Image Monitoring

Section 01

Why timing matters

An unauthorised use of a photograph is often short-lived. Pages are redesigned, product listings expire, blog posts are archived, and an operator who hears about a problem may delete the image within hours. If nothing was recorded beforehand, the rights holder is left with the memory of having seen it and, at best, a cropped screenshot with no date and no address.

Removing an image ends the ongoing display; it does not erase the use already made. That principle only has practical value if the earlier use can be shown. Monitoring exists to close this gap: to find occurrences while they are still online and to record them in a form that the other party, a hosting provider or counsel can check later.

This page explains how Atlantic searches, what it records, how findings are sorted before anyone is contacted, and where monitoring reaches its limits. Licence checks, notices and the handoff to counsel are described on their own service pages.

Section 02

How images are found

Atlantic works from the images the rights holder submits through the platform, once their authority to act has been verified. Each image is run through reverse image search and monitored across the open web: company and personal websites, online shops and marketplaces, blogs and news sites, and the public pages of platforms where content can be viewed without an account.

Two modes coexist. A one-off search answers a specific question, such as where the photographs from a recent assignment have appeared. Continuous monitoring keeps a whole portfolio under watch, so that new occurrences are picked up soon after publication rather than months later, when the image may already have been replaced.

Search results are leads, not findings. A match returned by a search engine may point to a thumbnail, a cached copy, a crop published by the photographer themselves, or a page where the image no longer appears. Every lead is checked before it is recorded as an occurrence in the file.

Section 03

Defining what should be watched

Monitoring is only useful if it leaves aside what the rights holder has authorised. The rights holder can tell Atlantic which uses are authorised (their own sites, clients, agencies, licensees), and those uses are not pursued.

Monitoring can also take account of the regions and types of site that matter to the rights holder. Some rights holders want every occurrence worldwide; others prefer to concentrate on commercial sites, on particular countries or on certain marketplaces, because that is where their work is most often used without permission or where they are prepared to act. These choices only affect what is reported. They do not affect the rights themselves: under the Berne Convention (art. 5(2)), the enjoyment and exercise of copyright are not subject to any formality, and under the principle of national treatment a photograph is generally protected in each member country on the same terms as the works of that country’s own nationals.

ReferencesBerne Convention

The scope can be revised at any time. When a new licence is granted, adding the licensee’s domain prevents its use from being reported at all.

Section 04

What is recorded for each occurrence

Once a lead is confirmed, it is captured as an occurrence. The aim is a record that someone who was not present can verify: a host’s abuse team, the operator’s lawyer, or counsel instructed for the rights holder months later. Each occurrence contains:

• the full address of the page on which the image is displayed;
• the direct address of the image file, which may sit on a different server or content network;
• the date and time of capture;
• a full-page screenshot showing the image in context, with headers, product details, advertising or contact information;
• a copy of the image file as served by the site;
• a SHA-256 fingerprint of each evidence file, so that it can later be shown that nothing was altered after capture.

Captures, and every later action on the occurrence, are logged in a chain-of-custody record showing what was captured, when, and what was done with it afterwards. A screenshot on its own shows what a screen displayed at some point. Combined with the addresses, the timestamp, the file copy and the fingerprints, it becomes a record whose integrity can be checked.

Context visible on the page is noted as well: whether the site sells goods or services, whether the image illustrates an article or an advertisement, whether a credit, watermark or caption is present or appears to have been removed. These details matter later, for instance when assessing commercial use, or when copyright management information may have been removed or altered. That question is addressed by 17 U.S.C. § 1202 and by art. 7 of Directive 2001/29/EC, and liability under them depends on knowledge and intent.

References17 U.S.C. § 1202 · Dir. 2001/29/EC

Section 05

First triage: licensed, uncertain, likely unauthorised

Not every occurrence is a problem, and a service that treats every match as an infringement creates disputes that should never arise. Each occurrence is therefore placed in one of three categories before any letter is considered.

• Licensed: the use falls within the rights holder’s exclusions, or matches a known licence or a sale confirmed in the contributor’s records. It is closed without any claim. A credit alone leads to a request for the licence record.
• Uncertain: there are signs that a licence may exist, such as a stock agency credit, an editorial context or a client relationship the rights holder is unsure about. Atlantic first asks for the licence record instead of escalating.
• Likely unauthorised: no exclusion applies, no licence indication appears, and the context suggests the image was taken from elsewhere. The occurrence moves on to review and, where justified, to correspondence.

