A TinEye alternative, or the step after TinEye

Where TinEye stops

TinEye is a search engine. It returns a list of URLs and it is finished. Everything that follows is left to you, and for most people that is where the problem actually starts.

It does not tell you who hosts the copy

A URL is not a filing address. Behind that domain is a host with a designated copyright agent, and that agent is who has to receive a notice for the host’s obligations under § 512 to engage. Finding that agent means a DNS lookup, an IP owner lookup, and a search of the US Copyright Office directory.

It does not confirm the match is still live

An index entry can be months old. Before anything is filed, somebody has to open the page and confirm the image is actually on it, because filing over content that is no longer there is how notices get rejected.

It does not write the notice

A notice that a host will act on has to contain six specific elements from § 512(c)(3)(A), including two sworn statements. A notice missing one is cheap for the recipient to reject.

It does not file anything

Every host, marketplace and platform has its own route — a form here, a plain-text-only email there, an uploaded letter of authorization somewhere else. TinEye is not in that business and does not claim to be.

It does not consider fair use

Lenz v. Universal requires a copyright holder to consider whether a use is fair before sending a notice. A search result cannot do that for you, and skipping it is a § 512(f) exposure.

None of this is a criticism. A reverse image search engine that also handled legal filings would be a strange product. But it does mean that for anyone whose actual goal is getting the copy taken down, TinEye is step one of about six.

What we do instead

Our scan takes a website rather than a single image, and it looks at both the writing and the pictures, because when a small business gets copied it is usually not just one photo. It is the product shots and the descriptions together, lifted as a set.

1. 1

   Scan

   Give us your site. We pull distinctive sentences and the substantial images from your pages, then search for them. We drop anything that appears on more than one of your own pages, because that is your template, not your content.

2. 2

   Verify

   Every candidate is checked against the live page before it is shown to you. We mark results as a possible match for you to review, never as theft, because that judgement is yours and ours to make together — not an algorithm’s.

3. 3

   Identify the route

   For each match we identify the host and its designated agent, and we tell you what that particular recipient requires. Some want plain text with no attachments. Some will not act without an uploaded letter of authorization. Some will forward your whole notice, including your contact details, to the person who copied you.

4. 4

   Decide, including about fair use

   Before anything is filed we work through whether the use might be fair, and we write that consideration down. That record is as important as the conclusion.

5. 5

   File

   We sign and send as your authorised agent, to the right address, in the format that recipient accepts.

6. 6

   Re-check

   Content that comes down sometimes goes back up. We check again, and if it has returned you are not billed for that page.

Which one you actually want

• Find where one image appears online

  TinEye. Free, fast, good at edited copies.

• Check whether a photo you were sent is original

  TinEye, sorted oldest first.

• Find every copy of your website’s words and pictures at once

  Our scan, which covers both.

• Find out who hosts a copy and where a notice goes

  Our host lookup, which is free and ungated.

• Write a notice that contains the six statutory elements

  Our notice builder, which is free and sends nothing anywhere.

• Have somebody else do the filing

  Us, and you pay only for pages that come down.

There is no conflict between these. Plenty of people will run a TinEye search, find one copy, and handle it themselves from there — and our free tools will help with that even if you never become a client. That is the intended outcome, not a failure of the funnel.

Honest limits on our side

Fair is fair, so here is where we are the weaker option.

• ✓Our image index is not TinEye’s. They have run a dedicated crawler for well over a decade. For raw image-matching recall, assume they beat us.
• ✓We scan a site, not a catalogue. If you are a photographer with forty thousand images and no website to point us at, we are the wrong shape of tool.
• ✓We do not monitor continuously. A scan is a snapshot. Monitoring is a different product and we do not pretend to offer it.
• ✓We are US-only at launch. The DMCA is US law. Canada runs notice-and-notice and the EU runs under the Digital Services Act, and both work differently enough that we would rather say no than do it badly.
• ✓We cannot promise removal. Nobody can. Hosts, registrars and search engines decide, and anyone who guarantees you an outcome is telling you something they do not control.

What we can say is that you will know where the copy is hosted, who the notice goes to, what that recipient requires, and what they will show the other side — before anything is sent and before you owe anything.