Plagiarism by the print media
Some tips to prevent your pictures from getting indexed by Google Images
I personally rely upon blogs for my source of information, and I often find them more useful than newspapers because blog posts are richly connected with links to other relevant information. With so much quality content freely available, its no wonder that the print media is increasingly sourcing, or stealing, stories, pictures and research from blogs.
In 2008, I was twice a victim of plagiarism, a different Indian newspaper on both occasions. I don’t know how many other incidents occurred after that because I no longer read Indian newspapers avidly. Mridula, one of my blogger friends from India who writes Travel Tales from India was a victim recently. India’s leading national newspaper, The Hindustan Times, stole her picture, cropped the copyright out and published it. Now that they have been caught, they are pleading innocence.
Where do these journalists get their images from? Google images and Flickr are the favorite sites of internet picture pirates. Google Images is an excellent example of how a wonderful tool can be abused. Google images indexes all images it comes across, and makes them publically searchable. Unfortunately this makes people lazy and temps them to steal images.
Here are some tricks I use to reduce the chances of my pictures getting stolen.
1. Removing an image from Google’s index
[From Google Webmaster Help]
I simply ask Google robots NOT to index any image from my website. To do that, you need to edit your robots.txt file.
To remove all the images on your site from Google Images index, add the following directive to your robots.txt file:
User-agent: Googlebot-Image Disallow: /
While this is a guaranteed method, it can be used only by bloggers who control their own servers. For the rest, here’s a workaround that might work.
2. Discouraging Image Alternative Text (ALT tag)
When you add an image to your post through blogger or wordpress, you will be asked to input “Alternate Text” for your image. That’s what I am talking about. First, lets understand why the ALT text is used.
In HTML, the ALT attribute (called Alternative Text) of your IMG (image) tag is used to record alternate text for your picture. This feature is very useful for accessibility based browsing (e.g. for vision-impaired users) or in case your image becomes unavailable. ALT tag was historically used for search engine optimization (SEO) but now thankfully Google ranks it quite low. So the significance of ALT tag has drastically reduced.
So I say, get rid of the habit of filling the ALT tag with useful keywords. For example, in the picture above, I’d have ALT tagged it “Machu Picchu, Inca ruins, Peru”, but now I simply say “image” or “[machu]123(pic chu)” or something like that. That way, you still follow XHTML 1.1 strict compliance, display a somewhat meaningful text in case your image is missing, AND prevent the search engines from indexing your picture in a useful way.
3. Change image file name
Simply call your pictures “4334.jpg” instead of “machu-picchu.jpg”. Remember, the lesser the keywords the search engine sees, the less likely it is going to index your picture prominently.
4. Use a big copyright symbol
Very effective, but aesthetically unpleasant. I refrain from doing that.
None of the above methods have any real impact on the overall page ranking of your website. So go ahead, try them. 
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Priyank at the moment the head is spinning. So will try and understand this later. Many many thanks for the link. Has the semester/term ended?
↵Hi Mridula, hope you had time to revisit this post. My term ended, I finished MBA, applied and found a job and started working already! Wow that’s a lot in two months!
↵I feel like plagiarizing your post for MakeUseOf…LOL!
Many SEO folks suggest the exact opposite of your suggestions, in order to increase the image SEO. But if anyone is as good a photographer like you, they surely need to do the opposite and follow your advice.
↵LOL That’s a compliment, Mahendra!! Thanks.
↵Nice tips about the ATL tag, I didn’t know that.
Plagiarism is a problem. For a while, I copyrighted all my pics on Flickr so that no one can download the largest size. Eventually, I reverted to “some rights reserved”.
I almost always give permission for people to use my pics but I absolutely hate when they feel they are entitled to and don’t say “thanks”. Call me old-fashioned, but I can’t stand it.
↵Thanks Zhu! I totally agree with you. Sadly, its hard to control what goes online… hopefully people will mature over time!
↵This plagiarism thing is definitely quite rude, I tell you. It has many shades to it too … like the other day I came across a friend’s blog which he powers with Word Press, but removes all references to it and simply puts a “created and designed by myself” at the bottom! The nerve!
↵LOL @The nerve of accusing someone without checking!
The website IS created and designed (the theme) by me. I didn’t manufacture the webserver nor did I program the backend software, but that’s kinda obvious, isn’t it? Do you give a credit to your word processing software or the paper company when you write your papers?
Anyway, all credits and references to the tools I used to build this site are on the “About website” page… now only if you checked before smartly jumping to write this comment…
↵Am sure if you search, you may find some method (or software) to make your images uncopyable(if there is such a term) from your own website as well.
↵There are scripts to prevent rightclicking, there are scripts to prevent others from viewing the source code. However, if you’ve been around enough, it is very easy to crack that. All it takes is a bit of browser tweaking.
↵Something for me to read and act on. I have rather non-descriptive titles for my pictures, but that doesn’t eliminate the possibility of being indexed and copied. Thanks for the very informative post.
↵Hope it helps LIW!
↵Have thought about the pros and cons but haven’t done anything yet. Being a more professional photographer (than I am), I guess your risks are higher than mine.
↵I’m not sure about that Shantanu! Your pics are a mouth-watering target (pun intended) for the ‘food’ section of a newspaper or magazine!
↵Hi Priyank, you’ve been awarded!
↵Do come over and pick up your award!
Thanks Gopinath!
↵I always credit the photographer when required but others will steal those images from my site. I’ve had to go through hoops to get those images de-indexed. I hate when people don’t credit when credit is required or bother learning about CC and other rules of use. If you have a site it’s your responsibility to learn them.
↵Exactly the point Anil, well put!
↵All fine methods to limit Google sucking your bandwidth and avoid journo’s pinching your stuff. But why?
Personally I could not be stuffed going to the trouble. If anyone would like to use my photos they are more than welcome, that’s why I publish on the web. I like to share with the community. If they choose not to credit me that is their problem. I am sure WordPress has similar ideals
Nice theme Priyank.
Cheers
↵Ruben
Hi Ruben,
↵I see your point, but often people will steal your materials and publish it as their own. For example, my stories and pictures were published in a newspaper and the writer claimed it as his own. I fully support free exchange of ideas and information, but there is a way to do it. Stealing is wrong, but if someone is courteous enough to ask me for a picture, I send it to them.
Hi Priyank! It’s quite unpleasant, in particular because they don’t ask you if they can steal…
↵Blogtrotter is waiting for you in London! Enjoy and have a great holiday season!
Hello Trotter, I know, I hate it when people take things for granted.
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