ImageRights today announced the availability of its first service, a low-cost, easy to use solution designed to help protect the copyrights of photographers and stock photo agencies. Targeted to the estimated three million worldwide commercial photographers, ImageRights is applying visual search and image recognition technology to track the use of photographs and illustrations across the Internet, enabling rights holders to discover and ultimately recover fees for the unlicenced use of their works. Users upload their photographs and illustrations to the system, and the ImageRights service will provide a weekly report detailing any image matches that it has found on the web. The report provides contact information for the infringing sites, enabling users to follow-up with those persons or companies directly. Subscription fees start at $4.95/month.

Website: ImageRights

Imagerights Press Release

ImageRights Launches to Help Protect Photographers and Stock-Photo Agencies from Copyright Infringement

New Service Enables Individuals and Agencies to Upload Photos and Receive Reports Indicating Which Persons or Companies are Using Proprietary Images Without Prior Consent or Payment

NEW YORK, NY – October 22, 2009 – ImageRights International, an Internet-based services company, today announced the availability of its first service—ImageRights—a low-cost, easy to use solution designed to help protect the copyrights of photographers and stock-photo agencies.  Targeted to the estimated three million worldwide commercial photographers, ImageRights is applying visual search and image recognition technology to track the use of photographs and illustrations across the Internet, enabling rights holders to discover and ultimately recover fees for the unlicensed use of their works.  ImageRights will be demonstrated this week at the 2009 PhotoPlus Expo and Conference in New York at booth #379.

Commercial photographers’  very livelihoods are being tested by two fundamental problems: rapidly declining revenues resulting from downward pricing pressures on stock photography, and the ease with which copyrighted content can be copied, literally with the click of a mouse, and then reused online without authorization. The stock agencies are likewise suffering from declining revenues, forcing them to reevaluate their business models and the services they offer in order to reignite revenue growth.

ImageRights addresses both problems. Users upload their photographs and illustrations to the system, and then for as little as $4.95 per month, the ImageRights service will provide a weekly report detailing any image matches that it has found on the web.  The report provides contact information for the infringing sites, enabling users to follow-up with those persons or companies directly.  The service will be offered to individual photographers, visual artists, and stock agencies, reporting on the use of images from their entire inventory.

“While there are various claims throughout the industry as to the total revenues lost due to copyright infringement every year, it’s safe to say the number exceeds $900 million,” said Joe Naylor, CEO at ImageRights International.  “ImageRights helps protect photographers and agencies by making it easy and inexpensive to determine who is using their images and illustrations, and provides information to help photographers and agencies halt unauthorized use and/or gain compensation for their work.  Given how easy it is for persons and companies to ‘borrow’ images from unsuspecting artists, we think ImageRights will be tremendously popular and widely adopted in a very short time.”

About ImageRights International
ImageRights International is an Internet-based services company supporting copyright protection and license recovery.  ImageRights is applying visual search and image recognition technology to track the use of photographs and illustrations across the Internet, enabling the rights holders to discover and then recover fees on the unlicensed use of their works. For additional information, visit www.imagerights.com.

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