Stashy.com Closes Down
By Jonathan Bailey • Jul 17th, 2008 • Category: Articles, News
In a decision that will likely breathe a sigh of relief to Flickr users, image hosting service Stashy has decided to shut its doors for good.
Stashy was an image host that, through a set of browser extensions, encouraged users to “stash” images found on the Web into their account. Those images would then be available for browsing by visitors and the general public.
The site caused controversy among Flickr users when it was discovered that various Flickr images were appearing in user accounts there. At first, Stashy temporarily closed the site with a note saying “Sorry folks, we have to clear some images that are not suposed to be here. See you tomorrow,” and began to remove many of the allegedly infringing images.
The site reappeared briefly yesterday evening but disappeared again this morning with a lengthier note. This one said, in part, “We created Stashy to bring joy and fun to the people, not to deal with guys that post copyrighted stuff. And since the site started to fail in its mission and we do not have any profit from it, we decided to shut it down.”
The site is currently offline and, in an email to me following a request for comment they said that “We do not have the man power to control and support the site 24/7 this seams like the best solution.”
Some Thoughts
Stashy was an ill-conceived service pretty much from its inception. Though likely well-intended, there was, quite literally, almost no legitimate use for the service as every image in Stashy was a probable infringement.
The problem was that Stashy, unlike most photo storage services, would not allow you to upload images from your hard drive. Rather, it would only download them from the Web.
Those with legitimate photo hosting needs would find this site useless as their images would already be available on the Web, however, those wanting to copy images belonging to others would have found it a great tool.
With so few legitimate uses, the site may have found itself dealing with a lawsuit for copyright infringement and, following the Grokster ruling, may have had a shaky case going forward.
Shutting down the site was a wise move. However, it would have been far better to create an application with greater legitimate uses and better protections for copyright.
On that note though, I find the attitude of “blame the users” to be very worrisome. While we certainly don’t hold Flickr accountable when someone abuses its services for infringement, most Flickr users don’t infringe copyright and the service is built specifically to make that as unlikely of an outcome as possible.
With Stashy, the intended use was almost certainly an infringing one. So while I agree with blame the visitors, when the tool is designed for infringement, it has to bear at least some of the responsibility.
Conclusions
To me, what the case highlights is the nature of Web development these days. According the site right now, Stashy was created by a pair of students with almost no resources.
But while that is impressive, with no lawyers or others to guide them, they created a service that was potentially very dangerous to both the Web at large and the creators of the site.
The good news is that, despite some heated words and bad publicity, the story of Stashy is primarily one of a crisis being averted. The site was taken down peacefully, no lawsuits have been filed and everyone can move on.
It could have been much worse.
My hope is that the developers will continue to build new sites, but will pay closer attention to copyright issue in the future.
On that note, if there is any way I can help with that, they have an open invitation to contact me.
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Jonathan Bailey is The Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today, which he founded in 2005 as a way to help Webmasters going through content theft problems get accurate information and stay up to date on the rapidly-changing field. He is also a consultant to Webmasters and companies to help them devise practical content protection strategies and develop good copyright policies.
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Dear Jonathan Bailey,
as a devoted Stashy user (mind that i was the one with most INDIVIDUAL posts that were UPLOADED by ME and not automatically) I must say that NONE of the images that i uploaded had any warning whatsoever that it goes under any copyright issues. I must say that anyone, on Flickr for example could spend 5 seconds of his/her time to state that the uploaded material (in this case visual) shall not be used, copied, reprinted or disseminated in other media without the consent and permission of the creator.
In addition, I suggest you do a little bit more of research in DeviantArt.com. The creators of the site have made sure that their users are given the chance to protect their creations on several copyright levels. In the case of Stashy’s content, None of it had any note whatsoever saying that the copied content cannot be used in other ways. Besides, I am more than sure that you know lots of other places for sharing and copying info (digg.it, del.icio.us, etc.).
Another point I want to make is that all uploaded content on Stashy preserved the original web address of every single visual item, so that everyone could visit the place where the given item originated from.
I do not know the creators, but I must say they did great job on that one.
Furthermore, I am well acquainted with copyright laws in my own country – Bulgaria – as I work as a freelance journalist and translator, and honestly, the verbal attack of Flickr users on stashy.com is ridiculous, to say the least.
We have a saying in Bulgaria, that roughly translates like this: covered milk is safe from the cats.
Best Regards
There are several points here so I am going to take them one at a time.
Just because none of the images you uploaded received a warning does not mean that they were not likely infringements. If you did not create the images yourself, there was no strong fair use argument (which would be difficult with Stashy) or the image was not in the public domain, it as likely an infringement. Just because images have been copied many times before on the Web does not make it any less of an infringement when you do it again.
So, unless you created all of the images yourself, there’s an almost certainty that at least some were an infringement.
As far as Flickr users stating that their images should not be used, that is exactly what “All Rights Reserved” means, which is the default license in Flickr. I’d imagine through sheer probability that most of the images involved had that. The same goes for DeviantArt. Copyright is a permission system, if a work does not come with any information, it is assumed to be copyright protected, since the Copyright Act of 1978 here in the U.S. and longer elsewhere, if you have no permissions on a work, the default is all rights reserved under current law, not public domain or anything else.
