There has been quite some buzz around OpenStreetMap lately, especially in the mobile sphere. Given that developers often have to pay a lot to use maps from commercial vendors like NavTeq or Tele Atlas, OpenStreetMap, which is offering its maps for free, is becoming an increasingly interesting alternative, especially as the quality of the maps continues to improve.

Right now, for example, you can buy Roadee, a basic OSM turn-by-turn navigation app for the iPhone for a mere $1.99. Waze, which just released its own mapping and turn-by-turn naviation application, sadly doesn't feed any of this data back into OSM, even though these two services could really benefit from each other's expertise.

Making Flickr Smarter

As for Flickr's integration of OSM, the company does a nice job at extracting interesting information from the OSM database when an image is tagged with an OSM ID. Thanks to this, Flickr can now understand if a building is a railway or subway station, for example, or if a certain place is a historic building, a farm, or a forest. Flickr only supports a small sub-set of all the tags that OSM currently supports, but as the Flickr team points out, OSM is still a moving target and it would be hard for Flickr to keep pace. After all, they still "have this little photo-sharing site to keep running."

In the same way that Picasa web albums offer facial recognition and tagging, Picasa 3.5 automatically scans all of your photos and groups similar faces together. From there users can add names to their photos in bulk and upload them to their web albums. One of the interesting features of this program is that names auto-complete from a user's Google contacts. While services like Face.com offer facial recognition-based tagging on Facebook, the Picasa 3.5 desktop software allows users to organize friends and groups of friends with a simple offline hard drive scan. After a couple minutes of scanning you can create name-based collages, slideshows and geo-tagged albums. The bottom line is, if you're going to get tipsy at a bachelor party, you better hope your friends have the good sense to uncheck those photos before they start uploading your Coyote Ugly bar dance antics to the wedding slideshow.

Other new features include drag and drop geo-tagging over a Google map and simultaneous uploading and sharing. In the past, photo uploaders have had to go through the additional act of selecting specific contacts to share albums. Now users can alert their contacts to an album as it's going up. Your coworkers and family may get an eyeful. At this point, facial recognition software and batch tagging is making it tougher to put on the facade of being a respectable human being. It looks like underground speakeasys are about to see a resurgence. To download the new Picasa visit Picasa.google.com.

Last month ReadWriteWeb covered a number of Yahoo updates to Mail, Search and Messenger. The most notable items appear to be the ability to monitor friends and status updates from a single dashboard. Being the singular entry-point for multiple services including Flickr, Mail and Messenger is likely to be a major facet of the Yahoo campaign. Nevertheless, while the company remains a leading advertising and email player, critics argue that these recent life streaming features do not offer the same ease of use as sites like Facebook and Friendfeed. It will be interesting to see if the new campaign can convince users to stay within the Yahoo ecosystem for all of their communications and business needs.

Photo Credit: Franco Follini

Flickr Has Lots of Competition

For a long time, it seemed as if Flickr was going to be satisfied with having an iPhone-optimized website and not a "real" app when it came to their iPhone/iPod Touch offering. That left the door open - wide open - for a number of developers to create their own Flickr tools. Do a search today for "flickr" in the App Store and you'll see a page filled with thirty-some results for alternatives to the official app. Although not all the apps are uploaders or photo browsers (some just mention "flickr" in their descriptions), many are. From Flickup to Flickr Sendr to Flickr Search and one of our personal favorites, FlickIt, the choices for interacting with Flickr from your iPhone are plenty.

But Flickr doesn't just compete with other Flickr-based apps, they also have to deal with the multi-site uploaders...which some could argue are even more useful than Flickr's own official app. For example, Pixelpipe supports uploading to social networks, micro-blogging services, photo and video sharing sites, blogs, online storage sites, and much more. It's an incredibly useful tool for anyone who shares photos on multiple sites or just feels more comfortable knowing the data is stored on more than one service in the cloud.

Why the Delay?

There have been rumors that an official app has been in development for some time, as noted by this VentureBeat article back in December 2008. Yes, 2008.

We have to wonder why Flickr decided to wait so long to develop something for the iPhone platform. The app itself isn't all that complicated and it could have flown through the app review process, so it seems to be a case of the company just not feeling it was a top priority. That's an odd business decision for a company who reported that the number one camera used on their site is the iPhone. Not to mention the fact that after releasing the iPhone-optimized site, they saw a 50% increase in mobile users year-over-year. In fact, it's not just an "odd" decision - it was a bad one.

