There’s a remarkable new graphic search engine online that web site owners need to be aware of. It’s calledTin Eye, and it creates the ability for the owners of images to quickly find out who is using their images, even if those images have been altered.
Let’s take a look at an example of how this works. Over at our sister site, That’s My Congress, an article about a new resolution attempting to use the Constitution to promote Christianity above other religions was published a couple of days ago. That article uses the image you see here, a combination of an old painting of the Founding Fathers and an old painting of Moses.
A search entering this image location over at Tin Eye reveals 129 other web sites that are using the image of the same painting of the Founding Fathers, even though That’s My Congress overlaid words and an image of Moses on the painting.
Tin Eye uses an analysis of the visual composition of an image to search, rather than keywords. It scours the web like any search engine, but as it gathers an image, it conducts its analysis, and then makes the results of that analysis available for comparison to the analysis of other images. The result is that a person can start with a known base image, and see who is using that image elsewhere online, even if the image has been somewhat modified.
In the case of this image from That’s My Congress, there’s no problem, because the old paintings the image uses are no longer under copyright protection. However, if a web site were to use a copyrighted image, even making modifications to it, the individual artist or company that originally created, and therefore owns, the image could use Tin Eye to find out about it. The copyright owner could then ask for a fee, request removal of the image, or file a lawsuit for copyright infringement.
The creation of Tin Eye and similar technologies suggests that the open use of others’ images, as if they can be taken for free, won’t last that much longer. That’s a good thing for original creators of visual media. It will challenge online publishers who have grown accustomed to taking copyrighted images and using them as their own. That challenge can have a positive result, however, quieting sources that only copy others, and encouraging the creating of more original work among those who have found it easier merely to cop and paste.
We need to do away with all patent and copyright law. You shouldn’t be able to own ideas and speech. These laws violate the first amendment and are a threat to internet freedom.
qs,
I have spent the past 6 months writting and editing a novel that I hope to someday publish. It has been a huge undertaking and I have spent hundreds of hours on it. Without copyright protection someone could take this book as is and legally sell it as their own. I would have no way to stop them other then printing the exact same book and trying to out market them. That would make no sense at all.
Let us know when your novel is done. I’d love to take a look at it.
Yes, you’re responding to incentives given by the protection of copyright and patent laws. It wouldn’t be fair to abruptly do away with them, but we need to phase them out.
These aren’t mere ideas or speech. They’re particular products that require particular labor.
Is free speech free when someone else can take your speech and claim it as their own? I don’t know if that’s a free speech issue. There’s also freedom of the press. Does freedom of the press mean that people should be free to republish any book, movie, image, etc. that anyone else makes?