Tell us what images you want to protect and let our software find where it is used
Our software is constantly searching the internet for appearances of our clients’ work on the internet. Imagine you hired a person to search for illegal uses of your images on the internet. Now imagine that person is a machine who searches the internet thousands of times faster than any human ever could: that is what our software does for you. But it gets better!
See, you don’t actually upload your image to our server; instead, you upload the image’s signature. An image’s “signature” is a technical term here, but, to make it simple, what our machines receive is less the picture itself and more the “DNA” of the picture. Why is that great? Because some might try to use your work and get away with it by slightly modifying it. They might photoshop it, add a filter to it, or turn the image on its head. That could be an issue if it was a human looking for uses of your images. Fortunately, our software is not some intern looking with its eyes but a machine searching for uses of your work with the digital equivalent of a DNA test.
“Some of my work is private and only meant for me and my customers”
Our mission here at CatchScan is to help internet creators reign in the anarchy of the internet and regain control of their own content. That control includes privacy, so we totally understand why you might be hesitant to upload your images to our server. This is yet another reason why we actually don’t ask you to upload your content to our servers. Our software only takes the image’s signature (or, metaphorically speaking, its “DNA”) and then searches the internet for where it can find a matching signature. No matter how sensitive or private your work is, you can safely upload it to your CatchScan profile. No human at CatchScan sees the images you ask our software to protect, and even the machines doing the searching are only familiar with your image’s “digital DNA”, so to speak. The only time human eyes might become involved is if an instance of illegal use becomes a legal case you want us to handle, but even then we will strive to respect your wishes and protect your privacy, as far as the case permits. All in all, your privacy is safe in our services.
“Won’t your software think my collaborations with firms/other creators are illegal?”
Not all use of your content is illegal and it is not uncommon for internet creators to license out their work. Maybe you are going to give a talk at a venue, and you give the place permission to use an image from your Instagram to advertise it. Perhaps you are collaborating with someone, and lend them one of your iconic pictures as part of the collaboration. And, of course, maybe you make your living by outright selling your art/images online, and your clients’ use of said work might be entirely legal. We have two safeguards against this issue.
Firstly, you can “whitelist” what websites are allowed to use some of your work. “Whitelisting” means you tell our software what domains can use what images of yours. So, when CatchScan finds uses of your work, it checks to see if the use in question has been whitelisted. If it has, nothing further happens. But what if you forget to whitelist a site? Or what if a firm takes an image that you gave them license to use and uploads it to a different site than the one(s) you whitelisted? Luckily, we have safeguard number 2, and it is good old fashioned human oversight. See, when our software detects what it thinks might be illegal use, it doesn’t automatically go about starting a legal process. Instead, our software reaches out to you and informs you that there may be illegal use of your work afoot. If you see that it is an image you have given permission to be used, simply let our software know that you wish to whitelist the use. And if it actually is a case of someone infringing upon your copyright, you are in full control of how to approach the situation. You have the option of handling it yourself or have us handle the contact and legal aspects of protecting your copyright.
Our mission is to give control back to online content creators. Whether your concern is that your content is being stolen, you worry about balancing protection of your content with the privacy of your work, or that you simply wish to get an overview of when and how your images are being used online, our software can put all those fears to rest. Just let our machines handle oversight, protection and let our legal team handle contact to copyright infringers, so that you can focus on what you do best: create!