Although we're sure the company will gain plenty of users for their app in no time - the simple app is well-designed and does a good job - it is somewhat funny that a universal search in iTunes for "flickr" today doesn't even return the official app in the top four results displayed in the "Applications" window. And considering the large number of Flickr competitors, it's possible that it never will.

If you haven't been following the story (see our initial coverage here and here), the short summary goes like this: Chicago resident Firas Alkhateeb created an image that showed President Obama wearing the makeup of the Joker. He used an image of the President snagged from TIME magazine's October 23rd, 2006 cover. After uploading his photo to Flickr, an unknown third party doctored the image some more adding the word "socialism" beneath the picture. This doctored image started showing up plastered across cities nationwide as well as on numerous political bloggers' websites.

Flickr, after having received a DMCA take-down notice, removed the photo from Firas' account. They did this despite the fact that the image could easily be argued to fall into the grey area of "political parody" and the copyright infringement claim itself comes from a character with a questionable background himself and not, as it turns out, from TIME magazine, DC Comics, nor the photographer who took the original photo. Instead, the supposedly infringed-upon party, a Mr. Edward Przydzial, is a freelance photographer whose only proof of his claim comes from a LiveJournal post dated Oct. 9th. Blog posts are easy to backdate which makes the claim questionable in the eyes of the law.

To make matters worse, the case highlighted a problem with Flickr's takedown policy which appears to be "delete first, ask questions later."

Flickr User Suggests a Policy Change, Flickr Agrees

While for the most part Flickr is standing behind their actions, saying that the law leaves them no choice but to remove images upon receipt of a takedown notice, they have been open to discussion about better ways to comply with the letter of the law without impacting the Flickr community so much as before.

In a forum posting on the photo-sharing site, a Flickr user by the name of "The Searcher" debating the company's DCMA policy, offered the company a suggestion. Instead of simply deleting the photo page in its entirety, the company should just replace the image itself with a blank that reads "this image has been removed for copyright issues," wrote the user. Flickr's director of community Heather Champ replied saying she liked the idea and would push it up the food chain. And that she did.

According to her follow up post, Flickr decided to make a change to the way they handle takedown notices and, going forward, they will no longer delete the entire photo page, just the image itself. A screenshot of how this will look is posted here and, as suggested, it will feature text that reads: "This image has been removed due to a claim of copyright infringement."

As Champ explains, this notable change will preserve the photo's metadata while still complying with the law. Other policies remain the same. For example, members will still be warned, by way a private message, who is making the claim against them. Flickr will remove the image from the site and will store it so that it can be replaced in the event that the U.S. Copyright Team gives them the go-ahead to do so. Now, however, the existing title, description, comments, tags, notes, etc. on the original photo page will remain available and the photo can still be added to sets and groups. Champ says Flickr will also be reaching out to the copyright teams in other parts of the world to see if they're interested in enacting the same policy. (The current policy is specific to the U.S. where the DMCA law is enforced.)

Overall, the community received the news positively, even though it still allows Flickr to eschew any responsibility of investigating the validity of DMCA copyright claims themselves. The company will continue to delete away no matter who asks, it seems - a move that drew ire from Techcrunch's Michael Arrington who said they should have checked with their lawyers first before yanking the image. Photographer and rival service Zooomr exec Thomas Hawk also questioned whether the removal was simply sheer incompetence on Flickr's part.

Ultimately, the change is a good one. It's better for the online community and the photographer whose image is removed, while still respecting the rights of the supposed copyright victim. However, the real problem here may not be how Flickr deals with copyright claims, but the DMCA law itself.

If you haven't been following the developments in this case closely, here is a quick recap: Firas Alkhateeb, a 20-year-old student in Chicago, created an image that showed President Obama wearing the makeup of the Joker from the last Batman movie. To do so, he used an image of Obama that appeared on the cover of Time magazine on October 23, 2006. According to the LA Times, he uploaded this picture to Flickr on January 18, 2009. By August, someone added the word "socialism" underneath the picture, and it was widely circulated among political bloggers and also started to appear on posters at political rallies.

So far, so good. Even if you don't agree with the politics behind this picture, this is what the online mashup culture is all about. By the middle of August, however, Flickr received a DMCA take-down notice, claiming that the image infringed on somebody's copyright. Complying with the law, Flickr deleted the image from Alkhateeb's account. The problem, however, is that Flickr never shared who actually initiated the take-down notice.

