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Well, THIS doesn't sound good........
17 years ago
Wolfie's Journal Ramblings............
I got this in my e-mail from an art site that I subscribe to, "DaniDraws" (VERY cool stuff she has, but that's NOT the point of this) the other day, and it got me uneasy about PhotoBucket. Read it for yourselves, and tell me what YOU guys think:
"I just received an email from reader Melissa (http://wickedeye.wordpress.com )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."
(The NEXT part is HER comments on things.)
"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/th.....ors-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.....r-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."
As it happens, I DO use PhotoBucket for posting my art (mostly on the forums that I'm a member of, AND for posting my avatars/icons for places like this, and DA, AND for my siggy-pics for the aforementioned forums. Because of this, I decided to check this info, and to MY everlasting shock, that "Buy Prints" button IS there! I was NOT a happy camper about this, I can tell you THAT! At least over at DA, you have the OPTION of having a "Buy Prints" button (or however THEY do it), or not!
And I ALSO don't like the idea that PhotoBucket and this partner of theirs get the money from the sales of said pics! Some of the pics on my PB account are my OWN art, and I should be the one to get the cash off of them, NOT them!!!
They SRSLY need to bone up on the copyright laws over there. I can't speak for anyone else who's a member there, but MOST of my Aavas and siggy-pics are from well-known, copyrighted stuff like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (both the TV series AND the comics), the Biker Mice From Mars (the TV series) and the SWAT Kats (ditto). Heck, MOST of my PERSONALLY-DONE art is either BMFM, TMNT or SK-related. But at least I put copyright notices ON my art and fics.
I'll tell you what: PB and Qoop are SRSLY setting themselves up for some SERIOUS trouble with this, in case they don't know it.
So what do YOU guys think about this?
"I just received an email from reader Melissa (http://wickedeye.wordpress.com )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."
(The NEXT part is HER comments on things.)
"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/th.....ors-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.....r-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."
As it happens, I DO use PhotoBucket for posting my art (mostly on the forums that I'm a member of, AND for posting my avatars/icons for places like this, and DA, AND for my siggy-pics for the aforementioned forums. Because of this, I decided to check this info, and to MY everlasting shock, that "Buy Prints" button IS there! I was NOT a happy camper about this, I can tell you THAT! At least over at DA, you have the OPTION of having a "Buy Prints" button (or however THEY do it), or not!
And I ALSO don't like the idea that PhotoBucket and this partner of theirs get the money from the sales of said pics! Some of the pics on my PB account are my OWN art, and I should be the one to get the cash off of them, NOT them!!!
They SRSLY need to bone up on the copyright laws over there. I can't speak for anyone else who's a member there, but MOST of my Aavas and siggy-pics are from well-known, copyrighted stuff like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (both the TV series AND the comics), the Biker Mice From Mars (the TV series) and the SWAT Kats (ditto). Heck, MOST of my PERSONALLY-DONE art is either BMFM, TMNT or SK-related. But at least I put copyright notices ON my art and fics.
I'll tell you what: PB and Qoop are SRSLY setting themselves up for some SERIOUS trouble with this, in case they don't know it.
So what do YOU guys think about this?
