Visual Search Engine Tracks Stolen Images

Barence writes "A new visual search engine could help photographers keep track of their photographs whenever, and wherever, they appear on the internet. The TinEye search engine allows users to search by uploading a picture rather than typing in a keyword. It then conducts a pixel-by-pixel search across the internet, flagging all instances of that image even if it's been cropped, merged or digitally altered in some way. It's not just for copyright enforcement though; 'it's being used by researchers who need to find where an image came from to provide attribution, even people who are trying to find out who people are in old photos.' It's currently in beta, but you can try it out."

Comments

Funny thing, but I just shifted a bit a pixel.

[apathy maybe]

The least significant bit of each pixel. Oh, and now it appears that this tool doesn't work. (At least, I would suggest it isn't that good, I could be wrong. The article appears to suggest that it is that good, if you can take a photo on your phone of a painting, and then find an article on that painting...)

Oh well, I guess people still haven't learnt that the old ways of copyright are only hanging on through inertia.

Oh, and queue the predictable (and correct) responses about how you can't "steal" digital images. To steal a photo or a picture, you would have to take a physical copy belonging to someone, and deprive someone else of that physical copy, without their permission. (And the word "steal" doesn't appear to appear in the article, added to provoke page views I guess.)

Re:Funny thing, but I just shifted a bit a pixel.

[4D6963]

The least significant bit of each pixel. Oh, and now it appears that this tool doesn't work.

Yeah, how about you just watch the video on their website before suggesting that what they do would be as retarded as comparing the values of each pixel. It's surely closer to cross correlation, meaning it's nothing like comparing pixel values but more like correlating the image's space-frequency components.

By the way, does anyone have any clue what information they store and compare? They obviously don't cross correlate your search image with every image in their index every time you search, so what could they possibly store that would allow them to correlate images?

Re:Funny thing, but I just shifted a bit a pixel.

[Anonymous Coward]

An author is a designer, not a builder.

If you design a chair, you get a cut from every copy of that chair that is sold. Someone who buys the chair pays for design, material, and labor. Someone who steals a chair pays for none of that.

If you "design" (i.e. write) a novel, you get a cut of every copy of that novel that is sold. Someone who buys the novel pays for design (writing), material, and labor. Someone who steals a copy pays for none of that.

Re:Funny thing, but I just shifted a bit a pixel.

[Endo13]

Yes, there is a difference, but it's a moot point - both works required your time and labor to create, the book obviously takes a LOT longer to create, yet a book, a paperback, sells for a tiny fraction of the cost of a well crafted, hand-made chair.

You focus on the one completely irrelevant part of the discussion: the time spent creating the book vs. the chair. It's completely irrelevant because "book" is not essential to this discussion. You can replace "book" with any other copyrighted creation, including one that took about 1 minute to "create".

Copyright only makes fabulously wealthy (by and large) those artists who have created compelling material... enough so that many people are willing to purchase, at a fraction of the cost it took to make the original product, the work of the artist. They're buying labor and talent and skill, which is the same thing you're buying when you buy a hand-made chair (I'd hope, anyway, as hand-made furniture tends to be quite expensive).

Not really, not any more. These days advertising and exposure has a lot more to do with it than how "compelling" the material is.

No, you're paying for the labor, skill, and talent... and people who put more effort, skill, and talent into their creations are rightfully awarded with more than those who put little effort into their work.

No, you're paying for the advertising. For an example, there's lots of bands out there who are better than the majority of "popular" bands and have put in a lot more time and effort - they simply haven't been able to get the right exposure.

I'm not arguing the system is great... publishers keep the lion's share of profits, which is wrong. Copyrights simply last too long, which is wrong. But the fundamental idea of copyright is well founded and well thought out.

Something I think every sane, rational individual would agree with.

Re:Kind of Misleading on the Old Photo Identificat

[Speare]

"it's being used by researchers who need to find where an image came from to provide attribution, even people who are trying to find out who people are in old photos."

I think in this context, it's pretty obvious that the software's not trying to discover who people are, or who shot the photograph. It's the researchers who use this tool. If you have one website without attribution or other names, and you search for other pages, you might find a different page that has the same image along with more information.

Re:Terms of Service:

[Anonymous Coward]

say that you have this one picture you enjoy but you don't know the name of the person(s) in the picture. You could pornoogle it and find more information or more pictures from those person(s).

Re:Interesting for the big boys...

[Jozef Nagy]

Interesting for the big boys, but not so much for the amateur or even professional freelance photographer.

How does this NOT help the small photographers? It's exactly those guys who don't have the resources to find people using their content.

What are you going to do if someone ripped your pics from Flickr and claims them? Exactly -- not much.

Are you saying then when someone steals your image you have no recourse available? With this site you can find who's using it. What you do about it is up to you. And content owners do have recourse. They can contact whoever's using their content and let them know they're in trouble, then offer to work out a solution.

For example, a small food service business asks a printing company to make them a menu. The printing company steals images and uses them. The business owner doesn't know anything about this. Now, if the content owner finds out he can contact the printing company and demand either back payment or that they cease using the image. As a copyright owner the photographer can also send legal threats. Most of these are clear cut cases. And if the only place your images are online are on your portfolio sites, then thieves have no excuse by saying "Well, we tried to identify the owner, but couldn't".