Image piracy campaign launched

Stock-image website Vivozoom is urging surfers to increase their awareness of online image piracy.

Though many anti-piracy campaigns cite the damage caused to the music and film industries by illegal downloading, Vivozoom is aiming to encourage anyone who publishes an image on a website or social-networking profile to make sure it is properly licensed.

The company reckons that online image theft costs the industry 500m a year.

Lawrence Gould, co-founder of Vivozoom said: "Thousands of images are easily found and copied with a couple of mouse clicks and people often just don't realise that they are, in effect, stealing from another design professional.

"Photographers and distributors deserve to get paid for their work while our customers need peace of mind that they have the correct rights to the image they have bought," he continued.

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