Google Redesigns Image Search, Raises Copyright and Hosting Concerns

An anonymous reader writes "Google has recently announced changes to its image search. The search provides larger views of the images with direct links to the full-sized source image. Although this new layout is being praised by users for its intuitiveness, it has raised concerns amongst image copyright holders and webmasters. Large images can now easily be seen and downloaded directly from the Google image search results without sending visitors to the hosting website. Webmasters have expressed concerns about a decrease in traffic and an increase in bandwidth usage since this change was rolled out. Some have set up a petition requesting Google remove the direct links to the images."

Comments

Re:does not compute

[rudy_wayne]

If you even read the summary, let alone TFA you'll see:

"The search provides larger views of the images with direct links to the full-sized source image."

Yes, I did read TFA. And nowhere does it explain how you can have decreased traffic but increased bandwidth usage. Because it's not possible. Decreased traffic = decreased bandwidth usage.

Here's the real problem (quote from TFA):

When people get the full resolution image, they have no reason to click to go to the URL.

Dear "Webmaster", nobody cares about your shitty website packed full of annoying ads. Get over it already.

Referer Header!

[TheNinjaroach]

If webmasters don't want people "stealing" photos without viewing directly on their website, they are more than welcome to instruct their web servers to not display images to freeloaders. Look at the referer header, if the request didn't originate from your site, then don't serve it.

Re:does not compute

[Dancindan84]

You used to get traffic actually visiting your site. That meant full page loads, but a lot of that is text which is low bandwidth. You now have less traffic (unique IPs hitting your site), but they're JUST downloading hi-res images which leads to a net increase in bandwidth.

Also, ads don't have to be shitty and annoying. Slashdot uses ads, and even though I can I don't turn them off because they're relatively passive. Hosting and bandwidth cost money, and a lot of sites rely on small ad revenue to help offset those costs.