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.

Comments

Easier solution

[ChunderDownunder]

Don't display Getty media in your search results.

That'll learn 'em.

Re:Easier solution

[Tablizer]

Indeed! Agree on a meta-tag to exclude such image-convenience-features, and sites that want to be Scrooges can add it to the pages.

Jeeez, stop slowing down my porn browsing to make a few bad apples happy.

Re:Easier solution

[AHuxley]

A site thats been restrictive should not alter the way result for the internet get displayed. Change around the site not the way the internet results are presented.

Re:Easier solution

[SNRatio]

Actually I've been hoping for a "stock photo blocker" extension for a long time now. If a news source took a picture that is relevant to the story, that's great. But a stock image really doesn't add anything to a news story. Basically just search the image tags and title for all the usual suspects.

If it is a stock image replace it with whitespace or the top result from the google image search for "stick figure" and the image caption or title.

For example: "stick figure" and "trump". See? Much better than whatever the original image was.

Re:Easier solution

[Solandri]

how would one do that in this case? Ask Getty for a copy of every photo they ever had so they can filter search results? These won't just show up on Getty's site, but on sites that have licensed images for web use from them.

One of the features of Google Images is a "find other sizes of this image" function. If Getty did provide Google with copies of all their images, it'd be pretty easy for Google to block copies from Google Images. (Note: the pic I selected is one of Getty's royalty-free pics.)

That's what baffles me about Getty suing Google over this. Google Images is the best thing that could happen to Getty. Not because of the publicity, but because Google Images makes it trivial to find copyright violations. Getty just has to put the URL for one of their copyrighted images into Google Images, and use the "find other sizes of this image" function to get a list of websites using that image. It's then trivial for them to cross-reference the list of websites to confirm they've properly licensed the image. Asking Google to neuter Google Images just reeks of a decision by some clueless manager or lawyer, with no input from someone who's actually on the front lines trying to find copyright violations for Getty. This is going to result in more violations of Getty's copyrights, not less.

Couldn't the just block Google via robots.txt?

[rsilvergun]

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.

Commercial erosion...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Block Getty

[slazzy]

I wish Google would just block Getty images.

The work-around is in the article

[innocent_white_lamb]

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.

Re:Yeah, right.

[DontBeAMoran]

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.

Re:Leeching images

[TheDarkMaster]

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.

Re:I give it...

[TheDarkMaster]

Somedays I think photographers and publishers have no idea how the internet works.

Problem

[religionofpeas]

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.

Re:Yeah, right.

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I think most regular users use the image search to find the original galleries of porn JPGs :-)

Re:I give it...

[xenobyte]

Somedays I think photographers and publishers have no idea how the internet works.

Around 95% of the world population don't know how the internet works, especially so-called 'experts' commenting on hacking, malware or similar. They obviously don't know what they're talking about and they have no clue how to be critical of their sources.

Just yesterday the danish secretary of defense claimed that the WannaCry attack was the work of Russian government hackers (his source: NATO experts). No it wasn't. It was the work of a Russian cyber criminal, nothing more.