fstoppers.com/news/google-adds-new-licensable-tag-help-photographers-sell-photos-508399?utm_source=FS_RSS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=Main_RSS

developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/image-license-metadata

I think that it could be a game changer for selling direct. But agencies are sure to strip our meta data for anything that runs through them.

Then "their" images will not be shown on google searches. And that's great thing.

After reading, there needs to be a license and link to a checkout page. Image Chekout Page? Kind of like self hosted, and the catch for me has always been, the checkout page. I mean, someone can find a site and a gallery, then the problem is, how do I collect the money?

Some more discussion here:

http://blog.melchersystem.com/its-here-its-live-its-a-badge/

I spent some time looking at image searches to see where the new "licensable" badges appear.

Some images from some agencies are already showing badges.

Three agencies, Dreamstime, Getty & iStock, show the name of the copyright owner in the details (when you click on the licensable icon).

Alamy, Shutterstock, & several others don't show author details.

123rf and DepositPhotos show a "product" tag not a "licensable" one, but do show contributor information.

Adobe Stock doesn't show anything.

Interestingly, if there is metadata in an image - used in a blog or from a contributor's own site - Google displays that if you click on the image. There's no tag as there is with product or licensable.

This is much more interesting than the agency's image showing licensable tags as it means that anyone happening upon the image in a search can find who owns it (and one more search on your name can easily find you, especially if you have your own site).

Some of the agencies strip some of the metadata - in particular the copyright info URL which in my case points to my own site. Adobe Stock leaves that in, but changes the copyright notice.

In one example I found, it changed from "� 2014 Jo Ann Snover" to "�Jo Ann Snover - stock.adobe.com". They also changed the modification date to reflect when they made those edits (when I uploaded).

So from the agency perspective, making the metadata lead back to them, or nowhere, is preferable. From a contributor perspective, I want the metadata left in there, unmodified, so that the uses of my images on any site, blog, publication, etc., will all lead back to me, not any agency.

As Jo Ann said, at this moment, only Depositphotos and Dreamstime have the licensable tag, and 123rf and Canstock show the Product tag.
This means that Adobe and Shutterstock are running far behind those 4.
Shutterstock now tries to solve this problem quickly by teaming up with Google, but this ONLY has effect on THEIR FUTURE searches.  Every image sold before today, sold by Shutterstock, showing up in a search on a buyer's website, will NOT have a tag. 

I don't think that's correct? I just did a quick search and could find multiple of my photos on Google from Shutterstock with a tag, even though none of these photos sold recently, some even never sold at all. I found some that don't have the tag as well, but I don't know why some have it and others don't. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with sales or recent or old files, as far as I can tell.

Is that a new image or an oldie?  I did the test with a 3 year old photo.  I assume it takes quite some time to tag 300 million images ...

That particular one is about one year old.

As Jo Ann said, ...
This means that Adobe and Shutterstock are running far behind those 4.

I said that Shutterstock and Alamy don't show author details. They do show the licensing tag, but what you see when you click on the tag does not name the copyright holder.

All the tags - product and licensable - are spotty. Not all images from an agency show the tags. I didn't find any for Adobe (but given their program for tracking image history, perhaps they want nothing to do with this Google initiative)

Shutterstock appears to be linking to searches versus the image shown, and they also use the product tag, but I've so far seen that only for videos, not images or illustrations

Here are some examples

I did find an example where Shutterstock's licensable tag was linked to a specific image (versus a keyword search) but they still don't name the copyright holder in the description

I just had a look at the video and by the look of it unless you have your own site all you are doing is promoting stock libraries and to no financial return on our part, except possibly licensing that image but once the clicker has got to the library they could increase their search and license an image from another contributor, so again the only corporation thatj benefits is the Stock library. Imagine the amount of time it will take to do this to everyone of your images, go out and shoot images, don't waste your time.
Now if the stock libraies pay you to do it say .20c an image it might be worth alook at.

When I opened the topic of IPTC-related metadata first in the Shutterstock Contributors Italy group on Facebook, then in the Stock Coalition group, about three weeks ago, not many people knew. Many were surprised. I have done a lot of research before and yes, it turns out that all agencies remove copyright information from metadata, which is not legal. There is a fine of around 2500 euros for each copy sold with ripped metadata. So if they sell 1000 copies of an image, they have to pay around 2,500,000 mil. only for that image. And I'm not joking. We are right to open an endless lawsuit against agencies that do not respect copyright.

