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New Service Wants Your Digital Pictures

Two of the web`s most important news agencies, Yahoo News and Reuters, announced last week that a new joint initiative aimed at people who want to publish their photos on the web is now available. The new service is called Witness News, and builds on the idea that people who took pictures with a news value will upload the images to the site, and then Yahoo News and Reuters could use those images in their news pieces. After all, events occur all the time, and there`s a camera man present in all places all the time. Bystanders that happen to take pictures of an important event, or basically any news-worthy occasions, can share their images online so the public can get more information.

Sounds good? Well, not everything is shinning in the land of Witness News. Users are asked to freely donate their images, and there is no financial compensation for commercial use that Yahoo News and Reuters are doing with the images. The idea was probably based on social-networking platforms such as MySpace and YouTube, where users are constantly uploading visual content to the site, with no expectation for a financial return. Both companies are counting on the many users that will take advantage of the situation and send them their photos.

With mainstream devices already featuring digital cameras with one, two, and even three mega pixels, the quality of the pictures is satisfying and can be used for online journalism. As the number of people using the service grow, the companies might pay royalties for pictures that are sold to other publications, but as for now, the images will be used with no financial compensation what so ever.