The category is a working assessment based on what is visible, not a legal conclusion. It can change: an operator may produce a valid licence, or an apparently licensed use may turn out to exceed the licence terms. The detailed licence check is described on the licensing review page.

The usual explanations are recorded at this stage, but they do not change the category by themselves. Finding an image through a search engine or on a free-wallpaper site does not grant any right to use it. Crediting the photographer is not a licence. An old photograph is not free of rights for that reason alone, since copyright in photographs generally lasts for decades. The absence of a US registration does not mean the work is unprotected: under 17 U.S.C. § 411(a), registration is needed before suing over a United States work, foreign works are exempt, and under § 412 timely registration mainly affects the remedies available, not the existence of the right.

References17 U.S.C. §§ 411(a), 412

Section 06

Repeated reuse

The same image rarely appears only once. A photograph copied onto one site is often reused by the same operator on several pages, on a second domain, in a social media banner or in a marketplace listing. It can also spread: other sites copy it from the first one, each assuming it is freely available.

Monitoring links these occurrences. When the same operator uses the same image, or several images by the same rights holder, the occurrences are grouped so that one coherent matter is opened rather than a series of disconnected letters. When different operators are involved, each is treated separately, because each published the image on its own site. The site operator is generally the party that published the content even when a web designer or agency chose the image, although how responsibility is shared with a contractor depends on the jurisdiction.

Continuous monitoring also shows what happens after an image has been removed or a matter resolved. If the image reappears on the same site, or on a new domain run by the same operator, the new occurrence is captured and linked to the earlier file. The history is then visible in the record instead of having to be reconstructed from memory.

Section 07

Monitoring for stock contributors

Contributors to stock libraries face a particular difficulty: their images are legitimately licensed many times, usually without the contributor knowing who the buyers are. A search for a popular stock image may return a long list of uses, most of them covered.

For these portfolios, triage relies more heavily on licence indications. A match with the contributor’s sales records points to a licensed use, and such uses are closed. An agency credit or a consistent editorial context leads Atlantic to ask first for the licence record. Other signs point the other way: the agency’s preview watermark still visible on the image, a file traced to a free-download or wallpaper site, or a use with no credit on a site whose activity has no link to any known sale. Where doubt remains, the licence record is requested first, because a stock licence may have been bought by a designer, agency or platform acting for the operator.

The contributor’s agreement with the library also matters. Some agreements leave enforcement to the contributor; others reserve certain steps to the agency. Atlantic’s verification of the licence chain and mandate before acting covers this point, so that a contributor does not pursue a use the agency has already licensed or is already handling.

Section 08

What monitoring cannot reach

Monitoring covers what is publicly accessible on the open web. Some uses fall outside it, and it is better to say so plainly.

• Private or restricted pages: content behind a login, in closed groups, in private messaging or on intranets is not searched.
• Paywalled content: articles or catalogues behind a subscription may not be indexed, or only in part.
• Heavily altered images: tight crops, mirrored versions, strong colour changes, composites or images with added text can escape reverse image search or be matched with less certainty. Such matches are compared visually with the original before being recorded, and doubtful ones are not presented as findings.
• Offline uses: brochures, packaging, posters and printed publications are outside the reach of web monitoring.
• Content removed before detection: if an image disappears before it is found, there may be nothing left to capture apart from third-party archives, which do not always provide the same verifiable record.

Monitoring therefore does not guarantee that every use will be found. Its purpose is to find more uses while they are still visible, and to make sure that what is found is recorded properly.

Section 09

What the rights holder receives

The rights holder is kept informed of the occurrences found and of how each one is being handled, including those closed as licensed, so that they can correct an exclusion or confirm a licence they had overlooked.

When an occurrence is retained, it becomes part of a Case File with a reference of the form AID-YYYY-NNNNN. The next steps (licence check, correspondence with the operator, notices to hosting providers and, if needed, transmission to counsel) are handled as described on the corresponding service pages. Atlantic is not a law firm and does not give legal advice; where legal action is warranted, the file may be handed to qualified counsel in the relevant jurisdiction, and the captures made at the monitoring stage form the basis of that file.

Nothing is sent to an image user merely because a match was found. Monitoring results are not published, and Atlantic does not contact the clients of a site operator.

To start, submit your images through the platform, together with the domains of your own sites, clients and licensees, and any licence or agency information you hold. Once your authority to act has been verified, search and monitoring begin on that basis.