[davidbaldwin]

Most people do not realize that Professional Photographs are copy written. But, not like most consumer products where the consumer is allowed to make a copy for their own personal use.
No, Professional Photographs are under more strict copy write rules than anything else you may have purchased.
When you buy a Photograph from a Professional Photographer, you are not allowed to make any copies or digital scan of a photograph.
So, This limits what you can do with it...

So, Copy/Scanning of Professional Photographs has become more of an epidemic than P2P software copying of Music EVER was..

The first thing most people do after purchasing a photograph is usually going to Wal-Mart and making a Copy or Scanning it in to email it too her.
This is, or course illegal.
Even if you were doing it for yourself, it is illegal.
More information on photo copywrites can be found at:
http://www.ppa.com/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=15

My Point:
Apple needs to create a iPhoto Photo Store
The point of this store would be to do the same thing as the iTunes Music Store: Sell more iPods.
In this case, iPod Photos.

I have already discussed Apple creating a Professional version of it's iPhoto software for not only the 10s of Thousands of independent photograhers, but also the chain photographers, everthing from �Picture People, Sears, and Wal-Mart, to Six Flags and National Geographic, to Time Magazine. (Most of these companies use Express Digital Software: http://www.expressdigital.com/products/contents.shtm )
http://forums.applenova.com/showthre...ight=photo+pro

So, here's how it would Go:
Apple would create a Photo Store built into iPhoto.
iPhoto would become free, and a windows version would be created.
All of the photos in the store would be havily protected. Photo stores for Photographers are a dime a dozen, offering more or less protection. Apple, with an application, would be able to instill all kinds of new protections. Such as the Print screen function.
If someone was to hit the print screen functiobn while viewing an image in the Store, The area where the picture would be would be blank (This is a security feture that no other service could match), and Yes, Most photographers care a LOT about the protection of their photographs (this is way there are still many that haven't switched to digital, or selling online).

Photographer would be required to have a Mac with the Photo Pro software to create a store and start selling Photographs. This would protect the Professionals from every Joe who owned a Digital Camera saying to themselves �I own a Digital Camera, I'm a Photographer.� The point of the store is not to sell everyone's photographs, but Professionals Photographs.

Photographers would have these selling options, Photographers could use one option, all of them or mix and match them:

Download (protected): from $0.99 to $25 per picture (depending on photographer reputation) could also be purchase the entire catalog for a discounted price, like albums in iTunes: Photographers may be forced to use this selling option, but most would be attracted to it anyway, because it provides an easy income..
Photograhpers cost: 25% per order
Apple would create a new file format that would be more or less a �protected� image file.
With this file a user would be able to do the following:
View in iPhoto (Photo would be placed into the iPhoto Library)
View on iPod Photo (this is where the selling of the iPods comes in, because if a user wants to take the photo with them, they have to get an iPod Photo)
Edit Photo
Use in iMovie
Create Slideshow (or mix at match with your own photos)
Create DVD slideshow (Images could be placed on the DVD, but they would be the protected file format)
Burn CD (only the protected file format)
Create Screen Savor
Create Wallpaper (Mac only)
Publish to Homepage (.mac members only, Protected on website)
Order Prints (either Apple or Photographers, depending on Photographers original choice, The Price list would be the original price list that was at the store)
Email Photo (The protected file would be attached, and iPhoto would be required to view, more restrictions would be implace, the user cannot burn an copies or use in slideshows etc. but user can use on computer make screen savors and wallpaper, etc.)
*All Photos will have the print screen feature disabled (leaving the spot blank), this would work even for the wallpaper and the screen saver.
**No photos will be alowed to be printed or burned to a CD for printing elsewhere. Prints can only be Ordered through the store (Photographer or Apple, depending on Photographers choice.)

Download (non protected) from $0.99 to $1,000 per image (depending on reputation) could also purchase entire catalog for discounted price, like Albums in iTunes:
Photographers cost: 25% per order
This is the full JPEG image.
No restrictions what-so-ever.

In-house Prints
cost to Photographer: 15% per order
These are prints from the Photographer..
Most likely using one of the labs that is built into Photo Pro.
Apple would become the greatest online photo store by having the ability to sell photo packages that many photographers have.
Example:
in most online stores if you want to sell an 8x10 and 4 5x7 they all have to be of the same image.
With apple's Photo Store a a photographer could �link� 2 5x7s together, so it would could look something like this:
8x10: Image005
2 5x7: Image047
2 5x7: Image066
of course, the user could have made the whole package Image005, but the possibilites of this would be endless, and Photographer would finally be able to use packages online to promote users to spend more instead of reallying soley on a la cart pricing.

