TinEye Image Search

I stumbled across a fascinating bit of search engine technology the other day, called TinEye. What’s interesting about this site is that searches are done with images rather than text. You upload an image or paste a direct link to an image and TinEye goes out and finds the image, and an astonishing amount of variations of the original on sites across the web. They have a really interesting introductory video starring none other than Amber MacArthur (so it must be good, right?).

I’m mentioning this because it has some interesting implications in the ongoing conflict between copyright holders and those who infringe said copyrights. I’m not sure how I feel about TinEye. Here’s why.

While I think this will be a fantastic tool for artists to ensure their work isn’t being used without permission, I see the potential for something like this to be abused. More often than not, in this web 2.0 world of ours, images are posted on blogs and websites without permission. That’s just the mindset of the social web: share and share alike. No one really thinks about copyrighted images on the internet.

So where’s the problem? This technology could very well set off a RIAA-like witch hunt targeting college students and art enthusiasts who innocently post someone else’s photo on their website (“hey, check out this awesome image by /* insert name here */ !”).

Hopefully it won’t come to that, but I wouldn’t put it outside the realm of possibility…