FIRSTLY, THE INFOSOC DIRECTIVE (EUROPEAN DIRECTIVE 2001/29 / EC):

It has long been known that this law prohibits the removal of any copyright metadata (including both watermark and IPTC / Exif / Xmp / other embedded metadata) from any digital media. This has however it has been largely ignored because in Europe, member countries are required to pass their own national laws to support and sanction the violation of European directives. The EC is pursuing some nations for not implementing this directive, but the dust has not subsided yet.
Despite this lack of sanctions in many Member States, the directive stands as European law. The relevant clause (Article 7) reads:

1. Member States shall provide for adequate legal protection against any person knowingly performing without authority any of the following acts:
(a) the removal or alteration of any electronic rights-management information;
(b) the distribution, importation for distribution, broadcasting, communication or making available to the public of works or other subject-matter protected under this Directive or under Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC from which electronic rights-management information has been removed or altered without authority,
if such person knows, or has reasonable grounds to know, that by so doing he is inducing, enabling, facilitating or concealing an infringement of any copyright or any rights related to copyright as provided by law, or of the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC.
2. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression �rights-management information� means any information provided by rightholders which identifies the work or other subject-matter referred to in this Directive or covered by the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC, the author or any other rightholder, or information about the terms and conditions of use of the work or other subject-matter, and any numbers or codes that represent such information.

SECONDLY, THE DMCA (DIGITAL MILLENIUM COPYRIGHT ACT):

From wikipedia: [the DMCA] criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.
The DMCA is almost universally recognised online, and many agencies are familiar with DMCA takedown requests (it was the addition of an automated platform for handling them released by Dreamstime).
The relevant clause in the DMCA (Section 1202(b)) reads:
REMOVAL OR ALTERATION OF COPYRIGHT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION No
person shall, without the authority of the copyright owner or the law �
(1) intentionally remove or alter any copyright management information,
(2) distribute or import for distribution copyright management information knowing that the copyright management information has been removed or altered without authority of the copyright owner or the law, or
(3) distribute, import for distribution, or publicly perform works, copies of works, or phonorecords, knowing that copyright management information has been removed or altered without authority of the copyright owner or the law, knowing, or, with respect to civil remedies under section 1203, having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement of any right under this title.

Then, read here http://www.metnews.com/articles/2018/dmca062118.htm
what says The Ninth Circuit about DMCA�s restriction against metadata removal.
IS VIOLATION of 17 U.S.C. Section 1202(b) the removal or alteration of copyright management information (CMI) from a work. Is likely to encourage future infringement of the work.

The very serious agencies about this are Depositphotos which is not ripping metadata (all the photos downloaded by them show all the metadata I entered in the IPTC fields) and Dreamstime, which in the copyright field specifies your Dreamstime username and their agency. Getty image and AdobeStock partially removes it, from 10 images 3 or 4 keep the metadata.

SO, IT'S TIME THAT ALL CONTRIBUTORS KNOW THAT WE HAVE TO FIGHT AGAINST THIS AND WE HAVE TO OBTAIN FROM ALL AGENCIES THE OUR RIGHT: THEY DON'T HAVE TO TOUCH THE METADATA IN OUR FILES!

The law of the USA is very valid in the USA. Therefore, agencies must take responsibility to abide by the law where they market their products, for example, they are responsible for avoiding storing copyrighted images without permission.

The adaptation period is soon over, the large internet companies have been working for years on this famous article 13, which soon each European country will impose its fines. In other words, agencies operating in Europe must adapt their storage, ensuring that they have the appropriate permits. YouTube, twitter, etc. They have been working on this issue for a long time.

Translated, before the user was punished, now the companies. The term runs out, allegedly stolen images, in the microstock window, entails a fine, and a ban on working in a market of 500 million potential users.

It no longer works, the user deceived me claiming that he was the author, the companies are responsible for ensuring legitimate copyright and providing the necessary means for this purpose. Scandal fines, for this, he left two years of adaptation. I suppose that the agencies have been working on this issue for years, because the fines lift from the ground any company that does not respect it.

Either they take care of the theft of files or it is a communiqu� and obligatory action ex officio and free of charge against the company that violates the law before any user who identifies himself and alleges violation of rights. Administrative action ex officio with a response within 6 months, once the complaint has been made. Free. It is not part of the accusation, the Data Protection Agency acts ex officio and penalizes the offender, you do not earn money with it, but our rights are monitored.

Regarding the issue of data, we authorize a lot when signing the collaboration, it would be necessary to read carefully everything related to this issue of permits, authorizations, when working with agencies.

With respect to the DMCA in the US (I have no understanding of European case law); several cases in the US have covered the issue of CMI removal and made it clear that the removal has to be with the intent of facilitating copyright infringement. Without that intent, the DMCA doesn't help.

It's a shame that's how the law was written, but the solution is legislative (change the law) not a lawsuit. Right now the US congress is utterly dysfunctional, so this is a longer-term goal

Maybe with JRB Jr. and Kamala Harris, the first woman, African American, Asian American to serve as vice president, we could get some laws changed. Biden won, now lets see him do something with his promises. Protect our work

�We�ll build back better with ... newly empowered labor unions. With equal pay for women. With rising wages you can raise a family on. Yes, we�re going to do more than praise our essential workers. We�re finally going to pay them.