Video: Your Images for Sale
By Jonathan Bailey • Jul 24th, 2008 • Category: Articles, Videos
Back in January, I wrote a post detailing the reasons why many artists were frustrated with Photobucket and their approach to copyrighted material.
Specifically the post highlighted the lack of a “take down, stay down” system, such as the one Myspace, Photobucket’s parent company, uses and the ability for any user to print any image they see on the site. These two factors were also the subject of a petition against Photobucket, which now has some 6,700 signatures.
Photobucket, for their part, did not respond favorably to this and I was unfortunately forced to drop the matter for a while as other projects came up.
However, after a hiatus on the topic, I’m returning to it, this time with a 9-minute video illustrating one of the issues, namely the problems surrounding the printing system, but this time calling for users of Photobucket (as well as potentially infringed copyright holders) to pay attention to these issues.
The video, entitled “Commercial Printing with Photobucket” is embedded below and details how easy it is to turn any image on the site into a t-shirt, including personal ones, and how it compares to a similar service, namely Flickr.
PhotoBucket: Your Images for Sale from Jonathan Bailey on Vimeo.
Embed Code:
You can find the video on these following video sharing sites:
YouTube
Vimeo (above)
Revver
Blip.tv
Note: If you put it on another video sharing site, let me know so I can include it in the list.
Also, the video is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA license meaning that you are free to copy and share the video as well as create derivative works so long as the new work is licensed under the same terms.
If you wish to express your displeasure to Photobucket about this matter, you can reach them via their contact form. Also, please consider contacting their partner in this process, Qoop, to let them know you disapprove of Photobucket’s policies. You can do so via their contact form and selecting “Photobucket” as the partner involved (You first have to solve the CAPTCHA to go to the form).
On that note, if you wish to upload the video to your account, edit it or otherwise have a copy of it, you can download the original .mov file by visiting drop.io here (click the “save” link above the video):
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to let me know.
I look forward to your feedback on this video.
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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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Great Video Jonathan!!! Thank you for helping us with this problem, and for educating all of us concerning copyright issues!!
Thank you for the feedback, I’m glad you liked the video!
Awesome video Johnathan! You’ve open my eyes as you probably have with others like me who absorb info from video than they do reading. Not that readings bad, but when you try to keep tabs on many blogs, the less reading the better. LOL
After watching this, I’m not going anyplace near Photobucket. Glad I’m with Flickr
Glad you liked the video and that it was helpful. I’m going to try and do more of these in the future because, for some things, they are a great way to explain what is going on, far better than words. I am still a writer at heart but I don’t mind toying with new tools.
And yes, I would definitely stay with Flickr…
Jonathon,
The larger known a photo site becomes – the less involved their interests are with content protection.
As a user of flickr since 2004 before the corporate takeover, I have encountered a great sense of community and meeting global photographers from all walks of life and skill has really encouraged me to let my hobby of taking pictures blossom, but the darker sides of these photo sharing sites keep rearing their ugly head — to the point now that I am left with a sour taste in my mouth, and contemplating whether I want to renew my pro account with flickr.
I am really glad that I stayed away from photobucket.
The more content rights are ignored the further it pushes me to think of other ways to display my content, and that really saddens me.
Thanks for sharing this video and making it CC – I hope it goes viral, bloggers are a big enough entity encompassing the net, we need to band together as a community to make the corporate sites listen to this important issue.
I have to agree that there is a general trend of larger image hosting sites paying less and less attention to the issues of content protection. Right now, smaller sites such as Smugmug and Photrade are doing more in this area than Flickr and certainly Photobucket.
Definitely though, if you have any thing of personal value, steer clear of Photobucket. I am tempted to start using Tinypic for some of the embedded images in the site, but even that is unlikely with their current policies.
Just out of curiosity, what other means are you considering?
Very welcome for the video and the CC license. Myself and my friends are working to help it go viral. We shall see. However, everything on this site is under the same CC license so the same rules apply for anything you read here
Thank you very much for your compliments!
Jonathan,
I believe you’ve truly created the perfect way to address the PhotoBucket issue by creating this video – if as they say; “a picture is worth a thousand words” then 9 minutes of YouTube video should speak volumes to the generation that is already predisposed to assimilate their information in this way, and for the rest, well you couldn’t say you don’t understand the problem as this video makes it perfectly clear – Bravo!
