How do you identify copyrighted images on the net?

Answer 1

Whilst copyright laws and conventions apply to the internet just as everywhere else, the internet has an edge of the "wild west" to it when it comes to copyright.

If you are wanting to re-use images belonging to others that you have found on the internet, the simplest method is simply to ask. Find an email address on the page, contact the author and ask permission.

Also, look out for images marked as being licenced under Creative Commons (CC) or GNU (GPL) - these allow re-use for free, but there are conditions attached that you must stick to.

You can use small thumbnail images under "fair use" (US) and "fair dealing" (UK), but only for specific reasons - just "because it looks nice" or "to illustrate a subject" won't do. You have to have a bona fide reason why nothing else will do.

If you're looking for your own images that you think might have been stolen, you have some hard work to do.

First is to try a "What links here?" type of search (in the advanced search options on Google, for instance) for the URL of the image.

Your hosting company may provide "stats" of where visits are coming from on your pages or images - follow them to see why you're getting hits on images directly.

Search in your favourite full-service search engine for the filename of the image - most people reusing images without permission are ignorant rather than malicious - that's a "wild west" bit. They will often keep the same filename when using the image.

Finally, do an image search (Google, Yahoo and others have this function) for keywords that relate to your image. So for a photo of Charlie the parrot, search for "charlie parrot" "green bird" "green parrot" "pet parrot" and so forth, one at a time, and plow through the results until you find a copy or reach the end of the search.