Copyright enforcement service ImageRights has acquired Image Witness. ImageRights said the acquisition will bolster its “technology leadership position in the fast-growing copyright enforcement services industry”.

Servicing photo agencies and professional photographers, ImageRight’s offers intensive image search and recognition technologies. Image Witness’s algorithms, meanwhile, are designed for scanning large, content rich websites for image licensing and copyright enforcement.

The combined systems will provide actionable image sightings for clients through the ImageRights dashboard, which will then be analysed and sorted. ImageRights will then recommend whether a claim should be pursued through ImageRights license compliance or through a partner law firm.

Matthew Johnson, founder and CEO of Image Witness, said: “I have known and followed the developments at ImageRights over the years, so when the opportunity was presented I knew ImageRights was the perfect fit.”

“ImageRights has always had an upstanding reputation in the industry and I am glad to see that our clients will be in such great hands.”

Joe Naylor, president and CEO of ImageRights said: “Image Witness’s rapid scan image search can be immediately integrated into our existing platform.”

“We can now deliver extremely fast and accurate image use reporting, accelerating revenue recognition for agencies that previously had to rely on the self-reporting of image use by their largest media and enterprise clients.”