We will circulate this in every way we can to make sure it does indeed “go viral”
It’s a better digital World that has a Jonathan Bailey in it – Thanks for ALL you do!
-JW
its not fair to blame photobucket for what their users chose to do with the material they upload. Photobucket would have to hire people to maintain and babysit the users uploaded photo’s. The cost would be unbearable to regulate this kinda material. If you are a photographer and you find some one’s photobucket and it has your content in it then you should contact that user and nicely ask them to take it down. 95% of the time they will comply w/o any problem.
reguards,
Ben
owner of Free image host
its not fair to blame photobucket for what their users chose to do with the material they upload. Photobucket would have to hire people to maintain and babysit the users uploaded photo’s. The cost would be unbearable to regulate this kinda material. If you are a photographer and you find some one’s photobucket and it has your content in it then you should contact that user and nicely ask them to take it down. 95% of the time they will comply w/o any problem.
reguards,
Ben
owner of Free image host
Actually, the goal of this video is not to blame PB for what its users do, but rather, to illustrate that all of the images on the site are available for sale, whether or not the user wanted them to be. They bury the language that allows them to do so deep within their TOS and this makes the billions of images they serve available for printing, including very private ones.
If you watch the video, you’ll see that I compare their policies to Flickr, which has a much better system for dealing with this type of issue.
I have other concerns with PB, but this one is something that affects legitimate users of the site even more than those that infringe.
I certainly have no interest in making PB, or any other host, baby sit users.
I’m glad that you like it and you are very welcome for it. I think this is a great medium for illustrating this problem and the message seems to be getting out. Let’s keep pushing this and getting it to everyone who needs to hear it!
hey, I placed a link in Miracle of Art forums.
Thank you for the help! If you can think of anywhere else it belongs, please let me know!
Hi Jonathan
Thanks for sharing this and for taking the time to create such a comprehensive video. It is pretty shocking that a large company like Photobucket wouldn’t have thought about the potential issues (not to mention the fact that some of the images appeared to be copyright). I’m going to post your video over on the Photrade blog.
Also – thanks for mentioning photrade. We are trying to create a site that respects the wishes of the photographers to keep their photos safe.
- Krista
I’m glad that you liked the video and found it useful. I too find it shocking that a company like Photobucket, especially one that gets a large portion of its images from either personal photographs or from hosting potentially infringing works does something so bold as this.
Thank you very much for the mention on the Photrade blog and definitely feel free to embed the video itself if you feel that would be appropriate.
Regarding your site, I have an account there and I really like what you guys are doing. I haven’t started making full use of it, most of my image hosting needs are in a different direction than what you guys do (I do a lot of work with screen shots for articles) but I definitely think you provide a valuable service for visual artists and photographers, I would like the chance to talk with you some time about your service in this area.
Would there be a means I could do that easily or a preferred contact method?
Thank you for your help and support!
I don’t know if you’ve seen the other new and alarming feature on Photobucket. On any photo there’s a button at the top of the module that says “add to your album” which basically copies that photo into your own photobucket account.
Here’s an example:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v135/beckettb...
When copying there’s no alert or notification that perhaps you should check to see if you’re allowed by copyright laws to use it or anything.
(I’ve you’ve covered this elsewhere, I must have missed it.)
Cybele, I think I touched on it briefly in the video and I plan to do yet ANOTHER video about it soon. It is definitely worrisome and something I will be going into more detail on soon!
Cybele, I think I touched on it briefly in the video and I plan to do yet ANOTHER video about it soon. It is definitely worrisome and something I will be going into more detail on soon!
I don't know if you've seen the other new and alarming feature on Photobucket. On any photo there's a button at the top of the module that says “add to your album” which basically copies that photo into your own photobucket account.
Here's an example:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v135/beckettb...
When copying there's no alert or notification that perhaps you should check to see if you're allowed by copyright laws to use it or anything.
(I've you've covered this elsewhere, I must have missed it.)
Cybele, I think I touched on it briefly in the video and I plan to do yet ANOTHER video about it soon. It is definitely worrisome and something I will be going into more detail on soon!