Doing My Part to Not Feed the Copyright Trolling Machine

So in regards to the Getty Extortion Letter fiasco, I’ve decided to no longer support the stock photo industry. Let me be crystal clear here… I am all for photographers and company’s protecting their works, when it comes to copyright issues. However I also believe there is a proper and polite way to enforce ones Intellectual Property. The methods and tactics of some of the stock image companies as well as some photographers is truly disgusting…But I digress.

It is well known that Picscout ( the company that likes to ignore robots.txt, masks it’s user-agent and scans sites for all images…thus stealing our bandwidth…again I digress….) is now owned by Getty Images, this is a great asset to them, as this helps them find infringements ( innocent or otherwise and sometimes even legit images)… As part of my boycott of the stock photo industry I have decided to compile a list of companies that also use Picscout, thus putting money in Gettys’  pocket. Again I need to be clear here and also state that I am in by no means suggesting that the companies listed below have jumped or plan to jump into this extortion type of business model..That remains to be seen, however doing business with any of these companies that use Picscout ultimately are feeding the troll machine…End of rant…

Aflo – https://www.aflo.com
Alaska Stock Images – https://www.alaskastock.com
Amana Images – https://amanaimages.com
Arcaid Images – https://www.arcaid.co.uk
Arcangel – https://www.arcangel-images.com
Arcurs Productions – https://www.arcurs.com
Bios Photo – https://www.biosphoto.com
Blend Images – https://www.blendimages.com
Blickwinkel – https://www.blickwinkel.de
Bokelberg – https://www.bokelberg.com
Conceptual Pictures – https://www.conceptualpictures.com
Corbis – https://www.corbisimages.com
CSA Images – https://csaimages.com
Die bildbeschaffer – https://www2.die-bildbeschaffer.de
DK Images – https://www.dkimages.com
Dreamstime – https://www.dreamstime.com
Erikson Stock – https://www.ericksonstock.com
F1 Online – https://www.f1online.pro/en
FloraMedia – https://floramedia.com
Gallery Stock – https://gallerystock.com
Gap Photos – https://www.gapphotos.com
Garden wORLD – https://gardenworldimages.com
Glow Images – https://www.glowimages.com
GoZooma – https://www.gozooma.de
Gulf Images – https://gulfimages.com
Guliver Images – https://www.guliverimages.com
Hawaii PIctures – https://www.hawaiipictures.com
Hemis.fr – https://hemis.fr
Illuscope – Owned by Masterfile – https://www.masterfile.com
Image Source – https://www.imagesource.com
ISI Photos – https://www.isiphotos.net
Israel Images – https://israelimages.com
Laughing Stock – https://laughing-stock.com
Look – https://www.look-foto.de
Maground – https://www.maground.com
Masterfile – https://www.masterfile.com
Mauritius Images – https://www.mauritius-images.com
Mediscan – https://www.mediscan.co.uk
Michael Friedel – https://www.foto-friedel.com
Monkey Business Images – https://www.monkeybusinessimages.com
Mood Board – https://moodboard.com
Nature Picture Library – https://www.naturepl.com
Nordic Photos – https://www.nordicphotos.com
Ojo Images – https://www.ojoimages.com
Other Images – https://www.otherimages.com
Panther media – https://www.panthermedia.us
Pacific Stock – https://www.pacificstock.com
Panorama Stock – https://www.panoramastock.com
Peter Frank – https://www.peter-frank.info
Photo Alto – https://www.photoalto.com
Photo Non Stop – https://www.photononstop.com
Photo Shelter – https://www.photoshelter.com
Picture Group – https://www.picturegroup.com
Picture Press – https://www.picturepress.de
Pixmac – https://www.pixmac.com
Plain Picture – https://www.plainpicture.com
Science faction – https://www.sciencefaction.com
Seapics.com – https://seapics.com
Stock Connection – https://www.scphotos.com
Stock Food – https://usa.stockfood.com
Stock Fresh – https://stockfresh.com
Super Stock – https://www.superstock.com
Trunk Archive – https://www.trunkarchive.com
Vario Images – https://www.vario-images.com
View Pictures Limited – https://www.viewpictures.co.uk
Visual Photos – https://www.visualphotos.com
ViVo Zoom – https://www.vivozoom.com
Westend 61 – https://www.westend61.de
Wide Stock Photo – Looks to be defunct at this time.

About Robert Krausankas 2 Articles
Since 1996 Robert Krausankas has been the owner / operator of Web Design of Palm Beach, Inc. We offer web hosting services, web development, custom programming , ecommerce solutions and design. We primarily cater to small - mid-size businesses and non-profit organizations, offering affordable prices and outstanding personal customer service and support, which has become our signature.

1 Comment

  1. Quite strange that Picscout can, it seems, trawl websites at will, take screen shots (and maybe other data) from a website despite that site having ‘copyright all rights reserved’ all over it then SELL those copies and that data to another company. Not just one but many.

    Just check out Picscout claims that it trawled the ‘net in 2005 (I think) and found loads of what it decided was infringements and took screen shots. If it claims screenshots are not infringements then we all know what to do don’t we?

    So up until Getty bought Picscout in April 2011 then surely copyright was flagrantly broken by both parties, as they absolutely know the law (or so they say) on copyright. And they do it thousands of times every day/hour/second. Two wrongs do not make a right and just because you infringed their rights does not give them the right to infringe yours.

    In the UK there is no defence to copyright infringement (as Getty will all too happily tell you) so they are as guilty as anyone else with no defence.

    If you check Getty’s T&Cs etc they say things like:

    Their procedures are designed to get people to change from infringers to customers (tosh, it makes people non-customers for life!)

    If you think they have broken your copyright they say please let them know, not please send us an obnoxious demand with an invoice to make us pay up.

    It is also against their T&Cs to ‘data-mine’ their site, which is exactly what they do to the rest of the web on the off-chance.

    If you run a site it might be an idea to update your T&Cs to make it a breach for others to datamine your site.

    And there are ways to ‘trap’ bots that ignore robots.txt instructions (which Picscout does I’m led to believe).

    I’m against copyright infringement, but that means by everybody, including Picscout and those that use and pay for it. Copyright law is not there to be ignored by some just because they think they are ‘right’. The law is quite clear there as far as this layman is concerned.

    Unless someone else knows differently.

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