jour]

^ Last line is a very good point.
I am not at all convinced by the video. I learned the tricks in computer arts training school 20 years ago. That's a long time in technology, and old tricks are still in use.
A screen capture has no metadata at all. It is the definitive coup d'état.