Local Inn Pilfers Photograph of Newburyport

The Technology of Image Search

Many photographers are a bit distressed about people illegally downloading images off their website to use commercially, without compensation. Recently, I threw a few of my images into Google image search to see what came up. Yes indeed, one of my images of Newburyport came up in a search… and it wasn’t on my site. It was pilfered by the people working for The Compass Rose Inn. Nothing against these people, they are probably very nice with obviously very good taste in images. I was taught, when you take something that doesn’t belong to you it’s stealing. Maybe in the era of Trump, being a cheat is in vogue.

I did contact The Compass Rose Inn and notified them to either compensate me, or take the image down. They agreed to remove the image, blaming “a company” who was doing their blog. It would have been nice to get a little money. At least I learned, that my photography is commercially valuable, that my images sell stuff.

What It Takes to Get a Commercially Valuable Photo

I remember taking the photo. I got up very, very early one snowy winter morning and prodded my son out of bed to come with me. I wanted some winter images for my “Tour Newburyport” photo project. Drove to Newburyport center in the quiet dark of the morning and saw the shot. Posted it Flickr and got a “charming” response.

Anyone who has a website, owns a website, or directs someone to develop their site needs to be “content aware” to stay out of messy lawyer stuff. This goes beyond images. I had one client send copy to me to use in his site. A few months later, someone caught him. He copied content (practically word for word) from a competitor and gave it to me to use. If you want a site with quality content, hire a photographer and a writer. Stealing stuff really isn’t the way to go.

It’s easy to find your images

Go to google search and look for “image”

After you upload your image, check the search results and the URLs.