Pixsy website review

[Mike Farley]

I certainly didn't consent for my image to be used and DPS make money off their guides. Maybe this is worthy of trying out the Pixsy service.

The site is also supposed to be supported by advertising, not that there is anything which I can see. What is disappointing is that the guy is a photographer himself yet did not think to ask before using your work.

[davidc]

I was about to write a blog post on my experience so far but then Pixsy advise about mentioning anything until a specific case is resolved. So I won't be saying anymore about this, although I did find something else that amused me! On an arabic language site someone had ripped off not only my image -- albeit with credit - but also took the entire article and reposted it under his name!

So DPS are themselves being ripped off

So far I've logged over a dozen claims and there's 40 mins before bedtime!

[Mike Farley]

.....although I did find something else that amused me! On an arabic language site someone had ripped off not only my image -- albeit with credit - but also took the entire article and reposted it under his name!

So DPS are themselves being ripped off

No honour amongst thieves.

[davidc]

Update. Actually I;m not discussing specifics or concluding judgement so I'm posting a selection of some of the cases I'm asking Pixsy to deal with. Hopefully the article and process will be useful to others.

http://davidcandlish.photography/news/2 ... vwu6c8d39k

[Mike Farley]

Thanks for an interesting and, its way, amusing article. At least you have managed to extract some humour from what is a serious situation.

I suspect that the matching algorithms for the basic service are deliberately hazy to encourage take up of the paid service which are supposed to have a more accurate search. Amateurs might be prepared to invest the time in eliminating mismatches, but a small fee would be worthwhile for a professional if only genuine results are returned. I do not know if there is a minimum subscription period, but if not you could invest $9.99 for a month in the interests of your loyal readers.

I look forward to finding out how you get on.

[Paul Heester]

Im glad everyones invites have come through and that you are getting to see whats being used "out there". As you have all signed up recently I would suggest returning to the site in a week or two after they have trawled the further reaches of the internet. Even signing up a year ago I recently logged on to find I had 80+ matches (although its algorithm appears to have had a siesta as some matches were nowhere close).

[Mike Farley]

If anyone gets anything out of this, I suggest that they owe Paul a drink for alerting us to this service.

I have checked the subscription rates and there is no minimum sign-up period for those wanting to try it and the faster, more accurate search. Over to you, Dave.

[Mike Farley]

I felt that I was missing out on the fun, so I imported two of my most successful images which have featured in Amateur Photographer both in print and online, but not on any image sharing sites. From a previous investigation, I knew that one older had been misappropriated from the AP website but did not know the status of the more recent shot. Pixsy very quickly and accurately picked up some of the matches I knew about, but there was one which I had not previously known of by a magazine. I have submitted a case, but given that the shot involved was a winner of a competition and was used in conjunction with publicity in connection with an event run by the organisers, it is possible that the use was legitimate. Unfortunately the competition was nearly nine years ago and I no longer have the terms and conditions.

[Mike Farley]

I have done a comparison with Google reverse image search using my most popular, i.e. stolen, image and Pixsy picked up more than Google. In the main, most are blog posts of one form or another, which was the case when I used the Google search a few years ago. Since then, some of the occurrences seem to have been removed (without any intervention from me), but new ones have appeared.

[Mike Farley]

I have received a response from Pixsy stating that they do not consider my claim to be viable as the potential to receive any form of payment is low. They give a number of reasons why this might be the case, but most likely it is due to the commercial activity creating insufficient revenues. That is not entirely unsurprising as my expectations were not that high and I was as much interested to see the process, but at least it was a prompt turnaround by Pixsy.