FYI - Reverse Image & Video Search Engines

Soniclight schrieb am 11.10.2011 um 04:08 Uhr

Probably old news to most, but if not, something to check out.

I've been using the first, TinEye, from about the time it was introduced about a year or so ago. It's occasionally helped me find the original artist or photographer so I could credit/ask permission of use. The second is brand new and I just discovered it and so it probably needs time become its vision.

Both are obviously still relatively new compared to the standard text-based search that's been around for many years, so further development is in order, but promising.

TinEye- Still image only. You can either bookmark the site and/or add its plugin to your browser (FF, IE, Chrome, Safari, Opera). I have the latter and it's handy.

Vechos- Video and still image. I cannot vouch for either modality since I haven't tested it but it seems a natural progression from TinEye.

Kommentare

Kevin R schrieb am 11.10.2011 um 05:00 Uhr

Google image search does this as well. Click on the camera icon in the search bar and a window will open allowing you to specify either an image URL or upload an image.

TheHappyFriar schrieb am 11.10.2011 um 05:49 Uhr

Interesting... to reverse look up a piece of media it would need to be analyzed. Ripping apart an image/video like this would be done digitally. I'm pretty sure reverse engineering w/o permission is against the DMCA. It would be simular to reverse engineering an iPad so you can find the names of the guys who worked on component/software X and hire them.

Chienworks schrieb am 11.10.2011 um 07:02 Uhr

Oh lordy! Do a google image search for this image: http://www.kellychien.com/eaten_mushroom_1.jpg and you get some mighty amusing matches.

Soniclight schrieb am 11.10.2011 um 08:46 Uhr

"Interesting... to reverse look up a piece of media it would need to be analyzed. Ripping apart an image/video like this would be done digitally. I'm pretty sure reverse engineering w/o permission is against the DMCA. It would be simular to reverse engineering an iPad so you can find the names of the guys who worked on component/software X and hire them."
Hmmm. I would think that purpose is more important than technology in this instance. This actually can help people have their copyrights respected IMO as I stated on why/how I tend to use it. Depending on the format and compression, embedded info probably varies widely too.

Insofar as the iPad analogy, seems a bit far-fetched to me. Maybe Apple is more secretive than other companies, but as an example, Steinberg/Yamaha lists all the people who worked on Cubase under About splash screen -- and I'm not talking about a handful: about 70 people from developers to product design listed similar to film credits according to title/job. I've been using Cubase for almost 10 years (before they became part of Yamaha) and they have always included this roster.

There are other probably also far easier ways to do "corporate head-hunting" (and/or "espionage"). Maybe programmers have large egos and tend to want to put their name or stamp on code, I don't know. But my guess is that each company has internal contractual rules in that regard too.

All that said, I'm just an artiste who uses software.
What do I know, eh? :o)

amendegw schrieb am 11.10.2011 um 11:25 Uhr

Ha! Great fun. I plugged my facebook profile image into the reverse Google Search (Visually Similar option) and got the following. I guess I didn't expect George Clooney to pop out, but I was amused by the Samurai warrior and the stoned woman smoking a joint. [chuckles]

...Jerry

NickHope schrieb am 11.10.2011 um 14:19 Uhr

I have sent literally hundreds of DMCA take-down notices on my pictures and videos in the last 2 years. These were just for infringements that I stumbled across in my routine work.

I tried TinEye a couple of times and it found a couple of infringements. However when I recently tried the Google reverse image search on my more popular images, I realised it's time to just give up and admit defeat or I will never do anything but send take-down notices. (Thieving gits!)

I daren't even submit one of my more popular videos to vechos. Ignorance is bliss.