Google's new Search by Image - Good or Bad?

eoren1 · June 16, 2011

Google announce the availability of a 'search by image' function yesterday. Basically, you can upload or point to an image and Google will search for similar shots. It can also find instances where pictures may have been 'borrowed' without appropriate compensation/attribution. The terms of the service are bordering on rights grab vs covering all bases. Was wondering what you thought of it and if you would use it.
Here's a synopsis of how it can be used:
http://fairtradephotographer.blogspot.com/2011/06/googles-new-search-by-image-tineye-on.html

Don Kondra · June 16, 2011

My first thought when I heard about this is - who cares ?

And then who has the time to perform a search on each and every image they have posted on the internet ?

If you don't want your images "borrowed" don't post them.

Thanks to years of dial up service I continue to post images in the 300-500k range.

Somebody wants to "borrow" them they can go for it.

They don't really have any commercial value at that size and the ones I found weren't smart enough to strip the exif

Cheers, Don

eoren1 · June 16, 2011

Don
Thanks for posting. When I first heard about the Search by Image I didn't really 'get it'. Having done a search now on a few of my images, I actually think it's pretty cool and quite powerful. I ran a fireworks shot through it and found images with the same purple sunset that is present in that shot. Just amazing that search algorithms can do that. I also checked to see if my shot was present elsewhere on the web and it only showed up on my blog and dgrin in threads that I started on it.
I remember a while back folks got excited by a search engine called TinEye and I found it pretty limited. This seems to expand the power of TinEye and seems to be of help to photographers and those looking for images. I'm going to run a few more shots through it and see if my interest continues.
I did rethink the 'rights grab' argument and decided that it's likely a non-issue. Google cannot know whether the copyright owner of a photograph was the one who initiated the search on a given image and, therefore, using the URL matcher should not lead to any forfeit of copyrights.

eoren1 · June 16, 2011

richy wrote: »

It would be great if you could just input a url for your own site and it match all images and produce a report, that kind of thing you might even pay for, assuming you don't give away your lifes work to google for free.

It actually does exactly that Richy! Input a url (have to put in the http and .jpg) and it'll find all instances of your photo online. If you click the 'all sizes' link, you'll see them all listed and where they were found.

eoren1 · June 16, 2011

Yah I tried that... no luck

Google's new Search by Image - Good or Bad?

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