Marinetraffic to begin Charging

Jambo

I see with the launch of the new Marine Traffic website that they going to begin charging users. ( Basic 5 minute delayed service will be free)

Link

While its understandable that they must charge I regularly contribute pictures so I would expect some sort of payback for my loyalty considering they are now going to charge for some services which may in turn use my photos.

I remember something similar happened to ship spotting when it was sold off whereby a huge amount of loyal registered users removed all their pictures and then closed their accounts

Tabnabs

I was one who removed all their stuff from shipspotting. It'll be a great shame if marinetraffic goes the same way. I would hope it would just be a matter of time before something else sprung up (along the lines of the excellent flightradar24.com)

goldie fish

shipspotting went to pot completely, Its just all spam and ads now.

Red Nissan

It started as a sharing site, those sharing AIS are getting a free pass to the new service.

As there is complete satellite cover nowadays too, it's unlikely another site would feel the need to compete, but Airwaves Ireland did ask for sharers to also share at their site so we could still offer free sharing in as real time as technology and Internet allows.

Red Nissan

goldie fish wrote: »

shipspotting went to pot completely, Its just all spam and ads now.

I'd forgotten about this site. I remember some problem and I thought it has closed up.

seanmacc

This is a nightmare. Now I'll actually have to walk out on the quay wall to see if the ships are coming in (I'll hazard a guess that my company will not be paying for it for us)

Cookie_Monster

http://www.shipais.com/ is another option

Tabnabs

According to them Dublin Bay in empty and there's only one ship off the Irish east coast...

Red Nissan

Tabnabs wrote: »

According to them Dublin Bay in empty and there's only one ship off the Irish east coast...

That site threw all amateur sharers off years ago, we were all transferred to Marine Traffic.

Ship AIS was the first amateur site [as far as I know] there were a few more that charged for contributions and even at that one was booted if not consistent enough with data.

The push from Ship Ais made Marine Traffic the defacto site and the only 'free' site and was the AIS source for many a Harbour Master, AIS is now [and has been for a while already] available via satellite.

CJhaughey

sailwx.info is a fairly basic site but it works and is free.

flynnlives

where is the data coming from?

if the data is free i dont see how a site cant be built,

Red Nissan

flynnlives wrote: »

where is the data coming from?

if the data is free i dont see how a site cant be built,

Initially this data was coming from enthusiasts who fed a stream to a site. Some sites were offering the equipment, receiver, PC and antenna [free] in exchange for 24 hour coverage, the feeder paying for the electricity and the broadband.

It's possible that some feeders would feed other sites too, sure. Commercial data is not free and that is where the site is expanding to [as I understand it], however the network of amateur feeders is still and essential part.

A rare case of Western Piracy brought notoriety to the site as it was able to provide a track of the pirated vessel a few years ago. Satellite has been switched on since and that's not free, but not very useful as updates are twice a day at best and every other day for parts of the open seas, but the seas are now covered by a service that cannot be provided by an AIS network.

Ilyushin76

Red Nissan wrote: »

A rare case of Western Piracy brought notoriety to the site as it was able to provide a track of the pirated vessel a few years ago. Satellite has been switched on since and that's not free, but not very useful as updates are twice a day at best and every other day for parts of the open seas, but the seas are now covered by a service that cannot be provided by an AIS network.

Have you any more info on this ? sounds interesting.

Red Nissan

Ilyushin76 wrote: »

Have you any more info on this ? sounds interesting.

It was a case of fining out afterwards sort of affair. We received an email from Marine Traffic asking if we had a track on a certain ship. A feeder had noticed an erratic movement of a cargo ship and was wondering if it have engine trouble.

It was tracked from the English Channel doing a few loops and then headed down the coast towards Spain. At that time that was as far there was feeders so the track was lost.

We did find out later that the ship had been hijacked and the AIS data let the authorities know its whereabouts at a time and date so they knew where it was likely heading.

V_Moth

Ilyushin76 wrote: »

Have you any more info on this ? sounds interesting.

I think this is the incident referred to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Arctic_Sea#Boarding_incident

Jambo

Tabnabs wrote: »

I was one who removed all their stuff from shipspotting. It'll be a great shame if marinetraffic goes the same way. I would hope it would just be a matter of time before something else sprung up (along the lines of the excellent flightradar24.com)

I have submitted a request on the marine traffic support forum to question will the photographic contributors receive any royalties or likewise as the site is now charging and benefiting in part from their contributions,

I will update here as soon as I get a response.

