Google Updates Image Search Results

In February Google updated their image search results so they no longer link the images returned by searches direct to the image by rather to the web page the image has been found on.

This change followed representations from artists and image stock sites to make it more difficult for people to simply download an image without regard to the owners rights. At the same time Google moved their warning about the images being copyrighted to just beneath the image so there is no excuse for people to say they simply took an image from Google and were not aware it was copyrighted.

In theory these actions should have considerably reduced the theft of images but in practice it does not seem to be working out that way as most internet users know they can simply right click on an image and save it to their computer. It doesn’t even seem like an offense to them when they then upload it to a web site or share it on social media.

There appears to be a hardcore of web site owners and web designers who, when they need an image, simply take it from Google without any regard to licensing terms or the ownership of the image.

Now that Google have changed the presentation of their image search results it is even more obvious than before that these people show a wilful disregard to the copyright owner of the image and have no regard to licensing fees or license requirements.

RM Media offers a selection of it’s catalogue for free use under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license which simply requires the user to add a couple of attribution and license links under the image. This allows web site owners and developers to use pictures for free and RM Media publicises it’s business via the links but a small percentage of web site publishers simply ignore the attribution requirements, removing our copyright information and publishing it, invariably claiming ownership of the copyright of the content of the page it appears on!

These same people then get very aggressive when challenged about the use of the image and their claim to own the copyright which is really quite breathtaking.