Synth collaboration, opt-in.

This would depend on what license the two users have.

You could set it up so when one user proposes to the second user to combine synths, it includes a license proposal - make sure the dialog shows the user what license the other person is using. Then, mark both users as the owner of the combined synth under that license - if the other user accepts. At that point you have shared ownership and responsibility.

You could provide individual ownership/responsibility options and allow the users to allocate risk by selecting essentially bartering for ownership in the offer.

However, I think the solution that makes the most sense to me is for each user to retain ownership in their photos, with their original, compatible [will have to check for that] licenses. The new, derivative work is then a collaborative project, with the entirety being a shared entity under both licenses, but contains an indemnity clause that if any challenges come regarding individual images - those go to the owner of that image, not the union of the images.

Or, well, yah, you could just give them a wikipedia model shared ownership and responsibility - and notify them that it defaults to that license once projects are combined.

As long as the user is made aware of the licensing change or adaption when they merge their projects, I do not think there would be a problem.

However, I think either user, independently, should be able to remove their images from the combined unit - and if the unit ever reduces to a single user, ditch it entirety - with a notice to the remaining user.

The collaborate feature should allow more than just two users to combine. It should be designed so that multiple users can be added.

For example, my Sagrada Familia synth is minimally synthy - but if I were to combine it with other Sagrada Familia synths [or borrow a bunch of CC Derivative works from Flickr], then its synthiness would increase. The more people that join in, the more valuable to everyone the final synth would become.

From what I saw on TED the video of Blaise Aguera y Arcas explanation was this very topic, that Photosynth's purpose was the search the entire Internet for photos of a place and combine them. About 3:40 into his presentation (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bl...) he demonstrates a synth of Notre Dame in Paris that is a combination of images from dozens of sources. I'd like to have access to that one for my high school students. That every Thomas, Richard, and Harold can make his own Photosynth is fine, but I want the one by "Th-icha-rold"

I'd really like to see this feature. The idea would be to make all images CC. Or, if I searched for other synths and saw that I had photos to add that would enhance the synthiness of the group, I could add to that group. This has the potential to make some real super-synths!

Hi

I'm an admin in a Flickr group for National Trust properties in the UK
In it we have a group of people taking many photos of the same places.

Here is a link to the group if you want to see what it's about
http://www.flickr.com/groups/national...

It would seem to me that pooling this resource in a collaborative fashion would be the best/easiest way to generate high quality synths.

Has this idea progressed in the last few months? I've looked through the forum and couldn't really see much about it - I'd say that this is the most powerful and important part of Photosynth, harnessing the power of a photographic hive mind.