Show HN: An Image Licensing Platform just for Instagram (example profile) | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: An Image Licensing Platform just for Instagram (example profile)

sharefair.co

25 pointsharryleeming17 comments

Hi HN!

If anyone hasn't read Max Dubler's 2017 PetaPixel blog post 'No, You Can’t Use My Photos On Your Brand’s Instagram For Free'. I'd highly recommend it.

https://petapixel.com/2017/07/13/no-cant-use-photos-brands-i...

There is a huge amount of copyright infringement that goes on on Instagram, but to be fair to users there isn't really any decent framework in place to make sure they're reposting legally.

I built Sharefair over the last few months, it currently is only accessible if you have a creator account (currently limited by Instagram's new API). But I'm hoping to include all account types in the next few months.

Let me know what you guys think!

When I visit your site on mobile, 1/3 of the screen tells me your name (not your company's name - your name) and zero percent of the page gives me any details beyond "The easy way to get instant permission from photographers to share their images on your Instagram legally."

Unless you personally matter to every potential customer I'd reverse those two percentages.

try the homepage sharefair.co/ :)

I thought it would be more interesting to link to an actual licensing page for an Instagram profile, than the homepage.

But I appreciate the feedback, definitely could make some improvements on the mobile side of things!

I love that you are helping creators to defend the value of their work! have you considered investigating partnering with legal startups such as legalzoom, legalist, or someone else to help time strapped creators send the nastygrams as well?

We haven't considered that properly, I think chasing up copyright infringement is a difficult one, especially for Instagram reposts where the payout will most likely be so low.

Having said that, in the US, the CASE act, which will introduce a small claims court for exactly this kind of use case (excuse the pun) made it through the House of Representatives yesterday. So it's an interesting option for sure!

https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/22/20927545/copyright-bill-...

Is there anything unique about your site that prevents Instagram from just implementing licensing themselves?

Nope, not at all. It would be great if they did though, it would actually give them an incentive to protect artists and photographers. Right now they are taking a real back seat with copyright infringement, which is a real shame because it's the creators that bring all the value to the platform and they're the ones that are losing out, whether it's not being properly attributed for their work or brands reposting their stuff without payment.

Makes sense, thanks for taking a crack at fixing this problem!

Completely blank website in Firefox if the Enhanced Tracking Protection is enabled.

Urgh, trying to fix this now :(

It's still blank.

Twenty 20[0] started as InstaCanvas providing licensing for instagram photos. It shifted towards a general stock photo catalog to increase inventory.

[0]: https://www.twenty20.com

I'll look into this, but I don't believe they have an image license specifically for Instagram reposts only

This is a great idea. There's a lot of possibilities in tools/services which allow creators to monetize easily. Do you think there is an opportunity to allow sharing outside of Instagram? I.e licensing photos for use in articles, blogs, etc? Or is part of the advantage here that Instagram is a walled garden of sorts, where it's more difficult to steal a user's image?

> Do you think there is an opportunity to allow sharing outside of Instagram?

Absolutely. Although I think there is some power, at least initially, in focusing just on an Instagram specific license. But in the future 100% we'd love to add more license options for more traditional use cases

Nice!

I actually approached this problem from the other side a few years ago and made a service which let brands purchase the rights to users' Instagram photos. It was definitely an interesting experience, but this is a great way to help the users a bit.

I know a lot of people who could be in to this (both on the consumer and producer side). Great idea, good luck.

I do worry if you maybe missed the mark by not launching as a mobile app, though.

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