In-house Frames and Other Products
Cost to Photographer: 15% per order
Apple would add framing companies such as Album Inc. so that Frames could be sold from whatever frame provider the photographer uses

Apple Printed Prints
Cost to Photographers: 10% per order
Photographers could raise the price of the prints to make a profit, or if they were doing it for charity, they could leave it at the base price, Photographer would reicive special pricing

Apple Printed Books and Other Products
Cost to Photographer: 10% per order
Photographers could raise price to make a profit.
Apple would start with books, but expand to many other products to fit photographers needs, most of these products would find their way into consumers hands in iPhoto.

The Storefront would have TONS of features that Photographers have wanted.
Such as pre-uploading an even/session so users will be notified when the pictures are up and ready to order/download.
Bieng able to put a messege with every category.
Bieng able to put a messege (meta data) with every photo.

A lot of selling features also:
Emailing photos (downloading is not required, a link to the photo page in the store is what appears in the email)
iAlbums, similar to iMixs on iTunes. A Person could post all of the photos they have had taken of themselves from different photographers, such as soccer photos, senior photos and family photos, and then the whole iAlbum can be emailed to friends and family which would increase orders from people wanting to have those memories..

Apple would give HUGE incentives to photographers that sold their pictures exclusively on the iPhoto Photo Store...
including discounts on Sales.
Discounts on Apple Products.
Free promo material including posers and window stickers.
Free Top listing when a person searches for a photographer in a certain area. (this would create a dommino effect for photographers going �all in� to the Photo Store)
Also Photographers would be able to carry some Apple products at their studios such as the iPod Photo and the iPhoto Gift Cards (just like the iTunes ones, but Red, Also sold everywhere iTunes Gift Card are sold currently), these items would also be able to be purchased at the Photographers page in iPhoto, beause, if the photographer was �all in� they proboubly would not have a credit card terminal, etc.
Photographers would most likely have an iMac at their location so a customer could place an order if they did not have a computer at home.

I realize that such a store could create a Storage/Bandwith nightmare for Apple, so here's the proposibion..
Apple will charget X mouthly fee to host them at Apple or.
A Photographer could have a small application constantly running on his mac, when a customer purchases a picture for download, the photo is taken off of the photographers mac, put into the users desired format, and sent to the customer.

The possibilites would be endless with such a store
I can see just about every photographer going into it..
from indepdent Wedding and Portrait Photographers to Photo Journalists and Outdoor Photo Artists..
Everything would be seperated into catagories for easy browsing..
so, say I was looking for a picture of the Grand Cannion on my Desktop by a world renown photographer.
Or maybee after 9/11 I wanted a photograph of the world trade center towers.
Or maybee I want to download my nephew's soccer photos to add to a slideshow I was putting together for his graduation.

Plus, lets not forget all the iPod Photos Apple will be selling.

I think I've written it all, but, I'm sure I've forgotten something that someone will mention

[Mac+]

you *lost* me at "hello"

[torifile]

Damn dude. That was an awful lot of time spent on a pretty... um... not-gonna-happen... topic. Nice post, though.

(gotta keep Mac+ at arm's length from my post count... He's getting close. )

[Messiahtosh]

First of all: iPhoto Picture Store

[naren]

An interesting idea. Apple would have to come up with a well integrated and nearly automated way to control the rights management if they didn't want to start hemorrhaging cash . Large image companies often hire hundreds of people to fulfill this function. I'm all for Apple starting something like this up though, Corbis/Microsoft is choking the life out of the image industry.

[Luca]

If the digital rights are so restrictive, there's no way you'll convince people to spend money on DRM-protected pictures. Promoting it as a mainstream thing doesn't make sense because the general public doesn't even recognize pictures as being copyrighted property you can own. Most people see music as something that can be bought and sold, and many feel that P2P networks for sharing music are wrong at some level. But pictures? Good luck convincing anyone to pay money to download a picture and then preventing them from ever printing it.

[dviant]

I couldn't read all of that opening post. Someone needs to teach Mr David the art of summarizing.

The first part sounded something like allowing your friends/relatives to buy those cheesy mall photos on an iTMS like store? So what they could sell a couple 8x10s of the kids to Grandma? Sounds like a biiiig money maker, iTMS look out!

Pro stock houses like Photodisc, Corbis etc would probably love some kind of DRM scheme but in reality it'd be a big pain in the ass for everyone else involved. Use of images could not be simply limited to the iPhoto. You'd therefore have to validate every app capable of manipulating, placing or taking a screenshot of images. What a nightmare.

[davidbaldwin]

Well, maybee everybody would think different if the PPA started suing everybody and thier dog...
hmm, reminds me of the RIAA

[dviant]

Alternately you could just simply join a nearly-free amateur photo sharing community. Adobe was pushing www.istockphoto.com as a "free gift" for CS users for instance. Seems like a neat idea if the licenses weren't all different and changing constantly.