As Shannon Connellan explains on Mashable, Google recently made a subtle change to its image search — but one that may have big repercussions for copyright. The company has now removed the “view image” button from image search, which will make it trickier to save copyrighted images directly. Once a direct link to a high-resolution version of your chosen image, the “view image” button was a concern for photographers, publishers and stock image sites alike, as it allowed people to access a high-res version of the image without visiting the source site.
With Google’s elimination of the tool, you’ll still be able to visit the source of the image with the remaining “visit” button, but it’s this additional step that’s hopefully meant to make people less likely to steal copyrighted material — seeing images in their original context could be a red flag for users.
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The Getty Effect
This change was probably at the behest of Getty Images, as it comes in the wake of Google’s new multi-year global licensing partnership with the company, enabling Google to use Getty’s content within its various products and services. Interestingly enough, the partnership was developed after Getty filed a complaint against Google in 2016, accusing the company of anti-competitive practices within Google Images and “distorting search results in favour of its own services” — thus creating less of a need to visit source stock websites likes Getty to download the original image.
“Because image consumption [in Google Images] is immediate, once an image is displayed in high-resolution, large format, there is little impetus to view the image on the original source site,” Getty’s press statement read.
So What?
What does this mean for you?
My advice has always been to use copyright-free photos and images, provided by a number of websites (Pixabay is my current favorite). Even if it’s not the perfect image, you could avoid a lot of hassle down the road.
Also, be sure to give credit where credit’s due (speaking of which, many thanks to Sebastian White for pointing me to the Mashable post!)
Happy blogging!
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I use free pics and I find it saves the hassle of checking copyright and other time consuming things which hamper writing time. lol what a long winded comment.
Not at all. And I’m with you. The last thing we need is wasting time on copyright-checking!
True words. 🙂
Every time I hear a media giant say something along the lines of “we’re making it easier for you to…”, my heart sinks and I grow another Cynicism Receptor. But perhaps I’m evolving?
We all are evolving , my dear. The question is into what?
I think in my case, we don’t want to know….
Am I covered as long as I credit the source, which I’m careful to do? Thanks for the follow. Do you bike?
Not really, as it depends on the source’s goodwill. Some are overjoyed to see their work shared; others get miffed. Thankfully, there are plenty of sources you can use, like pixabay.com.
I don’t bike anymore, I’m afraid. I do enjoy your posts, though 🙂
I appreciate the info and feedback, Nicholas. I’ll certainly check out pixabay but when I want to use a WIlly Wonka picture, a photo of Gene Wilder, a picture of Gene Simmons won’t cut it. I use startpage for searching anyway, though they use Google. I am struggling to bike but writing more was the plan anyway. Hope I can do both somehow but finding a job to pay the bills looms.
Tell me about it 🙂
Thank you! Just put Pixabay in my Bookmarks Bar!
Yay 🙂
I love Pixabay, and it’s catalog of images is expanding rapidly. I use them almost exclusively because I love not having to worry about copyright infringement. Thanks for the info on Google images. It makes sense since the images were easy to misuse.
Pixabay’s a lifesaver 🙂
I agree. It’s so stress free. 🙂
Very helpful tips. Thanks Nicolas!
Tatyana
T|hanks! Glad you found it useful 🙂
Thanks for the tip. Nicholas.
Best wishes, Pete.
Hope you find it useful 🙂
Great article and very insightful. Thanks Nick!
Thanks! I’m glad you found it useful 🙂