User:Oceanflynn/sandbox/PicScout

PicScout is a company that tracks, licenses, analyzes and monetizes commercial images using PicScout Tracker EtE, PicScout Analytics and PicScout Website Auditing tools and services that use PicScout Platform software's image recognition and identification technology and image registries. Clients include some of the world's largest Stock photo agencies such as Getty Images, Corbis, Masterfile, Aflo and amanaimages, Inc. PicScout crawls the internet to identify, audit, and monitor "imagery that’s licensed for use in online or offline editorial media data" on a daily, weekly or monthly basis to to ensure licensed images are monetized. Clients can submit digital images to the PicScout Platform to be enriched in any file format such as .bmp, .jpg, .png and .gif and with different licenses such as Rights-managed (RM), Royalty-free (RF), Editorial and Microstock images. Clients include Getty Images, Masterfile, Corbis, Trunk Archive, Alaska Stock, NordicStock, Stock Food, and Hawaiian Art Network.

PicScout was acquired by Getty Images in 2011. When Getty Images was purchased by Carlyle Group in 2012 the company was said to have an archive that included 80 million stills and illustrations.

History
In 2002 two graduates of Wharton partner Wharton partner Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC Herzliya), Eyal Gura and Offir Gutelzon, co-founded PicScout as a privately-owned digital image "fingerprinting" company to protect copyright holders protect their intellectual property and develop a marketplace to license them. Gura's then girlfriend who was working at the Getty Images Israeli branch, was manually monitoring the internet looking for potential copyright infringements. In 2001 during their second year of the Sam Zell entrepreneurship bachelor’s degree program at IDC Gura and Gutelzon "conceived of a way to automate the process." says he got the idea “when Offir and I were in the second year of the bachelor’s degree program of Wharton partner IDC Herzliya.” In 2002 they started their company, PicScout in their third year at IDC.

They opened two offices, one in Herzliya, Israel and the other in Los Gatos, California. Gutelzon claims that he created the "application on top of the registry called ImageIRC" and that his solution was the first frictionless licensing platform for visual content in the world.

By October 2010 the PicScout Platform included ImageIRC, ImageExchange and ImageTracker. At that time PicScout 100 stock agencies had their images included in PicScout's ImageIRC database. - "picscouts database of image 'fingerprints' to which photographers and agencies can add their images (compare this with tineye) matches are done using sophisticated algorithms not just a simple comparison of identical images or metadata;"

ImageExchange - "A browser plugin that allows image buyers to automatically discover if an image they find on the web is available for license and under what terms; and ImageTracker - "A tool for agencies and photographers to enforce Rights Managed image licenses by matching misuse of images found online to the ImageIRC database."

As Gutelzon explained, "“PicScout developed image recognition technology that enables copyright owners to see where their images are being used and determine whether or not the usage infringes on their copyright."

By 2010 photo-image supplier Getty Images and Corbis chaired by Microsoft founder Bill Gates were utilizing PicScout's services. According to Gary Shenk, Corbis CEO, PicScout unlocked "the value of intellectual property" by protecting and monetizing it.

""“If our images are pirated, it undermines the whole value concept of licensing and of paying artists for their creations...If our images are pirated, it undermines the whole value concept of licensing and of paying artists for their creations.""

- Gary Shenk, Corbis CEO 2010

In November 2009 Hawaiian Art Network began to use PicScout's ImageTracker in the United States because of the number of copyright infringements of their popular web page. They preferred to avoid watermarks so the images would not be devalued. Glen Carner of the Hawaiian Art Network claimed that, PicScout's ImageTracker found infringements and provided them with information needed to "collect appropriate license fees, while creating opportunities for [them] to convert usages to legitimate licensed use." By July 2010 they started using ImageTracker in Germany, France, and the U.K.

Gutelzon claimed that PicScout's strength was its digital fingerprinting technology. They handed data to their clients such as Getty Images and Corbis, remaining neutral in terms of "prosecuting copyright violators."

Services
In 2010 the the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) used PicScout on March 19, 2010 data in their letter sent to the White House in response to a request for Coordination and Strategic Planning of the Federal Effort Against Intellectual Property Infringement: Request of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator for Public Comments Regarding the Joint Strategic Plan. PicScout "found that in 2009 levels of infringement were more than three times that of 2006. Of an estimated 5,000,000 or more rights-managed images found on commercial web sites, about 80% were not properly licensed." PicScout "works with stock agencies to track non-legitimate usage of rightsmanaged images using advanced visual recognition technology."

Technology
so-called frictionless nature of their digital platforms, which allow easier and more transparent peer sharing as well as product and service transactions

PicScout Search tool was developed to replace the ImageExchange browser extension. The PicScout Search widget can be embedded on individual websites enabling individual images to be identified and licensed.

Enforcing or trolling
Getty images was founded in 1995 in the early years of the internet. By 2014 Getty made "its money selling permission to use photos from its vast library of work from more than 150,000 individuals, stock photo agencies, and media organizations." By 2004 Getty Images began sending out letters warning copyright violators that they owed large amounts of money to Getty Image and threatened copyright litigation if they did not comply. In March 2014 Getty Images changed their policy so that anyone could visit their website, use embed code, and display a Getty image on individual "blogs and social media pages without paying a licensing fee."

Getty Images, Masterfile, Corbis and Trunk Archive have been criticized for their use of PicScout to identify copyright infringement of images in their catalogues. However, Getty Images argues that they are working "to protect intellectual-property rights and “the creative process of artists and photographers” around the world."

In an article in International Business Times Getty Images was accused of using PicScout and "an aggressive approach to copyright handling," "heavy-handed settlement tactics" as part of a "a massive revenue-generating collection scam." New-York-based Trunk Archive—an image licensing agency—