Hey Everybody,

I'm sure more then a few of us here at Airport-Data post photos at other websites. I found this thread at JetPhotos.net and I thought it was an interesting read and may be upsetting at the very least. If it is true, I imagine we will see an increase in photo uploads here. Here is the link:

http://forums.jetphotos.net/showthread.php?t=42463&page=1&pp=20

As you probably know, Airliners and JetPhotos both screen their photos. Yes, they are screened here but not like anything at the other two. One more reason it would be nice to see all photos here edited to the best possible quality. Especially if your goal is not merely 'collecting' airplanes but rather aviation photography. Thanks for reading!

Wow!

It just goes to show you... the only constant in the universe is "change".

This could be good and bad.

Good: We get a lot more high quality image posts on this site.

Bad: I am a member of Airliners and have yet to make the high image quality standard they require... I will just have to practice more.

Airport-data.com has been far more responsive to improvement requests than any other aviation photography site I know of.

As long as that continues... I will be a happy camper.

Lets all hope that many of those people come this way.

Airport-data.com is quite deserving...

I know that Ken has worked very hard to make this one of the best sites. More quality posts will never hurt.

Best Regards,

I feel they are taking too much from the photographers with their new agreement. They seem to be saying that they can use the photos for anything and everything they want to.

There are vigorous discussions on their forums about this.

I saw this post by the GM today...

I want to let everyone know that all photorights will be held by the photographer and I will personally oversee and take care of any problems over this coming week Photos will ONLY be used the way they are used now and possibly for new features but always in the same form and not modified or for use in any other way.

We will work you on the TOU so you are up to speed on every detail and we will work on changes this week.

Pleapse accept my deepest apology as this was a mandate from legal to implement TOU asap. I take full responsibility on this issue and Monique was simply following instructions to move on this. I'm in contact with Legal today and will be working with them over the next week to sculpt this document. Please be patient - Thank you

....Paulo Emanuele (General Manager)

I have ONE picture in their database...it took 5 tries with several minor modifications to get the photo in...I have submitted several and wanted to see what it took to get one by their "expert" screeners...gee whiz

It's not worth the hassle.

I like the airport data way of doing things. Sure maybe there should be some screening in the future...as long as it does not go to the anal extent that AL.net does....

I like this site because of the "collecting of airplanes" by our members...the more in the database the more useful of a tool it is.

I for one try my best to make my new photographs to be of the highest quality that I can. As for the old scanned photos I post, I have no control over the composition, but I do try to make the best image possible for posting. I have a bunch of photos I will not post because of the poor quality and the similarity to others posted here. I have posted some poor quality photos but they are only here to show a particular aircraft at a certain time or it is the only photo of that aircraft in the database.

I have a great time with this site. There are so many photos of interesting aircraft in interesting locations.

Thanks to Ken for all his hard work.

Zane

I found a clear-cut mis-identification of an SZP aircraft on Airliners-(called to my attention by the aircraft's owner) -I wrote an email to the photographer-no response after several months and no correction. Makes you wonder about their so-called screeners? And the true ethics of such sites. As they say in show biz-you are only as good as your material, or garbage in-garbage out. A truer depiction of an aircraft's life-cycle history is found on www.airport-data.com

I can assure everyone that we will never go so far to that kind of TOS. Photographers were, are, and will be our most important factor to success.

Ken

They are scrambling right now to fix their mistake, but unfortunately it appears that no one is buying into the situation.

I say "unfortunately" because airplane spotters around the US are in a precarious position. We enjoy our hobby, and we don't create any situations that should alarm or cause harm to the objects we photograph, but as I type this there are bills in cities, and in Congress, that if enacted will effectively kill aviation photography.

But you can still go take pictures of ships, trains, bus's, cars, and a few other methods of transportation, but just because some idiotic, misguided, moronic terrorists decided to use airplanes instead, we who takes pictures of airplanes are getting shafted left and right each and every day.

Cities are passing bans on photographing aircraft at general aviation airports locally, and congress is moving towards increased radius distances from major airports, and higher security guidelines.

We really needed all the friends we can get, because at some point this is going to get completely out of our control, and I don't know about the rest of you folks on Airport-Data.com, I don't have the several million dollars a year it takes to hire lobbyists to keep some basic freedoms for us going.

A lot of the photographers over there are acting like they will just pull their pictures and not re-post them any where. That would be a shame.

So we really need more sites, not less although I would prefer Airport-Data.com to get the lions share, lets hope we don't lose anymore.

It will hurt all of us in the long run.

(Stepping back off my soapbox)