PicScout Finds Copyright Infringers . . .

Stock Asylum Staff Report


An Israeli company that specializes in advanced image recognition software is making it easier for image suppliers to police copyright infringements, especially on the internet.

Founded just a year ago, PicScout already counts a number of top stock distributors as clients. It is working with StockArtistsAlliance, a stock photographers’ organization, and plans to roll out an affordable service for individual photographers this year. Currently, PicScout is scouring the internet for some 1.5 million images, according to a company spokesman.

“We’re looking at servicing the whole market,” said Ze’ev Rozov, PicScout’s vice president of sales and marketing.

                        

The stock industry’s move to supplying images over the internet made legal stock transactions much easier and faster for designers, advertisers, print publishers and web developers. It also made copyright infringement easier by placing the images in the hard to control internet environment.

Many industry observers believe unauthorized uses of stock photography and illustration costs distributors and image creators hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, if not millions.

To make matters worse, wholesale infringement undermines distributors’ ability to guarantee the publishing history of rights-managed images -- a situation that hurts the most lucrative stock product.

Previous attempts to control the problem met with mixed to poor results, with some infringers even bragging about rights theft on public bulletin boards and in internet chat rooms.

                        

PicScout’s approach promises a higher level of success and stock distributors are already giving it very positive reviews.

Based on technology developed for the Israeli military, PicScout’s approach compares images from distributors’ archives with images found on the internet, said Rozov. He said the company will start checking images printed in paper publications soon.

The sophisticated computer algorithms often find matches even when images have been cropped, colorized or otherwise altered, the company vice president said. He noted one case where an image match was found even though an object held by a model had been digitally removed and replaced with another object.

                        

“It is a real quality service,” said Haim Ariav, President and Chief Operating Office of SuperStock.

“We are highly satisfied with the results so far," adds, Zefa spokesperson Annette Schneider. Zefa and SuperStock are among 15 companies now using the service. Both already receive reports and both are collecting fees from willful infringers and companies that inadvertently continue using images after legitimate licenses expire. ( Zefa has recently been purchased by Corbis. Click here for details. )

StockArtistsAlliance (SAA) Executive Director Betsy Reid, said her organization's study with PicScout is finding very large numbers of infringements -- especially among photographs marketed by Getty Images. Getty is not a PicScout client, but many StockArtistsAlliance photographers supply images to Getty. About 13,000 Getty photos are included in the SAA study.

Based on the first month's report, Reid said, the rate of infringement at Getty Images is about 11 times the industry average, costing Getty and its photographers millions of dollars.

"It makes sense," Reid said. "Getty's licensing rate far exceeds the rest of the market. Whether people are good guys or bad guys they are clearly shopping at the same place."

                        

SuperStock has hired a copyright enforcement manager to follow-up on leads generated by PicScout, said Ariav. The employee has experience collecting child-support checks for a local court, ”so she is used to hearing all kinds of excuses,” noted Ariav.

Ariav said his company gets regular reports from PicScout about SuperStock images found on the net. “They do not make an assumption about whether a usage is legitimate or not,” he said.

Upon receiving the reports, SuperStock checks its own records to see which image uses are legitimate, Ariav said. Superstock then contacts all apparent infringers.

“The most common response is, ‘I had no idea that we had to pay for these images,’” Said Ariav, “But, there are a few people who basically say, ‘Sue me.’ We do.” SuperStock has hired a law firm to handle these more troublesome cases.

                        

“Most people respond quickly,” Ariav said. “Often they take the image down, but they still must pay for the time it was used.” He said SuperStock routinely bills infringements at four times the fee charged for legitimate uses.

Ariav noted that most outright infringements show up on small companies' web sites. Often, he said, small web developers swipe the images without telling the end user. In one case, a web site owner paid a young developer $1,000 to build a web site, Ariav said.

“Now he is faced with a much larger bill for the images. He didn’t know that there was a problem. In the end, he liked the images and decided to keep licensing them,” said Ariav.

Ariav and others note that PicScout does turn up problems with uses by larger companies, frequently involving expired image use licenses.

                        

”Much of the time it is a genuine oversight on the part of a stock license buyer and they normally acknowledge and license right away,” said David Neilson, who heads Amana’s European and U.S. operations. Photonica, one of Amana’s stock brands, started using PicScout in December.

Like SuperStock, Photonica charges a premium for willful infringement.

However, Neilson added, “If it is a loyal client and the reason is acceptable, as is often the case, we are normally cool about charging them the standard amount, free of an unauthorized use premium.”

                        

Schneider said that Zefa is finding about 60 percent of infringers pay quickly and about 20 percent try to negotiate. The remaining 20 percent receive a legal letter. She said a few have continued to resist and the German agency is starting legal proceedings against these.

“A lot of people seem to have the attitude that this is the internet so everything ought to be free, “ said Ariav, who estimates that SuperStock alone is losing several hundred thousand dollars a year to infringement. “The internet does make it easier to do something that is immoral.”

Adds Amana’s Neilson: “I’m hoping for two things. First that this will focus our more disorganized clients towards better housekeeping -- that they will treat imagery more carefully and ensure that they have really licensed what they are using. Second, that Amana (or others in the industry) will catch and prosecute some of those engaged in willful infringement so that such activity ceases among less reputable commercial organizations.”

                        
                        

PicScout is at:  http://www.picscout.com

Photonica is at: http://www.photonica.com

SuperStock is at: http://www.superstock.com

Zefa is at: http://www.zefaimages.com