How to find out that none of the images on my site violates copyrights? Is there any tool that can do this without having to check manually image by image?

[lcourse]

We plan to add several thousand images to our site and we outsourced the image search to some freelancers who had instructions to just use royalty free pictures.

Is there any easy and quick way to check that in fact none of these images violates copyrights without having to check image by image?

In case there are violations we are unaware of, do you think we need to be concerned about a risk of receiving Takedown Notices (DMCA) before owner giving us notification for giving us opportunity to remove the photo?

[EGOL]

Keep in mind that infringers post images on their website without any references to licenses.  They stole the images, why would they point to a license ? !!

Many of the "free image sources" on the web contain a significant number of infringing images.   Furthermore, many of the websites that sell or license images are offering images that they have no right to offer.  I have found my own images on such sites and have done something about it.

On many of the free image websites and some of the websites selling images the images are uploaded by "members".  The owners of these sites simply claim "safe harbor" when infringing images are found on their sites.  They simply blame the member and take the images down when someone complains.

I am not an attorney, but I can say that I would not use your proposed method because a lot of the images that you think are OK are not OK.   Furthermore, the images to which I hold copyright do not have licensing information posted with them because they are not available for license by anyone at any price.  They are for my exclusive use.

People who are serious about protecting their images from infringement will probably do at least two of the following if they see their images on your website.... DMCA to search engines, DMCA to hosting services, complaint to Adsense, complaint to other revenue sources, send informal notice to you, demand payment for your past use, add your website to the list that their legal team will look into.

It might be a good idea to make an appointment with an intellectual property attorney and discuss the concepts of copyrights, permissions, licenses, documentation, fair use, safe harbor and how copyright laws vary outside of your home country.  I have had these types of meetings with more than one attorney and found that it is not as expensive as you might fear.  After that meeting you have a person who knows you and can be a quick source of assistance if needed.  Time and money well spent.

[lcourse]

After some digging here is what we did finally:

1. researched with tineye.com whether images were from free image sources and that among top results in tineye were no references to licences

2. additionally we uploaded each image to https://www.picscout.com/ which is a site fully owned by getty images and upon upload indicates whether it finds any licencing information for the image. As picscout has some bad reputation for their practice of exortion letters it is probably best to not submit on their site the URL of images on your own site, but rather use their upload function instead.

[ThompsonPaul]

Nicely summarised, EGOL.

My bottom line? If you can't definitively prove you have license for the images, you can't use them.

And a business model based on "hoping' that the real rights owner won't hammer you into the ground for the infringement is the proverbial Very Bad Idea.

Paul

[EGOL]

If your freelancers obtained "royalty free" images then they will likely have a receipt proving that they paid a fee for each image that was granted a royalty free license.  If they obtained other forms of license or permission they should have that neatly logged in a spreadsheet or in the form of email messages.  That is where I would start with this.

If you don't have any documentation then it is going to be really hard and really costly to go backwards to determine where each image came from and if proper permissions and licenses were obtained.  That might cost more than doing the work over again.  If I was in this situation, I would start over on this project.

If you are getting into the business of using the images of others then a good education in copyright, fair use, licensing, permissions, and proper documentation is essential.  In addition to you having this information and knowledge, anyone who works for you must have it because the problems of infringement will be yours and not theirs.  Lots of people run wild and rampant when collecting images for their websites or client websites.  They simply don't understand copyright law or the problem with ignorance.

Will people get in touch with you before filing a DMCA or filing a copyright infringement lawsuit?   They might or they might not.  If they think that your website is run by scofflaw organization with few assets then they will probably just file DMCAs with search engines and hosting companies.  They might also file complaints to Adsense and other income sources.  Successful DMCA and Adsense complaints will put the infringer out of business.  I make lots of these complaints against infringers and have a system in place to do them quickly and efficiently.

If your website appears to be run by a substantive company and the person who's images you infringed is a decent and patient, they might send you an informal infringement notice, give you a chance to fix it, and then file DMCA and income source complaints if you don't respond quickly.  Or, they might send you a bill for your past use of the image and a license agreement for use of the image going forward.   If you have stolen a lot of their images or you have a person who stands firmly on their intellectual property, they could go straight to a lawsuit or other legal remedy.

The owner of the images enjoys the ability to chose their methods of dealing with you.