pictures

I was researching a little today about the laws and what not regarding a client taking photographs and using them on their Facebook page. ElementalUk is a Water Sports Adventure Centre in Cornwall and they've a nice shiny new facebook page.

So I was curious what the law had to say regarding these guys taking pics of everyone enjoying themselves on the beach and then uploading to facebook. I mean they want to show the World how cool a place it is right?

After some deliberation and much chat it was Rachel Clarke on Twitter, who was really helpful in helping me understand the laws and guidelines for taking pictures and using them on a facebook page.

So thanks Rachel.

After studying a few resources such as the one here, it seems that as the beach is a public place it is legal to be able to take photographs providing they are not for commercial use - which in this case they are not as they will not be "DIRECTLY" making money from the photographs.

A nice Friday win for the guys.

Animoto is a new service which CC Chapman indirectly turned me on to. CC fired over a video he created using this service into his Facbook profile which I saw was immediately re-posted by Mark Foreman. So it took my interest, and it turns out the service takes a selection of your photographs and turns them into a very slick slideshow montage movie, neat!

The site has numerous features which include being able to leach your pics directly from urls or your Flickr account, as well as being able to directly “share” the finished output to a variety of your social networks.

I see the service as being a hit personally, certainly a gap in the market here.

How are they making money?

Well two services are currently offered, one of which is a free service which limits the images to I think 15 and a short final movie length, where as the "3 dollar a go" service give you a full featured length.

I consider it good value considering the output, I was particularly impressed with the way the whole montage maps into the length of your desired music (which can be selected from a library or uploaded yourself).

As it was my daughter’s first birthday this weekend I felt compelled to try the service out, with a heart touching song, and some images from the last 12 months.

Ok, sure, the song is NOT podsafe, but in some instances only certain songs, which are the "theme tunes of our lives", will do.

What do you think, is there a market for this type of service, would you use it?