Update 1 Sept 2020 – this has launched – so finding misuse of image should be a whole lot easier for both photographers and photo agencies.
More at Google here
First published 19 August 2020 Best news of the week here – This has been in the pipeline for months but looks like it’s gaining good pace! ….’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.’ Here
Related:
• Google Images now displays photo IPTC metadata up front
Yes we’ve been working with the Google Images team on this and we will be very happy to see it launch soon!
Image metadata can be added with schema.org markup in HTML or embedded into the image file using IPTC photo metadata. We’ve created a full guide showing photographers and site owners how it works: https://iptc.org/standards/photo-metadata/quick-guide-to-iptc-photo-metadata-and-google-images/
When metadata is added directly to the image file, Google will pick it up and display the Licensable badge every time without you having to remember to add it to the HTML of every page where the image is used, so we think that this option is much better.
And it’s yet another argument against stripping embedded metadata from images before they are published on the web. Stripping metadata deprives photo owners of revenues, and may be illegal in some jurisdictions, so please don’t do it!