Closr, public crowd photo search

deegs

Hey guys,

From the offset I'll tell you I have a vested interest in this company as a founder, but I'd love your feedback as a knowledgeable source; especially as I used to be very active in this forum a few years ago.

I just finished working on a web version of our mobile app, closr.
Simply put; pick a location and see a live photo stream from there.
It has been used for feargusen and honk kong protests but could be equally used for a school sports days or tomorrow to view New Years eve parties all over the world just looking at a few of the threads here it could be used to view a live stream to accompany the discussion.

Check it out here http://photo.closr.com/

I'd live to hear any thoughts or suggestions on how I can improve it.
But specifically for this forum what do you think about using these peoples photos without their express consent? I remove their name etc but I legally have access to all their info even gps coordinates ( that I do not even request)
I'm sure for the most part the majority of the photos displayed are submitted without knowing they are public and can be used by anyone and highly identifiable...
One thing we want to achieve is to educate people, so they know what should be private and what should be public....

Just check out the app to see what I mean...
Thanks guys

DaireQuinlan

where are you sourcing the images from ? From what you say above I assume you're not relying on people sharing through the service itself, you're scraping twitter/instagram/facebook/flickr or something for geo-located shots ? If nothing else I'd say you're breaking their terms of service in doing this, unless you have some licensing agreement in place.

Then I was reading that licensing bit. I would say you're treading heavily on several laws right there. You can't grab someone's shot from flickr and then license it "...for single use in one website for €4 per 100,000 views." Unless of course there's some CC license that explicitly allows it.

Lastly, why on earth are you asking randomers on an internet forum about this? Holding this thread up in court the day you get sued by some irate event promoter or something isn't going to save you. Get legal advice.

magicbastarder

whose name do you remove? just those people tagged, rather than the owner? reason i ask is that one of the photos returned for me showed the owner's name and (what i assume to be) profile pic from facebook.

I'm sure for the most part the majority of the photos displayed are submitted without knowing they are public and can be used by anyone and highly identifiable

so you're going to use them anyway, and charge for the use? your cape is looking slightly tattered.

Wabbit Ears

If I ever found out a company had licenced an image I took without my express written permission on a per-image basis, Youd find your 'legailty' strongly tested in court!!!

That said, 99% of FB users etc dont give a toss about copyright so the opinions of photographers are not really the opinions of your target audience methinks!!

deegs

Thanks guys.
We only ever plan to sell photos from our app Closr. But as we are still beta testing we are pulling in photos from from other sources like instagram so our users can get a feeling for how the final service will look. Well never sell photos from any user who has not agreed to it.
For example I found the following photo from searching new years eves shots from australia http://photo.closr.com/index.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fscontent-b.cdninstagram.com%2Fhphotos-xaf1%2Ft51.2885-15%2F10881958_756309697791337_26077450_n.jpg&lon=151.25101152&lat=-33.868603256&d=1420066132000

We have removed the persons Id from it as they most likely are not aware their photos can be used like this. But if a Closr user was there with our app their name, avatar, caption and a link to buy a limited licence would be there.

Thanks guys, great feedback. Legal issues are very tricky for us and we give them huge thought.

DaireQuinlan

deegs wrote: »

Thanks guys, great feedback. Legal issues are very tricky for us and we give them huge thought.

Seriously, as I said above, it's not YOU that should be giving them huge thought, it's a SOLICITOR, preferably one that specialises in IP law or something. GET LEGAL TALENT ON YOUR TEAM.

Wabbit Ears

I really don't understand how you think using your app to take a photo gives you licencing rights to an image?

