According to a recent report, as many as 2.5 billion online photos get stolen every day. A new strategic partnership between Flickr and Pixsy aims to reduce this number. Or at least, to help you protect your work and take legal action. The two companies are about to make it easier for photographers to track their images, and if necessary, to take legal action in an effort to preserve the integrity and value of their work.
Pixsy was founded by photographers in 2014, with the goal to fight for the rights of artists and photographers. It partners with 26 law firms across the world and it’s working on a no win, no fee basis. The platform uses AI-powered solution which has uncovered more than 200 million matches so far and has handled 70,000 copyright infringement cases.
As part of this partnership, Flickr members will be able to automatically integrate their photos with Pixsy’s monitoring and protection platform. Flickr Pro members will get an enhanced service offering access to 1,000 monitored images, 10 DMCA takedown notices, and unlimited case submission, and all of this for free. When Pixsy detects a copyright infringement, the photographer gets alerted. Then, he or she can decide what action to take. If they decide to file a claim, Pixsy enables them to take legal action worldwide. Photographers have access to a comprehensive case resolution service to recover lost licensing revenue and damages. Also, there are the tools that let them register images with the US Copyright office and send automated DMCA takedown notices. According to Andrew Stadlen, VP of Product for Flickr, partnering with Pixsy was a logical step for the company. He said that it “helps [them] deliver on what [they] believe is a core value for Flickr.” Flickr adds that this partnership is particularly timely considering that the European Parliament has passed a controversial new Copyright Directive. The new directive, particularly Article 11 and Article 13, is set to change how sharing of images and other copyrighted materials online is regulated and enforced. I think this partnership is a great decision and Flickr users could benefit from it. Personally, whenever I had my photo stolen, it was stolen from Flickr. However, I had to do a reverse image search to discover it. Integrating Pixsy’s platform with Flickr should make it easier not only to discover copyright infringement but also to take legal action if you decide to do so.
