Photobucket is holding my images hostage ...

Chadeaux

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Well, they were ... I'm just moving them to my personal web server.

Problem is, all my old images that were used for posts here are no longer accessible, and they were linked from Photobucket instead of uploading them here. If you can't view images in some posts, that's why.

Just in case anyone wonders, for $5.99/mo (lowest rate on Photobucket) I could get a couple terrabytes of space on a web server and charge other folks to host theirs, maybe host a couple of websites for pay. So as far as I'm concerned, they can take a hike.

Quite greedy since Photobucket floods you with ads on top of everything. They promise they'll disappear after you subscribe, but I doubt they will. Others have done the same, but the ads still flood their pages. Sorry, I don't need any feminine hygeine products, viagara, miracle cures, fidget spinners or the rest of the lot. If I did, I'd go looking for it.

Oh well, all good things must come to an end.
 

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The_Piratess

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So glad to hear that the "hostage" situation has been resolved and all have been released Lol! :laughing7: That's what they all do. They start out letting everyone upload images for free and once they have reached their pre-planned numbers, the hammer comes down and they start charging. Good for you because a lot of people will just give in and get robbed and continue to be because they have used these services to upload to forums, etc. online and they don't want them to suddenly disappear.
 

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Chadeaux

Chadeaux

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Ok, so here is a test ... already got the space, installed a program that works like photobucket ...

Let's see if it's as good:

squirrel-2330520_1920.jpg


Can you see my little model? This crazy squirrel will follow me around when I'm in the garden taking pics.
 

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Chadeaux

Chadeaux

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So glad to hear that the "hostage" situation has been resolved and all have been released Lol! :laughing7: That's what they all do. They start out letting everyone upload images for free and once they have reached their pre-planned numbers, the hammer comes down and they start charging. Good for you because a lot of people will just give in and get robbed and continue to be because they have used these services to upload to forums, etc. online and they don't want them to suddenly disappear.

Yes, I had been suspecting something was up when the volume of spam in my email from Photobucket exploded and they started with the popups.

Ah, it's okay. They were getting some clicks from hosting my images ... now they won't.
 

ChampFerguson/TN

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Yes, works great. Good quality photo!
 

DeepseekerADS

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I've clicked on a number of photos published by other members here, and get the PhotoBucket message from them that the poster is no longer subscribed. Looks like it's a money grab!
 

Mzjavert

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I found out about this a week ago. Old news stories about this made it sound like they were targeting online sellers (eBay) who were using their services to make money.
 

GA_Boy

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I have several hundred photos in photobucket, but have copies on a thumb drive.

Marvin
PS, I don't think you can get your pictures back as copies. I tried click and drag to desktop but the pic on the desktop would revert back to Photobucket.
 

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Chadeaux

Chadeaux

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I found out about this a week ago. Old news stories about this made it sound like they were targeting online sellers (eBay) who were using their services to make money.

Well, as a web designer, I can tell you EMPHATICALLY, that is a lie. Why? It's a simple matter to forbid one domain or one thousand domains from pulling images from your servers.

If you were in China and tried to access my web domain, you would see nothing but a page telling you that the nation of China was banned from my domain due to the attacks on my site, spam in my forums, etc.

There is also a guy from Brazil who caused everyone with an "atthisdomain.br" address to be banned from our racing forums.

It was a money grab, and not a very nice one at that.
 

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Chadeaux

Chadeaux

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I have several hundred photos in photobucket, but have copies on a thumb drive.

Marvin
PS, I don't think you can get your pictures back as copies. I tried click and drag to desktop but the pic on the desktop would revert back to Photobucket.

Should be able to right click on the image and select "Save Image As" or "Open With" (my preference) and then save with a new name.
 

Charlie P. (NY)

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Mine as well.

B' Bye Photobucket. Hello Imgur.

Can't really complain because it was free. I just had to suffer through pop ups - but I had most blocked and they didn't like that, either. Got so it was locking up. So I figured it was the end of our relationship.
 

AlienLifeForm

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Butthole move on PhotoBuckets behalf. Their only plan that allows for "3rd party hosting" is $400 a year, I suspect people will be leaving in droves and this will be the death of PhotoBucket.
 

TheLocKing

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Seen this come up on a few other forums i'm part of. Big mistake on photobucket's part, can see them losing a lot of trade now.
 

Clay Diggins

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Photobucket, Imgur and all the other "free" image hosting sites have essentially the same terms. That being "we own your pictures when you upload them" and "you don't have a right to link to our images". That last one is why Photobucket won't let you use their pictures (used to be yours) without paying them for the privilege.

From the Imgur terms you agreed to:

you grant Imgur a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable worldwide license (with sublicense and assignment rights) to use, to display online and in any present or future media, to create derivative works of, to allow downloads of, and/or distribute any such file or content. To the extent that you delete any such file or content from the public portions of our site, the license you grant to Imgur pursuant to the preceding sentence will automatically terminate, but will not be revoked with respect to any file or content Imgur has already copied and sublicensed or designated for sublicense.

don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network

That's lawyer speak for "We own your stuff now and you can't use our stuff for forums, eBay, websites or anything else without paying us".

There is no such thing as a free lunch folks. That's particularly true on the internet. Imgur, Facebook, Google and all the rest offer the same flavor of "free" as Photobucket does. The only real question is how long before they send you the bill. The longer they wait the less likely you are to have a backup copy and the more likely you will be willing to pay up to get "your" stuff back. Photobucket couldn't wait any longer.

Read the small print before you eat the free lunch. :BangHead:
 

TerryC

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I own a 4TB external drive. I load ALL pics and lots of other stuff onto it. I don't want my stuff floating around in never never land. ╦╦Ç
 

RustyGold

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Yep! Bye bye photobucket! Having my photos ripped and not left in place is Not what I signed up for.
I'm :walk:
 

nagant

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I deleted my account yesterday. I rarely used it the last 3 years, almost forgot about it. May affect a few ancient forums but oh well.
 

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