Yes, there are other great tools for sharing information and, as I pointed out in the article, they are occasionally abused. However, those tools have significant non-infringing uses, something that Stashy did not have.
Stashy was a U.S. site and bound by U.S. law, I can not speak for Bulgarian law but I do know that, if you have been admitted to or are seeking admission to the EU, your law will be bound by EU law and the rules there are even stricter on such topics than the U.S. Even Google News was successfully sued for copyright infringement in the EU.
The strange thing to all of this is simple. Ive spoken with at least one of the founders, he seems to have admitted that they made a mistake and they appreciate my offer to help in the future. They’re going to continue building sites but will be consulting with me and attorney friends of mine before progressing, or at least indicated an interest in doing so.
The issue at this time seems to be resolved as the admins at Stashy actually agree with myself and those that share my viewpoint. They made a mistake and were adult enough to admit it and smart enough to pull out before things got worse….
Mr. Bailey,
I am not saying that Stashy was right or anything, I am saying that Flickr users probably waged war on the wrong party. Concerning laws in the EU, I must inform you that while the legislature in all EU member states should be harmonised, this does not mean it is the same.
My point is that if one does not make the necessary steps to protect one’s work, he/she has no right whatsoever to tissue threats toward to the students, who have created Stashy. What I mean is that the reaction and criticism of the users, whose work was abused, was rather unnecessary harsh. I will repeat my words again: overed milk is safe from the cats.
While I agree that the legislation harmonization does not always result in identical legislation, this is an area where the EU set a very high minimum standard and the IFPI and other major copyright holders have been successful in pushing countries to adopt more stringent rules. As I said, I don’t know your country’s laws, but they are likely to change soon.
Considering that most of the Flickr users involved had licensed their work under “All Rights Reserved” and had thus expressed their intention to protect their works, I’m unsure of what other actions you’d want them to take. The only other option would be to mark the images as private or simply not share them on Flickr at all. It seems unfair to tell people that they have to either deal with their works being copied and pasted without permission or never share them on the Web.
I am interested in any thoughts you have here.
While I agree that the legislation harmonization does not always result in identical legislation, this is an area where the EU set a very high minimum standard and the IFPI and other major copyright holders have been successful in pushing countries to adopt more stringent rules. As I said, I don't know your country's laws, but they are likely to change soon.
Considering that most of the Flickr users involved had licensed their work under “All Rights Reserved” and had thus expressed their intention to protect their works, I'm unsure of what other actions you'd want them to take. The only other option would be to mark the images as private or simply not share them on Flickr at all. It seems unfair to tell people that they have to either deal with their works being copied and pasted without permission or never share them on the Web.
I am interested in any thoughts you have here.
Dear Mr. Bailey,
I hope I find you in good health.
A year and a half later or so after your article, I am pleased to inform you that obviously stashy.com now servers a higher purpose for society, that being essentially offering links to porn pages. I hope you find this refreshing and most pleasing to your plagiarism endeavours. After all, advertising sex is much more fun and harmless than sharing other people's stuff. And on that point I want to ask you have you already written at least a dozen articles on how sharing on twitter, facebook, myspace, random blogs and other social media is an infringement on copyright?
Dear Mr. Bailey,
I hope I find you in good health.
A year and a half later or so after your article, I am pleased to inform you that obviously stashy.com now servers a higher purpose for society, that being essentially offering links to porn pages. I hope you find this refreshing and most pleasing to your plagiarism endeavours. After all, advertising sex is much more fun and harmless than sharing other people's stuff. And on that point I want to ask you have you already written at least a dozen articles on how sharing on twitter, facebook, myspace, random blogs and other social media is an infringement on copyright?
I'm sorry for the delayed reply but I wanted to make sure that this got the proper attention and I was on hiatus for most of the month of October (and the first week of November) running a haunted house. So this is the first good chance I've had to respond.
The site that Stashy has become is a link farm site. There are, quite literally, many thousands of them on the Web, many with that exact design.
This is what happens when a domain is allowed to expire, which happens every day to thousands of URLs, and they are scooped up by spammers hoping to cash in on the residual traffic.
This can happen with ANY domain that is shut down for ANY reason. Forget to renew? This can happen. Business close? This can happen. Get taken down by the FBI? This can happen. Anything can cause this. It's not a result of my activities or anyone else's. It, sadly, is the normal result of letting a domain expire.
Sad, but true.
I'm sorry for the delayed reply but I wanted to make sure that this got the proper attention and I was on hiatus for most of the month of October (and the first week of November) running a haunted house. So this is the first good chance I've had to respond.
The site that Stashy has become is a link farm site. There are, quite literally, many thousands of them on the Web, many with that exact design.
This is what happens when a domain is allowed to expire, which happens every day to thousands of URLs, and they are scooped up by spammers hoping to cash in on the residual traffic.
This can happen with ANY domain that is shut down for ANY reason. Forget to renew? This can happen. Business close? This can happen. Get taken down by the FBI? This can happen. Anything can cause this. It's not a result of my activities or anyone else's. It, sadly, is the normal result of letting a domain expire.
Sad, but true.