Software
Google Images makes it easy for picture rights to be licensed
Google is releasing an upgrade to Google Images to make it easier to license photos or photos that are copyrighted. The move could help publishers, photographers, and artists get in front of their viewers, while also helping users find photos that they have the right to use.
Photos with license details issued by the publisher will now appear in the search results with a "Licensable" badge on the thumbnail. Clicking on that picture will show its licensing requirements and a link to where you can purchase rights to it, if appropriate. Licensors are allowed to designate a purchase connection that varies from the page from which the image has been surfaced.
It would also be possible to filter the results of the image search by the form of license attached. For example, you may only scan for photographs that are subject to a less strict Creative Commons license, or look explicitly for commercial pictures.
Google has been working on these new features with the image licensing industry. We think this is a step towards helping people better understand the essence of the content they 're looking at on Google Images and how they can use it responsibly, the company said in a blog post.
The latest features of Google Images enable both image creators and image users and make it more clear how creator content can be licensed properly, says Paul Brennan, VP of Content Operations at Shutterstock. We are pleased to have worked closely with Google on this feature by promoting safeguards that result in equal rewards for over one million contributors to our global community. In creating this feature, Google has clearly demonstrated its commitment to support the ecosystem of content development.
Although Google Images was initially a free-for-all platform that cataloged photos around the Internet, over time , the company made improvements in an effort to silence copyright owners who claimed that it made it too easy to steal pictures. For example , a few years ago , Google removed the full-size picture button directly from the search results, instead of motivating users to visit the related website.