I believe if marine traffic was void of any / most photographic contributions it would be less attractive to potential fee payers

Tabnabs

Jambo wrote: »

I have submitted a request on the marine traffic support forum to question will the photographic contributors receive any royalties or likewise as the site is now charging and benefiting in part from their contributions,

I will update here as soon as I get a response.

I believe if marine traffic was void of any / most photographic contributions it would be less attractive to potential fee payers

I've uploaded a few photos too (and could stick up plenty more if necessary). Let us know how you get on and where you posted your request, so I can do the same if it produces a constructive response.

Jambo

Tabnabs wrote: »

I've uploaded a few photos too (and could stick up plenty more if necessary). Let us know how you get on and where you posted your request, so I can do the same if it produces a constructive response.

Tabnabs - you can submit a request to marinetraffic here

Jambo

I finally got a reply - nearly a month on.

Still not great as you do not have the option to opt out and can only delete you photos if they were uploaded less than two weeks prior to the day you want to remove them!

Katerina Sofrona (MarineTraffic Support)
Dec 10 13:17 (AST)

Hello,

At the moment over 30,000 amateur and professional photographers provide us with their photos.
What we do is to give free subscriptions to our top photographers:
Photographers with more than 400 approved photos, average rating above 4 and more than 200 votes, will be awarded a free Premium plan.
Photographers with more than 2,000 approved photos, average rating above 4 and more than 1,000 votes, will be awarded a free Pro plan.

Thank you,

Katerina Sofrona

Red Nissan

Jambo, that's an amazing reply. No professional in the world would accept this. 2,000 images in an image bank would be expected to have a bigger value than a pro subscription.

This has to be tea leaf being served with a porkie pie sandwich.

Jambo

I sent a few more emails to them and got a waffle of an answer see below


Me to Marinetraffic

*Thanks for the reply, that is possibly fair for the very heavy contributors, but the lower contributors still do not have the option to opt out or delete photos they uploaded more than two weeks prior to the date they wish to do so.*

Reply from Marinetraffic

That's true.
It may change in the future but at this time our politics is that it is unfair for someone to delete photos with good voting.

Thank you,

Response from me to Marinetraffic

Yes but my photos were uploaded to a website for everyone to freely use on
a free website.

Marinttraffic is now using the users photos for monetary gain, I am sure
without the users photos the site would not be as attractive to any potential
subscribers.

Marinetraffic response

All photos are available to the free plan.
The paid plans provide other features.

This contradicts the terms and conditions of the site.
T+C's taken from internet archive here

4. Trademarks and Intellectual Property Rights
MarineTraffic, as a work of Intellectual Property is protected by Greek and European Law for Intellectual Property, as modified and in force today and by the international treaties and conventions signed by Greece.

The Provider and his partners maintain the exclusive Intellectual Property Rights upon design, source code and the whole content of the Website (including pictures, graphics, photos, designs, texts, articles, scientific presentations and the services provided by the Website), except where explicitly stated otherwise (e.g. photographs uploaded by third parties). Violation by any means of these rights will draw the subsequent penalties and liability defined by the applicable law. Indicatively, and non-exclusively, copying, modifying, publishing, distributing by any means of the Website’s content without prior written permit of the Provider is prohibited. Furthermore copying, modifying, decompiling or by any means unauthorized use of the Website’s software is prohibited.

"MarineTraffic" trademark and all trademarks appearing on the Website are property of the Provider and/or third parties, companies / respective owners and are protected by Greek and European trademark laws, as well as by international treaties and conventions. Use of these trademarks is by all means prohibited.

5. Photographs
You may upload your photographs on MarineTraffic. These pictures are presented freely to the public, as additional informational content of the Website. During upload you will be expressly asked to mention the copyright holder of each picture, if available, or the source of the photograph. In most cases you should only post your own photos. Do not post photos or images from any other source unless you have an explicit permission by the copyright holder. Website’s administrators will not be liable for the uploading of pictures without the permission of their creator. In the event that copyright holders require the images to be deleted from MarineTraffic system, such requests must be made in writing to MarineTraffic, by email message to info@marinetraffic.com. Upon receipt of such advice, the administrators of MarineTraffic will delete the images as soon as possible. It is strictly forbidden to copy any material from this site and use it elsewhere, unless the copyright holder gives its explicit permission.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to get this measage out there to start a move towards change

CJhaughey

Thats a disgraceful state of affairs, why not stick this up on the photography forum and see what the consensus is over there?
They must have encountered this before.

NUTLEY BOY

In principle this sounds like a case of "unjust enrichment". If photo contributors banded together and threatened to sue for unjust enrichment would this bring about a change of attitude ?