aiugly.com/ ====== michael_dorfman I've never heard of TaaS before, and I'm not sure that I like the sound of "hackable" stock photos... ~~~ anamax You probably don't want to be an investor. I agree that stock photography has been a mixed blessing for most folks that have been there. In some ways, it's probably improved lives (at the expense of folks on the other side). In some ways, it's contributed to real evils. In some ways, it's improved those who paid for it. In some ways, it has helped those who were paying to buy it. (It does help the companies that sell it....) I'm curious if you were using stock photography before it was free, or if you think it should be priced at $$$ or if you think it should be free? ------ stcredzero How much is this site actually contributing to improving the image/image production industry? Can the image be easily and repeatedly reproduced on similar sites, or does the license explicitly forbid this? ~~~ masonhensley The photos will only show up once and disappear on the image-sites (like 500px) once a day. This is only the first version of the process, so there are still still a ton of other things to do/fix. We will have 100k+ images in the next month. ~~~ stcredzero _We will have 100k+ images in the next month._ Great! ------ andrewcooke are you thinking of taking a commission from stock sites for each use? (ie selling my photo twice?) or should i expect that you'll only use it once and then send the image over to other people? ~~~ masonhensley Currently, all photos stay with us. If you do an upload, we will be emailing you to ask if you're ok to make that image available for use in the library. A lot of people create amazing images with no expectation of licensing. Many people get frustrated that photos never get used, and some of the best images never get seen. We're setting up a marketplace for the public to share their photos, and that marketplace is open to all. ~~~ andrewcooke it's not clear to me that the photos stay with you. if i upload, there are 2 options: i can "give" it to you (so you do not use it at all), or i can "sell" it to you (you can use it). so i upload my photo, then i can chose one of two options, neither of which seem to involve you. i don't know if you mean to say "give" or "sell" there - so i'm not sure if you've got it right or not. ~~~ masonhensley You can sell the image once, and I agree, it's not clear. The main idea was to keep the image available so it can be distributed with a license (a license is free for the community). I am going to be adding a lot more options that will allow you to use the image at a price. Maybe that's what I meant. ------ thehodge Hey guys, I see your site is only available in US.. What would it cost if I'm based in London? ~~~ masonhensley That is very important. We haven't solved that yet. We are currently focusing on getting the community together and building out the system. We have everything in place to make an incredible site, and just need to tie it all together. ------ zecg I had a similar idea to this years ago. How is the business model? ------ drumdance I like the idea but I'd love to see free versions. My band is too poor to hire a band photographer, and all the free stock photos are terrible. ~~~ masonhensley Free versions are coming! We will also have some really cool ideas for allowing free use. I'm going to be working with some huge publishers in the next month to get some ideas for how to do this right. ~~~ drumdance Excellent. I'll check back then :) ------ marcusbooster Is the pricing based on # of images or on the number of hits? ~~~ masonhensley The pricing is based on the number of images. The more you have, the more you pay. Once your account passes a certain point, we pay you a royalty. ~~~ marcusbooster Got it. So in other words, if you want all your images to be under $1, it'll cost you an order of magnitude more. ~~~ masonhensley Yep, but also, if you wanted to use the photos for free, you would have to give up 100% of that value. ------ kirchhoff Are all of the photos copyright free? If so, are they CC/FSA licensed? ~~~ masonhensley The photos have a license that gives the public the right to use them as long as they're not being used to market a company or person. In the case of a copyright infringement, you agree to remove the photo as soon as we are notified. We are not going to be the one being the bad guy, we will just pull it. ------ shabble So basically, the old "Pay $N for a full-resolution image that I can use any way I want" -> [http://images.google.com/images?q=free+photo+search+tool&sour...](http://images.google.com/images?q=free+photo+search+tool&sourceid=navclient- ff&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) + CC/FSA license? ~~~ masonhensley Yep! So many people had a hard time getting usable photos off of stockphoto.com before, it was a bit painful and had trouble keeping up. We're going to have so many images,