Photoshelter on Tuesday March 4th released a Flickr Importer to enable Flickr members to migrate their photographs to their service. The import function is hardly as noteworthy as the export function of the tool which allows Photoshelter members to export watermarked images to Flickr. In an odd twist reported on March 5th Flickr disabled the ability of Photoshelters Importer to function. The exact reason the importer was disabled is unknown.
PhotoShelter Protects Your Images From Would-Be Flickr Thieves – Wired.com
It’ll be interesting to hear what the reasoning is for the shutdown of Photoshelter’s Flickr Importer. Either way if and when he application is operational again it will be nice to have an alternate way for others to secure their imagery with a watermark. To be honest though Photoshelter users are professionals or semi-professionals and likely have the means to properly watermark and embed ITPC data in their files on their own. Regardless its great to see an online service making an effort to address image security online.
For the sake of transparency I am a Photoshelter member and have no vested interest in the service this post is merely an editorial/commentary piece.
[tags]Photoshelter, Flickr, import, export, tool, watermark, copyright, protection, photo, photography, online, service[/tags]
I’ve liked Photoshelter’s push for innovation since the day I signed up. Though I question if Photoshelter user’s are really the right audience for such a service, it does show their willingness to push the envelope.