My thinking on the legal issues is to essentially replicate what is being done with iStock (and any other photo-sharing site). The image owner uploads the image, with an agreement to sell a license to purchasers for specific uses of the images.
Ex: iStock has one price point & license for own use (I'm buying an image for my website), and another price and license for resale (I'm buying an image to include in a template brochure that will be sold to multiple clients for them to distribute).
The licensing isn't that much of an issue, in my mind - though it would be necessary to have it documented and tracked. The more pressing issue is the administration - overhead costs, watermarking the sample images, tracking credits and purchases, etc.
Ryan
PS - 200 florists sharing a selection of stock images is a long way from 20,000 WS shops displaying the same catalogue items. Pro or con WS images (I'm not strongly pro or con, myself) most would agree it's better to compete with a few hundred or less vs 10-20 thousand.
Ex: iStock has one price point & license for own use (I'm buying an image for my website), and another price and license for resale (I'm buying an image to include in a template brochure that will be sold to multiple clients for them to distribute).
The licensing isn't that much of an issue, in my mind - though it would be necessary to have it documented and tracked. The more pressing issue is the administration - overhead costs, watermarking the sample images, tracking credits and purchases, etc.
Ryan
PS - 200 florists sharing a selection of stock images is a long way from 20,000 WS shops displaying the same catalogue items. Pro or con WS images (I'm not strongly pro or con, myself) most would agree it's better to compete with a few hundred or less vs 10-20 thousand.
