Do you modify and use stock photos without paying? Beware!

May be you guys have heard about this company – TinEye. I discovered about these guys today and thought of blogging about them as I find them really cool!

TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology. Given an image to search for, TinEye tells you where and how that image appears all over the web—even if it has been modified.

It works like this. Firstly you upload an image (whetever you have) on to TinEye.

Then search. You will be amazed to see a detailed list of any websites using that image, worldwide. The image could be the same, edited, used creatively elsewhere, etc. For instance, see the images below. The first one, “origanal query image” if the image uploaded and returned with results of the same image being used elsewhere.

I became curious and tried one search. I was amazed to see that the image I’ve uploaded (I got it from a website) is a copy writed one from one of the leading stock photo sites. See below to believe.

So beware of design heroes, you are being watched!