You've probably lifted a picture from Google Images and dropped it into a school project or a presentation for work. But if you work in media — as I do for Android Police — you need to be sure that you have the rights to use the photos that you want. Now, Google is implementing new badges and filters in image search to make licensable assets easier to find.

Earlier this year, Google Images placing badges reflecting the content of the site that a particular result is sourced from. The company also indicated that it was testing badges for licensing purposes.

For webmasters that provide IPTC Image Rights metadata to Google, search users will now see a Licensable badge on their results in the top-level view of page. People can tap on the picture to pull up an expanded description with links to the holding agency and details of the license itself.

There's also a new usage rights filter which lets users look for Creative Commons media or those under licenses of other types.

You can learn more about how IPTC metadata can be indexed by Google here.

Source: Google (1), (2), (3)