The SAA/PicScout Study
In 2005, SAA and PicScout joined forces on a study that used SAA's methodology and PicScout's technology. Our goal was to add some more depth to our understanding of the internet infringements of stock images. Our findings provide some insights into the extent of the problem-and lead us to hope that the industry can convert the infringement problem into a set of revenue opportunities for agencies and photographers.
The study tracked a sample of 20,000 images represented in the Rights Managed collections of the leading stock distributors, Getty Images and Corbis, who were not using PicScout's technology at the time. The largest sample -16,000 images from Getty Images-represented 3 percent of their RM collection at the time. An additional 4,000 images were from Corbis. The images came from the collections of 70 SAA members and included diverse subjects, styles and vintages.
We excluded from the sample images that had previously been licensed for website use. This assured a high level of accuracy in identifying actual infringements. In addition, all images had registered copyrights with the U.S. Library of Congress, thereby maximizing the potential to recover revenues and damages.
For four months, PicScout crawled commercial web sites in the U.S., U.K. and Germany looking for matches. We concluded the study when Getty Images began working directly with PicScout in April 2005. Later that year, Corbis also began working with PicScout. The following observations are based on detailed reports that included the URL, a screen grab, and contact information for each usage found.
There was an unacceptably high level of infringements.
Over the four-month period, we received 388 reports. 80% of these were for Getty Images and 20% from Corbis. If we annualize the study results, we arrive at an estimate of nearly 1,200 infringements for our sample. This translates to an annual infringement rate of almost 6%, or nearly 1 out of every 17 tracked images. This rate was slightly higher for the Getty sample where the infringement rate was about 1 in every 15 tracked images.The infringement rate for the market leaders may be higher than for other distributors. Comparing the study results to their other, smaller customers, PicScout observed that the rate of infringement for the Getty sample was significantly higher than the norm. It is perhaps not surprising that the most popular stock image sites are also frequent targets for theft.
The highest levels of infringements were in the U.S.
These accounted for 64% of the reported misuse, followed by Germany (23%) and the U.K. (13%).Infringements involved companies of all sizes and industries.
Websites with infringing uses ranged from local businesses to well-known global companies, and from diverse industries including business, technology, insurance, legal, medical, financial, real estate, travel and entertainment, marine, and manufacturing. Significantly, these industries represent mainstream users of properly licensed stock images.Misuse of images in "templates" was significant.
Multiple reports indicated that images are being incorporated into website design templates and then used frequently within an industry. We noted that these tended to be local businesses such as builders, funeral homes and health care services. Template sites are of particular concern because they spur viral distribution and infringement on a broad scale.Infringing images were frequently used as the primary visuals, and on multiple pages.
Many of the images were prominently used, often on home pages or as a major image on secondary pages. These same images were used an average of two times per site.Multiple infringements of images from the same sources were common.
Further investigation by PicScout revealed that on 29 of the websites where images were found, another 91 images from Getty not originally included in our sample were also being used. This suggests a common pattern of multiple infringements, in this small sample being a 3 to 1 ratio.These were not short-term uses.
One year later, many of the same images were still in use on these web sites. Two years later, these uses had declined, perhaps in response to takedown notices issued by the distributors.
SAA's study, now two years old, remains the most specific and actionable research on this issue.
