Using TinEye (or similar) to find other offending images.

[The-Gobbler]

So I finally got one of these horrible letters.  Turns out it was objecting to an image in a post more than 6 years old. I'm in the early stages of dealing with this so wish me luck.

Anyway, god only knows how many more of these old images might be lurking on my site with over 20,000 blog posts from the past 10 years.   We've been really strict about creative commons in the past 5-6 years but there are probably some outliers from the old days that need to be dealt with.

So my question:  Does anyone know of a service like TinEye that can scan my entire site for likely offenders?  I might even pay for this to cleanse my site of images that might invite future harassment.

[stinger]

Your best bet is to review all images and remove any that you are unsure of.  With the technology out there today, if you have more offending images, they will find you.

I know that it means leaving holes in your old blog posts, but most of those have served their purpose and are (hopefully) unlikely to be re-visited.

Rule of thumb:  If it is not an image you took, and you do not have a license to use it, remove it.

[Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi)]

exactly what stinger states is best policy..however you can also use the following for reverse image searches.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/google-reverse-image-search/

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1325808?hl=en

The problem with reverse searches, is yes it will find the images, ut it will find them from all sources..bottom line is if you do not possess a license, and aren't sure if they are public domain or creative commons, you should remove them. And don't make the mistake som many before you have, "royaly free" does NOT equal "free"

[The-Gobbler]

Thanks.  Does anyone know a cheap service that I can pay to go through old posts and do this? It's looking like hours and hours of work.

[Matthew Chan]

In my view, I would remove all the images and start over. And start weaning yourself off images.  I spend my time either using my own photos, creating my own clipart, or get them off the U.S. government websites when I can.  I am not interested in feeding the sleazy stock photo industry and perfectly fine with starving them out. 

It isn't worth the hassles.

(Hey, Timmy McCormack should screenshot this reply. I openly tell people just get rid of all the honeypot images so that all of them can be starved out and find another line of work.)

[Greg Troy (KeepFighting)]

You can also look to image companies that do not participate in the settlement demand letter game and offer quality images at fair prices.  When I need to purchase an image I use Pond5.com.

[Matthew Chan]

Last year, I had communications with Taylor Hinton, a co-owner of http://www.solidstockart.com.  They have specifically expressed to me how much they dislike the practices of traditional stock photo companies. They are a smaller operation but deserving of some business and support for those who really need images.  I can't speak to their prices and selection but I trust in the owner's intentions and I think he is a good guy.  Tell them that I sent you.