A few years ago, I was contacted by a woman working on an article about keeping your work-area tidy for an internal corporate newsletter. She had found a photo I had taken of my messy desk with an old point-and-shoot digital camera and wanted to use it as a “before” photo with her article.
The photo was poorly lit, poorly framed, and relatively low resolution. However, it was valuable to someone, in part because of these issues. A photo like this would never have been for sale on a stock photography site.
The process of actually selling the rights to use the photo was awkward. First, there was some negotiation of the price, then I had to produce an “invoice” for them as they needed it for their purchasing department to send a cheque. They got invoice #000001 thanks to an OpenOffice.org template.
This is why we built ClusterShot - a site that simplifies the process of anyone selling any photo to anyone. Anyone can upload their images, or we can suck them in automatically from your Flickr account or RSS/ATOM feed. You can then set your own price or allow people to make an offer. There’s a simple PayPal-powered checkout process.
ClusterShot is not another stock photography service. Images are not quality-checked and tagged “horizontal white-background caucasian male” by an army of cubicle-farm employees. Some images are great, and some are terrible. Think eBay rather than Amazon.
Try it out - you might be surprised that you have just the photo someone is looking for.
Comments
Andy Fitzsimon - November 10, 2008 12:49 pm
Hey Mate, looks and feels brilliant( I wouldn't expect anything less )
really impressed that you can just add your flickr account..
but it doesn't work :-(
"Sorry, there was a problem loading the page you requested."Steven Garrity - November 10, 2008 12:54 pm
Thanks Andy. Maybe this is why everyone puts a BETA tag on their new sites...
We'll get it fixed. Thanks.
Steven Garrity - November 10, 2008 12:58 pm
Fixed! We've got some new features to import particular photosets from Flickr, but part of that feature made it to the live site before it was completely baked.
Andy Fitzsimon - November 10, 2008 8:56 pm
wow, that was quick. nice one
Geof F. Morris - November 10, 2008 9:38 pm
Very cool, Steven. :)
James Cready - November 11, 2008 9:28 pm
<sarcasm>You can import anyone's flickr stream and then sell their photos. Yes!</sarcasm>
Andy Fitzsimon - November 11, 2008 10:13 pm
yeah i noticed that...
I wonder what the legal repercussions are for that sort of thing here in china...
probably minimal..
Time to hire an army of proxy accountabilibuddies
Dan James - November 11, 2008 11:03 pm
James & Andy,
Technically you could also save someone's flickr images to your local machine and upload them manually. Usually the solutions to theft & copyright infringements are not technical, they are legal and social.
If anyone is caught selling a photo that is not theirs our terms of service are quite clear: "If you are caught doing this your account will be terminated and we'll do our darnedest to keep you out of our system for as long as we can. We'll also pass along whatever information we can to the original copyright owner to help them get even/sue you."
All of that said we do need to make it at least a pain-in-the butt to copy large amounts of photos. We're implementing a Flickr authenticated signup as we speak. It will replace our current Flickr tool. You'll be taken to Flickr and asked if you would like to give ClusterShot.com permission to access your account. This should solve the issue you've pointed out.
Tanner Christensen - December 3, 2008 4:18 pm
Now THIS is a unique website.
Not only do you let journalists/bloggers/designers/whoever have a resource of affordable photos, but you also let photographers of any skill level sell their photos.
Brilliant.
Eloy Cortinez - January 27, 2009 6:43 am
Hello. What an excellent idea. This are features that i think could be useful:
- I have a model release flag.... or even the possibility of uploading one.
- Search by interestingness, using in some mode the flickr algorithms to provide some quality filters that can be set by the user.
Somehow i feel your project doesn't escalate enough, and that more ambitious goals should be set, this idea could revolution the whole photography market and turn it upside down..... I really hope so!