Stumble it!
I just received an email from reader Melissa about a petition regarding the popular image-sharing site PhotoBucket.
This is what she said:
As you might know Photobucket.com is one of the biggest image hosting services online. What many Photobucket users are not aware of is that any image in a public Photobucket gallery is available as a print through Photobucket’s partner site Qoop. Unfortunately art theft is common, and many people find images they like online and then post them to their Photobucket accounts, after which those images are then available to be printed.
Jonathan Bailey of PlagiarismToday.com has joined forces with many internet artists to create a petition asking Photobucket’s owners and administrators to revise their policies to help protect artist’s rights. They are asking that the print service be changed so that only album owners can print their own images, and that they utilize an existing form of copyright protection that uses digital “fingerprints” of image files that have been reported to prevent repeat uploads of infringed artwork.
I have never used PhotoBucket before, so I did a little investigating of my own. I was surprised by what I saw.
I took a visit to the PhotoBucket.com, clicked on a random user and viewed one of their photos. Sure enough, there was a “Buy Prints” link right at the top of the picture, where you could get a whole variety of stuff from posters to coffee mugs.
I can see where this can get an artist into a whole mess of trouble. If you upload a bunch of your artwork, people will be able to get prints of your stuff, with the money going straight to Qoop and PhotoBucket — not you. It also disturbs me that any visitor could look at this and think that’s totally okay, that the artist is advocating buying prints from their PhotoBucket account.
The only way around this is to set the photo to “private.” But then, what’s the point of using an image-sharing site?
This is a good time to remind all of us artists to be careful about where we choose to put our artwork. (In fact, this reminds me of another concern about Facebook that was made by artist agent Anna Goodson some time ago. Read about it here: http://thelittlechimpsociety.com/theape/facebook-illustrators-be-a-ware/.) Nevertheless, web services like these can be really helpful, and it would be nice if PhotoBucket took a little more consideration for the people who like to use their site.
You can read the full article here: http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2008/01/15/artists-express-concern-over-photobucket/
And view the petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/pbarts/petition.html
Do any of you currently use PhotoBucket to share your artwork? And if you do, did you know about this feature? If you have any thoughts, go ahead and leave a comment.
Entries (RSS)
January 17th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Signed!
January 17th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Hi there. I’ve used Photobucket for years, but i did NOT know about THIS. My account is totally private (therefore safe?), but i do share pictures of my art from Photobucket though. By posting on my blogs or other blogs. There is a “sharing” url so that you can share your pics from a private account.
Normally, when people post Photobucket pics in their blog, you can click on them and it takes you to Photobucket (but don’t quote me). But as far as i know, you can’t click on mine, or if you can, and you try to look at more than the one i posted, it will say it’s a private account. I’ll have to check it out for sure.
Thank you very much for the heads up! I’ve recently opened up a Flickr account for actual public sharing, where people can browse through all your art. And as far as i know, there, they care about copyright. That seems to be the most popular way to share with artists these days!!
January 17th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Amberjoon: I am the author of the petition. I can tell you with certainty that your work IS safe. If you have your account set to private, no one but you can access your “Share” page and no one can print your images.
I just wanted to calm your fears a bit but tell everyone that setting your PB account to private is the ONLY way to prevent this.
Hope this helps!
January 17th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Hi Dani, your site is fantastic– I’m a new fan visiting your archives frequently! Really exceptional.
This post spooked me, but to reply on Amberjoon’s post, I’ve always tweeked the HTML for any shared photos posted on Myspace etc. I’ll change the link address, the ALT= tag, and add a TITLE= tag (so Firefox and Safari browsers see the notes when you mouse over).
The confusion began a short while ago; when you cut & paste the HTML code it used to link straight to the Photobucket homepage. Now, it goes IN to the account it is from, if it is not set private, as Mr. Bailey mentioned (I’ve got into people’s personal collections myself).
People NEED to change their settings on ANY social networking site, immediately when they join, but that’s a rant for another site/time.
Either way, Photobucket users (especially Myspace and Facebook users!) need to learn some HTML tricks, and change default settings.
Thanks!
January 17th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
What serious, self-respecting artist would ever post thier artwork on the image dumping ground known as Photobucket anyway?
January 17th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Hello. I’ve used Photobucket for a very long time and I had no idea that they’d implemented such things…. It makes me very reassured to know that all I have to do is keep on leaving my account as ‘Private’ and only sharing my links with either reputable sites that I do art on or with actual friends.
I was also kinda wondering if there was any truth to the rumor that MySpace or someplace similar had bought Photobucket and if so, what kind of other not-pleasant surprises are they likely to try…? Somehow the idea that others could have profited/stolen my work by turning it into whatever they please with this new feature (had I not always kept it ‘Private’ in the first place long ago) makes me worried….this is why I no longer have an account at DA (DeviantArt)…
January 17th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Thanks for the comments guys. I would encourage you to be mature and civil about this. There’s no need for name-calling (Dee Ann); and some of the comments over on the petition are a little silly. Even though they made a big flub here and some of their users are ignorant, PhotoBucket is a legitimate tool for artists. Remember, we’re trying to get them to *respect* artists…
January 24th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Thanks I have not used it an a while but I did have a bunch of stuff out there. So I closed my account. I did to the survey they they sent that asked why I was closing my account. (I think surveys are valuable to companies and there ability to how to improve their products) I let them know the problem I had with others printing my work.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Holy moly… that Qoop ‘order prints’ link is on Flickr, too! Time to get the word out on this petition there. Jonathan? Think Flickr can be added in on this petition? There are illustration communities popping up left and right there and, while Flickr DOES seem to default to private, I don’t think you can shut off the Prints option.
-Sue
February 6th, 2008 at 9:27 am
As far as I know Susan, the “order prints” option on Flickr is only available for you to make prints of YOUR OWN pictures, which is different than what is happening on Photobucket. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I visited Flickr and couldn’t find the link you were referring to. Please let me know where it is if I missed it.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Oops! Wow, is my face red… You’re right, Dani, I hit the panic button way too fast on this one.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I use photobucket a lot. I checked my settings when i read this. It was set to private, which i’m very greatful.
I use the photobucket account to easily upload images that I display else where. I only want those images displayed there. I still use Photobucket quite a bit, but for the little things, quick thing i want to upload. I use Deviant Art for major things (I haven’t uploaded much since I am short on time to do art on my own right now)
I don’t think that the site should allow the prints to be made at all, so many people have pictures up, and i’m sure that they don’t want some one printing their things. Once again the artists intention is distorted through other people’s hands and eyes.
August 9th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
If your photobucket account is set to ‘private’ it is far from safe, trust me !!!
If you have artwork that you intend to use/sell or whatever and dont want it stolen then photobucket is not for you.
For a start, all their staff members have access …
Not that you need to be a staff member, I can get them too.
Don’t believe me ? Send me the URL of your account and I’ll show you what can be extracted from your account.