For a long time, Google Images didn’t do photographers any favors.
In fact, more often than not, it proved to be a nexus for copyright infringement and photo theft. But that’s all changed and now Google Images is going the extra step from being part of the solution to offering a new avenue for photographers to monetize their work.
This is being done through the addition of a label of Google Image search results that designates the picture as “licensable.” It gives all of the relevant information about the creator behind the work as well as how someone could best go about licensing it.
From the feature’s beta website: “When you specify license information for the images on your website, the image can display with a Licensable badge on image thumbnails in Google Images. This tells people that license information is available for the image, and provides a link to the license in the Image Viewer, which offers more detail on how someone can use the image.”
The new feature isn’t showing up on Google search results yet but it will soon. For photographers and website owners that want to get started on adding the necessary information to their images, they can do so by clicking this link here.
Overall, the Internet’s reaction to this development is overwhelmingly positive. That’s not a shock since most photographers wouldn’t mind a little help in monetizing their work and it looks like Google Image results could become a great new avenue for that.
What do you think of Google Images adding the “licensable” badge to pictures that show up in search results? Is this a good thing for photographers? Let us know what you think in the comments section below if you like.
And don’t forget to check out some of our other photography news articles on Light Stalking by clicking here.
