Google has announced that it has been working with the photo industry consortium CEPIC, and IPTC, the global technical standards body of the news media, in order to give users access to right-related image metadata in Google Images. Google said this data “is key to protecting image copyright and licensing information.”
The firm said that users will begin to see the Creator and Credit metadata when this information is available on Google Images. In the coming weeks it plans to add the Copyright Notice metadata to images too.
Discussing the news, Andrew Fingerman, CEO of PhotoShelter, said:
“Employing IPTC metadata standards in Google Images results will help ensure proper attribution of credit and support photographers’ copyright, while also boosting the discoverability of content and creators. This is a win for the professional photo community.”
With its partnership with CEPIC and IPTC, Google hopes to create better usage guidance for photographers, photo agencies, and publishers. With the copyright information readily available, websites that reuse images for commercial purposes will be able to more clearly find out if the image they are using is allowed to be used in that way, and if it is, whether or not attribution is required, and who to.