DaireQuinlan

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

I really don't understand how you think using your app to take a photo gives you licencing rights to an image?

deegs wrote:

Well never sell photos from any user who has not agreed to it

I assume it's an opt in

Wabbit Ears

id assume it was relying on the auto acceptance of T&Cs

deegs

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

id assume it was relying on the auto acceptance of T&Cs

Partially yes. One of the bits off feedback we received from some of the top news agencies like WSJ and Huffpost in New York at the recent photo expo was they need to verify the individual and authenticity of the photo.
So we won't even offer the photo licence for sale until we verify the photographer/ person. This can be done simply by linking a stripe account and this serves as a method of payment.
We don't do this at the moment as we are still testing the basic photo sharing service.

I have a solicitor and a legal intern who are helping but once we have decent funding we can out source to a legal specialist in this area. It's tricky, but not impossible.

Great feedback, thanks

Paulw

A photo taken at a concert would most likely breach the T&Cs of the venue and event. You could also be in very serious problems with the management company or promotion company. Images taken at concerts of bands are very strictly licensed and they protect their property with a very strong legal team.

You also have to consider a person's right to privacy at a concert, which is a private controlled event.

I think you're in a legal minefield, and data protection issues, and only serious legal advice can help, rather than opinions online.

magicbastarder

Paulw wrote: »

You also have to consider a person's right to privacy at a concert, which is a private controlled event.

it would be more than just that - it's their right to not have their likeness used in a commercial context; i.e. if someone took a photo of me with the closr app, what safeguards would i have that said image would not be licenced by coke for their own ends?
plus, what are you offering the end user over other image sharing apps; especially since you're monetising their (presumably free) contribution, which might rub your users up the wrong way? or are the end users paid if their images are licenced?

percy212

There are definitely legal issues to be hammered out but I really think you are onto something here....You need to get this idea out to California as soon as you can. Seriously.

uck51js9zml2yt

I followed the link and it automatically picked up my name and Facebook cover photo, both without me opting in.
How was this done?

magicbastarder

standard practice; if you go to the irish times website, for example, it can pick up on your facebook profile (if you're logged in on that browser) so you can like stories, etc., without needing to log in again.

Wabbit Ears

Kane Moldy Slipcover wrote: »

I followed the link and it automatically picked up my name and Facebook cover photo, both without me opting in.
How was this done?

Log out and see if you can find yourself as what magic above said is probably the correct answer there.

AnCatDubh

As any business advisor would ask you - What do you think is your unique selling proposition?

For example eyeem does something similar but bigger and better and has the user base to support it. It has built it on top of their existing community. They run challenges to get content - for example allow an agency say "I want photos of lemons on top of the Eifel tower" and people go and make and take those images hoping that their image will be bought. That gives them content and they have a market for that content.

What will make closr different and why would a user use it.

Q2 they'd ask you is who is your user [market] and what commitment have you got from that market? If none, then how are you going to get them on board.

Also, you should throw data protection at your legal people for their consideration.

Not trying to be insensitively critical (please take it as trying to be constructive) but the UI is rather weak (a programmer approach to UI rather than a UX designer approach) - ok, i get it - you are probably in beta and will look to raise funding to plough into stuff like that, and if so, then fair enough otherwise I think you need to do a rework with a fresh pair of eyes.

but is it a good idea - it's an interesting idea,
has it been done before - elemenets of most definately - flickr, eyeem, heck google or most decent image search engines, - accept entirely that you plan to verify and contact the individual owner before putting the image into any legal 'sale' - its not an entirely unique position. regularly you will see people posting here and other forums that xyz have found their image on flickr and want to purchase it - how much to charge.
will it get a negative reaction if it blows up in overnight popularity - absolutely, think flickr selling creative commons images via the site

how much input will your service have in curation of the images being returned? A geo search at best is going to be *very* ropey in terms of the results - some highly accurate, and some highly inaccurate. The search as it stands is very weak and apart from a location it would benefit from the ability to filter beyond the 'closr' aspect of it and add keywords such as once finding dublin, that you could indicate that you are looking for "new years" party images or "tourist" or "homeless".

Anyhow, i think it is an interesting idea. I think you've gotten the message on the legals so not adding to that - hopefully some of the above is something to ponder on.

Good luck with it and every success to you.