Where to store photos?

General talk
#1

Hi, esp. for micromapping and in 3D context there people make use of photos and videos while mapping. As this material might be interesting to further mappers (e.g. if people want to contribute further details or we got new technologies that would benefit from original photos).

But at least here in Germany IMHO it’s quit difficult to share photos of someones property:
-people or car signs might be visible → privacy
-architecture or plastics might be protected by copyright → legal issues
-people might feel observed or photos might look at protected areas (the big brother feeling, that was caused by Google Streetview and that might fade towards OSM)

So usual solutions as using flickr doesn’t seem to be a good solution? Are there any alternatives, that can show, that you HAVE images from a certain area, but which restricts the access (allow to use for mapping but no public domain or just on request to check privacy etc)?

#2

Please consider openstreetview (www.openstreetview.org). The site is built for storing photos of any kind in the context of the openstreetmap project and it already has functionality to mask faces or number plates (manually) and a moderation system.
Some of the functionality is still limited, but at least it’s part of the openstreetmap ecosystem and the source code is available on Github. I was able to add an enhancement so large versions of the photos can be viewed on the site.
The upload already features a choice of licences (http://openstreetview.org/main/licenses), so if you wanted a more restrictive licence than cc-by-nc-sa, you could request for it to be added (though you might need to create it first).

#3

Thanks for your hint Oliver :slight_smile:

Yes, indeed I know OSV, but expected it to be more something like an open Google Streetview replacement. To be honest I didn’t knew anything about the moderation or bluring features.

I know it’s not very popular on OpenSource projects just to say, “what’s missing” instead of fixing itself, but a few things came up to my mind, when I played around for 5 minutes and remember my experience from the 3D senario:

Privacy (legal)
Esp. here in Germany it can be difficult to say definitly if something is legal or illegal concerning publification of media, that might touch other peoples privacy. In short: The problem of saying yes/no might be undecidable :wink: and maybe it’s just accepted to life in this greyscale zone, as the mass of standup photos at social networks show…
But currently we had absolutly no problems, as we didn’t publish them (see user:Falcius talk at FOSSGIS2011

Privacy (emotional)
What makes OpenStreetPhoto.org better? It just doesn’t sound like the Google Streetview service, that got a lot of troubles here (starting with a lawsuit, as they sniffed WLAN traffic and finally villages, that prohibit to get recorded. Even if this might be extrem behaviour, it should be respected, esp. from an open project, that benefits from it’s underdog image.
Here the only example from my town Rostock
http://openstreetview.org/available/0b31227c431c2aee4f196d172f3e74a86c191248-large.jpg
As you can see it shows the car license number. Here it seems to be legal, as there is no really bad context (say in front of a brothel, or a police car or showing the drivers face). But what about the driver? What would you think, if you or personal things show up at the internet without any permission or at least a hint? Difficult from an emotional POV :confused:

Other legal problems
It becomes more difficult with things like copyright, even for the person who takes the photos. Maybe the artwork or the architecture of a building was protected (good explanation in german)

I have no plan how it could be realized, just a few ideas of what seen elsewhere
-allow reporting an image as conflict (“I’m the one who is at the photo”, “I’m somebody that expects problems at this photos”, …)
-don’t make them public/copyleft by default, but allow people to ask for it’s “liberation”. Per default allow only the use for OSM and point to the law in the country.
-people from the same country should be moderate an image (as they might know more about local law)
–offer wiki pages with recommend moderation behaviour per country
–“ask a lawyer”-button that might delegate the moderation to users that have legal experiences

Usability
-tag them for 3D, to get found by 3D artists
-link/group them to OSM object or Wikipedia entry or at least to a single name
-share permalinks (e.g. for requests on OpenBuildingModels)
-step by step process is clever, but need to be explained e.g. how can I put my photos at the map, if they don’t contain a GPS tag?
-setup direction of the photo?
-some eyecandy at the UI

Use of photo material
For 3D/micromapping it’s mostly interpretation and photogrammtry (reconstruct geometry, use as texture) and both might require differnt resolution. So not every webcam image might be good enough :wink:

Please, don’t misunderstand me. OSV is quite nice! The FTP upload is brilliant and I like concept of peer reviews :slight_smile: