Slashdot Mirror
Google To Kill Off 'View Image' Button In Search
Google is removing the "view image" button that appeared when you clicked on a picture, which allowed you to open the image alone. The provision to remove the button is part of a deal Google has made with stock-photo agency Getty to end their legal battle. The Register reported last week that the two companies announced a partnership that "will allow Google to continue carrying Getty-owned photographs in its image and web search results." The Verge reports: The change is essentially meant to frustrate users. Google has long been under fire from photographers and publishers who felt that image search allowed people to steal their pictures, and the removal of the view image button is one of many changes being made in response. The intention seems to be either stopping people from taking an image altogether or driving them through to the website where the image is found, so that the website can serve ads and get revenue and so people are more likely to see any associated copyright information. That's great news for publishers, but it's an annoying additional step for someone trying to find a picture. Now you'll have to wait for a website to load and then scroll through it to find the image. Websites sometimes disable the ability to right click, too, which would make it even harder for someone to grab a photo they're looking for.
In addition to removing the "view image" button, Google has also removed the "search by image" button that appeared when you opened up a photo, too. This change isn't quite as big, however. You'll still be able to do a reverse image search by dragging the image to the search bar, and Google will still display related images when you click on a search result. The button may have been used by people to find un-watermarked versions of images they were interested in, which is likely part of why Google pulled it.
In addition to removing the "view image" button, Google has also removed the "search by image" button that appeared when you opened up a photo, too. This change isn't quite as big, however. You'll still be able to do a reverse image search by dragging the image to the search bar, and Google will still display related images when you click on a search result. The button may have been used by people to find un-watermarked versions of images they were interested in, which is likely part of why Google pulled it.
Don't display Getty media in your search results.
That'll learn 'em.
but then of course they'd cease to exist on the Internet. They want the best of both worlds, and thanks to our legal system's emphasis on property rights over fair use looks like they got it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
...24 hours before a plugin comes up to get the functionality back.
This is essentially what was discussed rather extensively for the earlier decades of the internet at large, before and at the early eras of the world wide web.
As commercial forces work their way in, they see less and less of the technical marvel that makes the whole thing work and excel and what it does, and desire it to exist purely as a funnel of whatever is important to them at the moment.
And thanks to the wonders of the legal system, they can force that interpretation on everyone else, no matter the cost and waste of the platform in general.
The images this company posts are just that, they're images on a server. The server, well, serves them up to anyone that can make a request. If they don't like that, then they SHOULD have to figure out a special different way of accessing that data, and convince people to be willing to use that different interface, then close off the general access... but nah, they can't be bothered to do that - better to demand everyone else change the way they access those servers to be less generic, and only just how they'd like.
I wish Google would just block Getty images.
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
The work-around is in the article:
Fortunately, there's still at least one way around it: if you right click, you can select "open image in new tab" or "view image" (or whatever your browser's equivalent option is), and you'll still open up the full-size picture. It's just a bit less likely that everyone will realize this is an option.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
A company like Getty is displaying usable images on the Internet and getting pissed off about copyright? How hard would it be for them to overlay a watermark that can't be easily 'shopped out? How many pixels are they displaying anyway? Anybody who's legit is going to want to scrub the watermark and resize the image without losing any more quality than necessary. They should be hiding high quality images behind a paid login if they care that much. Even Flickr can do that. Come on, Getty. Put on your big boy pants.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
So what? Regular users who use this function aren't after copyrighted images from Getty Images.
They're after the original versions of funny images without the watermarks automatically added by the dozens of websites hosting them. Those websites are not the owners of those images and yet they put those freakin' watermarks on them anyway. Fuck those websites.
The function is also useful when you're trying to find the original version of an image: a high-resolution PNG, instead of a low-resolution JPEG compressed to shit.
#DeleteFacebook
If you do not want someone to copy your image, do not post it on the internet. This should have been learned a long time ago but we still have people completely ignorant of how the Internet works.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
That only gives you a Google-generated (and Google-hosted) thumbnail, not the original image, whether you do it on the main results list or the expanded details box after you click a result. That is not an acceptable workaround for any original image much above thumbnail size (i.e. almost all of those that someone is likely to search for).
The problem with following the link to the web site where the image is found is that very often the page is dynamic ("hottest news stories of today") and the image is nowhere to be found.
I think most regular users use the image search to find the original galleries of porn JPGs :-)
Eat the rich.