Fake Take-Down Notices on Flickr: They Work

It is starting to become clear now that the take-down notice that Flickr and Alkhateeb received was completely bogus. According to Thomas Hawk, it didn't even feature the name of anyone who owned the copyright to any part of the image. PDN has verified that neither Time magazine, nor DC Comics, nor the photographer who took the Time magazine cover image filed this claim. These are the parties that could potentially claim that their copyright was violated by this image, even though, because this is a parody, their legal claims would be on shaky ground. Instead, the name on the document, according to Hawk, is "bogus."

To make matters worse, Flickr user 3e actually verified that Flickr really doesn't check the names on these notices. 3e just submitted a claim to take down one of his own pictures with a "once-off email address, using the name 'Joe Blow' and giving no identifying information other than an obviously fake address ("Anytown, USA")." Flickr happily obliged and 3e's photo was gone within hours.

If you don't like a picture on Flickr for any reason, you can just have it deleted by sending a DMCA take-down notice. We can only hope that Flickr will institute a better verification process in the near future.

As of now, Flickr doesn't even have the capability to restore an image after it has been deleted. YouTube, which probably has to deal with far more DMCA take-down notices every day than Flickr, at least offers users a recourse to have videos restored if the copyright claim can't be verified.

About the Photo

The posters that popped up across the country were based on Alkhateeb's photo, but had the TIME magazine logo and branding removed and had added the word "socialism" at the bottom. Alkhateeb wasn't responsible for these changes - a yet-to-be-identified person is behind the posters' creation.

In fact, you may be surprised to hear that the Obama/Joker image wasn't even meant to be political commentary, according to Alkhateeb. That's quite ironic given that it has now embroiled him in this intense political debate. Instead, says the college student, he was just messing around after discovering an online tutorial that explained how to "Jokerize" photographs using Adobe Photoshop. It seems that Alkhateeb doesn't particularly care about politics himself, having chosen to abstain from voting in November since he felt his state (Illinois) was already sewn up and decided before the polls opened. His views on Obama aren't particularly one-sided either. Alkhateeb favors the democratic viewpoint on foreign relations but tends to side with Republicans on domestic issues.

In a recent L.A. Times profile on Alkhateeb, it's reported that the photo generated over 20,000 page views during the time it was hosted on the photo-sharing website Flickr.com. However, as of last Friday, Flickr removed the photo from their site. Why? Alkhateeb says he received an email from the company stating it had to be taken down due to "copyright infringement concerns." (Apparently, TIME magazine wasn't too happy seeing their brand associated with this sort of political commentary.)

What About Free Speech?

But isn't this sort of political commentary, political parody in fact, protected as a form of free speech? Noted photographer and blogger Thomas Hawk thinks it is, citing a precedent for fair use (Folsom v Marsh) which states "if you produce something that is transformative, and not derivative, then it's fair use." Although Hawk isn't a lawyer, he may be right on this one. Says Corynne McSherry, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit that defends digital rights, Alkhateeb has a strong fair use defense if he was ever sued. "You really want to think twice about going after a political commenter," she noted.

This wouldn't be the first time Flickr got involved with political censorship. Hawk also blogged about how the site deleted the account of a user named Shepherd Johnson after he made critical comments about Obama in the Official White House Photostream back in June.

So is this yet another case of Flickr engaging in censorship? Or are they legitimately protecting themselves from these "copyright infringement" claims? (Flickr won't comment on this since a company policy prohibits them from discussing issues surrounding one particular user.)

What do you think about this issue? Share your thoughts in the comments.

The addition of Google Books as a partner is a significant one as the search giant's involvement promises to increase the public's ability to find works to share and remix. For now, CC licensed books are distinguishable by a Creative Commons logo to the left of the preview pane. In the future, licensing is likely to become an advanced search feature within the site. When that happens, remixing material will be so much easier to find.

For example, Google already prints full versions of out-of-copyright books for its Library Project. Once these books are tagged with the public domain license, thousands of out-of-copyright and sometimes out-of-print books will become easily searchable. We may see a renewed interest in our favorite classics, or see them altered in new and unusual ways. By showcasing CC licensed material, Google Books may prompt other companies like Flickr to further prioritize commons-friendly search.

If you'd like to place your Google Book under a CC license, you can do so in your account settings. To sign up to add a CC licensed work, visit the Google Books partner page

If you're going to speak about Taiwan as independent country, or the Falun Dafa and religious freedom, or even the subject of democracy, your comments and site are going to get banned. For instance, Twitter and Facebook were blocked in China after a demonstration for religious freedom led by a group of 1000 Uighur Muslims turned ugly. As users began micro-blogging the event that reportedly left at least 140 dead, the government intervened and service was suspended.

