It takes a thief to catch a thief.

It seems incongruous that the arch-thief in American commerce, Google, should have crafted a tool which helps photographers seek out illegal use of their images.

It’s called www.images.Google.com and you have two choices to search for your image on the web:

• Upload a copy of the image to Google
• Input the URL for the image

Now the first approach has to be lunacy. Like giving a fresh needle and loaded syringe to an addict. So I opted for the second and searched for my wolfhound picture:

Absent a couple of non-commercial Tumblr illict reproductions – hardly of concern – one cropped up where the schmuck who stole my picture was using it to advertise his tweed clothing on eBay.UK (shock news that eBay might actually be involved in providing a conduit for theft).

So I wrote to the son of an unmarried mother in simple terms:

You may wish to use the thieves’ tool to catch thieves yourself.

Follow-up Feb 16, 2013: The thief has now taken my image off his site. May he rot in hell.