Comments on: New update: around 600,000 new photos from Panoramio added to Google Earth

by: Reusing the photos

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:01:16 +0000

But what can we as reusers do when the images we’re using aunder the Creative Commons license start changing copyright status on panoramio? Will be a system to prove that the image was under that license? (Creative Commons licenses aren’t revocable)

by: brightbyte

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:06:06 +0000

The Creative Commons licensing option is great news!

However, there’s one big concern I have: Allowing licenses to be changed causes a lot of trouble. Changes in the stated license for an image should at least be publicly logged, otherwise someone using the image relying on the free license may get in trouble later: he sees the image published under CC-BY, and later there’s no way to prove it was ever published under that license. Already the first law suits about this situation begin to appear.

As an admin at Wikimedia Commons i can tell you that this is a very real problem, causing a lot of confusion. We see this a lot with pictures from Flickr.

In my opinion, the Right Way to do this would be:

1) allow each image to be published under multiple licenses (yes, that does make sense)
2) allow users to set a default license to be used for new uploads, and a way to change that for each picture, at upload time.
3) allow people to ADD licenses in bulk to (groups of) already uploaded images.

Free licenses are, by nature, irrevocable. So, removing a license from an image doesn’t have much legal meaning, but causes a lot of confusion. Maybe this should not be possible at all, or only for a limited time. In any case, the user should be warned about the (lack of) legal implications, and the change MUST be logged in order to provide some sort of legal certainty for anyone who is already reusing the image.

Regards,
and thanks for all the good work

by: Szymon Para

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:49:35 +0000

I hope the default original file access will be set to “open for everybody” and if someone cares she/he will be able to restrict the accesibility to her/his pictures. In other case many pictures will be seen as a mere “bigger thumbnail” just because many people will be unaware that their images availability is restricted or they just won’t care to make them accesible.

And I must admit that access to the original files is a great value of the Panoramio service for me. And it has NOTHIG to do with any kind of commercial use. With the kind of photography the Panoramio is about (I mean mainly geographically rather than artistically oriented) details of a picture are often crucial.

Another reason I like the accesiblity of the original files so much is that they are great source of pictures taken by many different cameras that can be used to get familiar with photo-quality issues specific to photographic equipment available on the market.

By the way - even now anyone wishing not to share the original file can simply upload only a version he/she accepts to be public available.

Cheers
Szymon

by: Brennan

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:38:14 +0000

Just yesterday I was able to download full resolution files by clicking on the image inside the google earth browser, it was great. Has that feature been turned off? If the images are not copywrited it would be great to have that feature back.

Thanks

by: wbailey

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:45:01 +0000

I was waiting for the March 15 update. Since then I have looked several times for the following photos that have been selected of GE: 7426959, 7426647, 7406419, and 7405892. So far, I haven’t seen them. Thanks for Panoramio — it makes GE extra special. Bill

by: Katrish

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:58:46 +0000

Hi, I would like to know if commercial photos are against google politics, because in my city I´ve seen a lot of commercial pictures, including telephone numbers of stores and it´s so sad… I´ve already sent an e-mail to Google Earth but I don´t know if they´ll read it.
Thanks!
Greetings from Brazil!!

by: Filipe Freitas

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:41:58 +0000

Thank you for the new features.
Too bad i missed this “shipment”, i’ll hurry up for the 26th deadline!

by: garf88

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 12:52:37 +0000

I am glad to see that photo appeared in GE .thanks ~

by: Romy

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:12:29 +0000

Thank you very much. Nice to read that. Panoteam does a great jobb. (Always)
Greetings from Sweden and Happy Eastern