While China's constitution guarantees freedom of speech, the government employs a "subversion of state power" clause to punish those who are critical of it. Most notably this clause has been used against religious protestors like the Uighur; however, in this case the mentality of blocking dissenters can also be carried over to major social networking sites like Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and Bing. Nevertheless, censorship in China is not new and it certainly isn't only a product of the Communist government.

In the 1200's Chinese painters used symbols of plants and animals to express their distaste for the government. For instance, the water lily came to symbolize pureness of heart because even in the murky waters of their foreign oppressors, the Chinese people would thrive and survive. If the Chinese really are "more likely to share information broadly", is it possible that under all this effort to stifle them, there are still water lilies in our midst?

Photo Credit: Max Smith, A Chinese Type 95 SPAAG vehicle on display at the "Our troops towards the sky" exhibition at the Beijing Military Museum

To chose a CC license as the default for your photo uploads, you have to scroll down towards the bottom of your privacy settings page. Searching for CC photos requires that you scroll to the very bottom of the Advanced Search page or start at this page. There would be a whole lot more CC photos on Flickr if those options were given better placement on the site. In 2006 13% of the photos uploaded to Flickr were given a CC license; today that number is 4%. Flickr is much bigger and now includes the perhaps more cautious former users of Yahoo Photos as well. Only about 1% of the photos on Flickr can be used in a commercial setting (like this blog) even with attribution given; otherwise, explicit permission is needed. That's a real loss.

More collaboration equals more creativity equals more communication equals a better world - and more photography for Flickr. It certainly seems in their interests to promote CC more as well.

What do you think? Should Flickr do more to promote Creative Commons or ought we simply be grateful for everything they've done already?

Users can now share posted content on their Twitter accounts using a simple web-based sharing button or via email/mobile using a unique "2Twitter" email address. Although all uploaded content is tweetable, new content uploaded via the web is not auto-tweeted. Mobile uploads are only sent to Twitter if the user's 2Twitter email address is used.

Once a Twitter account is added to a Flickr user's account as a blog, the "Blog This" function will allow that user to tweet about any image with a short URL and a 116 character limit. The title of the image is automatically included in the tweet. The "Blog This" icon is located on the Flickr photo page and doesn't appear in a user's photo stream.

Here's what the function and resultant tweet looks liked when I posted a photo from my own account:

And here's a tweet I sent about an image and design from another user, ThisIsStar.

Sadly, the resultant tweet doesn't indicate that the image is from another user; we can see this causing some confusion, especially when users are in a hurry. Hopefully, the generator of the tweet will edit the included text to reflect ownership accurately, e.g., "Check out this awesome design from @thisisstar."

So, what will this mean for other services designed to post images to Twitter? While the new Twitter-posting capabilities at Flickr are exciting, they do present a few conflicts and redundancies. If Flickr wanted to kill other image-tweeting services, they should have allowed users to choose to auto-tweet about new batches of photos without having to select each pic individually after the fact. As it stands, only Flickr's mobile upload function truly replaces services such as Twitpic and yFrog.

With regard to services such as FriendFeed or PixelPipe that have been shuffling links to our newly posted Flickr photos over to our Twitter accounts automatically, the new Flickr function doesn't really help consolidate users' efforts or save their time. Auto-tweets from third-party aggregators such as these are still the only way to tweet new images from the web without taking extra steps.

However, the redundancy issue will rear its ugly head for mobile uploads to the 2Twitter addresses. For example, if I uploaded from my device right now using a 2Twitter address, it would post to Flickr and Twitter first. Then a FriendFeed post would be generated automatically. That FriendFeed note would then get pushed to Twitter. This is clearly too much noise, but Flickr doesn't give me the necessary incentive to completely turn off FriendFeed's Flickr integration.

Although these issues mean, from our point of view, that the feature still needs improvement, it's a great way to share already uploaded content from a wide range of sources.

Flickr, which hosts a rapidly increasing number of photos, is increasingly using location as a means to organize photos. Earlier this year, for example, the company announced that it now hosts over 100 million geotagged photos and in order to make this data more accessible, Flickr also unveiled a new 'nearby' page on its web site, which displays a map with images that were taken close to another photo.

Flickr's mobile site is also becoming an increasingly valuable asset to the company. Last December, Flickr announced that traffic to the mobile site had increased by more than 50% over the last year, and it has made various smaller updates to the site since then. As smartphones become increasingly better at taking pictures and surfing the web, it is good to see that Flickr is bringing these two worlds together nicely on its mobile site.