And lo, =(8) emerged from the ether
and spake thus:
Copyright issues aside. Personally I was impressed enough that if they used
any of my images the wow factor they created with that was enough I would
let it slide. Frankly, I haven't been that impressed in quite sometime. What
most companies call ground breaking lately has been more of a yawn that wow.
Kind of like the Shock and Awe of the Iraq war. Well, I guess it was shock
and awe. Socked it was so poorly planed and awed that it still isn't any
better planned.

Anyways it will be interesting to see what if anything this technology comes
to for the consumer. If it going to be limited to only services like
Flicker, Google, etc. then I am much less impressed. However, if Microsoft
puts out software for the rest of us that lets us use this on our computers
and our own web sites then I will be even more wowed.

=(8)

Just remember that every time you give up a right in the name of wow
factor, security, or anything else, you'll be hard pressed to ever get
it back.

That said, I think Microsoft will be cognizant of copyright issues.
Certainly Flickr provides internal support for copyright and if
PhotoSynth uses their API, that data will be right there. As for
scraping the web... Isn't that the risk you take by placing any image
on the web? Another reason to either watermark or stop caring or both.

You can't have exposure without risking... You know, exposure. If you
only want people to look, have gallery shows and nothing else. It's
not unheard of. Or post ridiculously small images. Or my least
favorite option, plaster them with watermarks like you're a stock
agency.

--
Aaron
http://www.fisheyegallery.com
http://www.singleservingphoto.com