How do Stock Image sites know you're using their images? EXIF Data?

bopeep · Jul 7, 2020

Stock Images question. I always wondered, how do companies enforce stock images. This is just a question. If I am using stock images on my websites, how do the stockimage company know if they are paid for stolen? Do they randomly send webmasters and ask to see memberships?

I am not planning to stiff photgrphers, I have more credits on many stock images than I can use. But I am not able to understand. I saw someone asking for group buy for stock images and how does it work? I mean, are there digital signatures on stock images, in the meta data, that tell the stock image company that it is paid for?

bernard · Jul 13, 2020

bopeep said:
Stock Images question. I always wondered, how do companies enforce stock images. This is just a question. If I am using stock images on my websites, how do the stockimage company know if they are paid for stolen? Do they randomly send webmasters and ask to see memberships?

I am not planning to stiff photgrphers, I have more credits on many stock images than I can use. But I am not able to understand. I saw someone asking for group buy for stock images and how does it work? I mean, are there digital signatures on stock images, in the meta data, that tell the stock image company that it is paid for?

Interesting question. I assume each image has some kind of unique generated EXIF data in it when downloaded or maybe even in the image code. The actual enforcement is done by bots using reverse image search to find all instances of a picture. I assume the software checks the image EXIF against a database.

bopeep · Jul 14, 2020

bernard said:
Interesting question. I assume each image has some kind of unique generated EXIF data in it when downloaded or maybe even in the image code. The actual enforcement is done by bots using reverse image search to find all instances of a picture. I assume the software checks the image EXIF against a database.

Yeah but when you download, you don't specify where it will be used right? So how will the bot know if it was being used by a paid member?