Keeping track of your images on the web: Tineye

Thankfully, I haven't had any major issues with copyright infringement on the web - yet.

However, it remains a serious issue, especially for users of such Photo sharing sites as Flickr, whose images can be searched for and copied by everyone from highschool bloggers to major corporations. Luckily, in the case of commercial usage, art directors and designers are usually savvy enough to make a formal request from the photographer before publishing an image of theirs without their consent - they've learnt from the lawsuits. 

However, this doesn't stop people from doing all sorts of other things with one's image, despite images being clearly copyrighted, from using photos to enhance homepage decor to uploading to their own website or photo sharing account and asserting your best photos as their own.

Tracking down such offenders has always been very difficult, as it is often only through luck that a photographer might stumble upon his or her image being used. However, this is all about to change.

Enter Tineye, a revolutionary new image search application which no doubt will alleviate much of the worries some have for their image rights being abused across the internet. Rather than try and explain what Tineye does, I'll let their promotional video do it for me.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words - so how many words is a moving picture which speaks worth?

check it!

One does have to apply to use Tineye in its Beta form in order to use the service - Don't fret, applications are generally accepted within a day or so.