ExtortionLetterInfo Forums

ELI Forums => Getty Images Letter Forum => Topic started by: kingkendall on August 03, 2017, 02:58:52 PM

Title: How do Copyright trolls find their targets?
Post by: kingkendall on August 03, 2017, 02:58:52 PM
I have a rough idea that trolls use reverse images searches to find where their images have been used.  And I also heard they use bots and crawlers.  But, what esle am I missing? 
Title: Re: How do Copyright trolls find their targets?
Post by: Matthew Chan on August 03, 2017, 04:35:30 PM
Getty Images bought out a company, Picscout, many years ago. Picscout developed proprietary software to scour, scan, and analyze digital signatures from images throughout the Internet. Those digital signatures are then cross-referenced with a client's existing customer database to find out if a usage by a website is registered to an existing customer. If there is not, they flag these are potential infringements.

I suspect that many of Getty's competitors use Picscout. Picscout was around for years working independently acquiring clients. When Getty bought Picscout, it is highly likely that Getty competitors sudden found themselves being clients of Getty subsidiary, Picscout.

I believe LCS is an offshoot operation of both the Getty and Picscout operations.

I suspect there are other competing software tools to the one Picscout developed. But it has not entered my line of sight yet.

I cannot give definitive information because not much of the specifics is made public. However, the ELI team has over the years attempted to piece together the different pieces of the puzzle together based on reports we receive.
Title: Re: How do Copyright trolls find their targets?
Post by: clist on August 17, 2017, 03:02:19 AM
I believe in addition to the "matches" that the Picscout software finds, it also identifies and extracts contact information from the site and then adds it to a database as well.

Then after a certain amount of data is collected the site probably then goes thru a manual review to verify the info (possibly by an actual person / minion / troll assistant) who then assembles an "infringement packet" and... away it goes.. (either via email, snail mail or both)

Once the accused responds ~ the games begin...   ;)
Title: Re: How do Copyright trolls find their targets?
Post by: Robert Krausankas (BuddhaPi) on August 17, 2017, 11:53:19 AM
I believe in addition to the "matches" that the Picscout software finds, it also identifies and extracts contact information from the site and then adds it to a database as well.

Then after a certain amount of data is collected the site probably then goes thru a manual review to verify the info (possibly by an actual person / minion / troll assistant) who then assembles an "infringement packet" and... away it goes.. (either via email, snail mail or both)

Once the accused responds ~ the games begin...   ;)

I strongly dis-agree with anything "manually" happening..right down to the unsigned form letters they send. Look how many people get letters, where the image in question was linked from an outside source, or brought into a site via feed scripts..
Title: Re: How do Copyright trolls find their targets?
Post by: clist on August 17, 2017, 12:58:25 PM
You may be right.

Way too many hail Mary passes being thrown...  8)