Photobucket - Please Read

[Scott]

Photobucket has changed their terms of service that affects linking to images stored via their service.

Users of their service will need to read their new terms to see how it affects them and what options, if any, are available. This is a similar action to the terms of service changes imgur.com did a year ago and we posted about it here.


Members that have had issues in updating their forum accordingly due to this recent development have and will post their questions on support. So please:

1) Create your own thread and do not hijack another's.

2) Do NOT post your opinions about Photobucket in these threads! Support threads are for assisting with forum related issues and is not an appropriate place for discussions on Photobucket's recent policy changes.

Thank you.

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Photobucket Thread Summary - What To Do

The above link takes you to the last post of this thread with complete instructions on how to deal with the Photobucket 3rd Party Hosting image appearing on forums.

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[Kami]

I want to state also that if you are looking for a replacement for photobucket, please read the sites' ToS thoroughly! I've already seen at least two suggestions for replacements where the service terms are the same as imgur and photobucket (i.e. not using them as a content delivery network / disallowing hotlinking), so a read prior to signing up will save you from future stress!

[Barkley]

Flickr is quite good, as are your own forum themes for certain images.

www.flickr.com/

I saw Photobucket going down the slippy road a long time ago, so switched everything over, as that site is just a mess now.

[Kami]

Jun 30, 2017 19:25:28 GMT -8 Barkley said:

Flikr is quite good, as are your own forum themes for certain images.

I saw Photobucket going down the slippy road a long time ago, so switched everything over, as that site is just a mess now.

Flickr forbids using their service as a web graphics host (though you are allowed to embed your own personal content to third party sites through them provided they're not website related) for the record, and is one of the services I mentioned (though did not name, hoping people would read the TOS of any site on their own) that people are suggesting without realising they also have provisions in their terms of service prohibiting website image usage.

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Scott ~

I was checking out Google's album storage just now.

That's also an option.

You can upload to there, then click on the photo and it will open surrounded by a black background. In the top corner you'll see the share/edit/info/delete icons. Right click on the photo and select copy image address and then paste that URL in the image  box provided here. 

[Yorko]

Good morning

Sorry to be a little ignorant on some of the terminology being used i.e. hot linking etc

I would like to ask this, I have the smiley drop down plug in and all the images are current hosted by Photobucket. I do not have a paid service and up to now all is still in place.

I am assuming that I am now violating their new TOS though nothing has change visually

Am I now breaking Proboards rules and should I now be moving all these images to one of the other suggested sites (that do allow linking)

Many thanks

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Traditionally, what we've been doing with Photobucket isn't hotlinking, but that's what they're now calling it.

And yes, sadly, posting their link on any 3rd party site is now against their ToS, Yorko.


You can read more about it here and on the support thread here. 

[Yorko]

Thanks Luv

I will later begin shifing the numerous images over to the new host

Cheers for the quick answer

[Barkley]

Jun 30, 2017 19:27:48 GMT -8 Kami said:

Jun 30, 2017 19:25:28 GMT -8 Barkley said:

Flikr is quite good, as are your own forum themes for certain images.

I saw Photobucket going down the slippy road a long time ago, so switched everything over, as that site is just a mess now.

Flickr forbids using their service as a web graphics host (though you are allowed to embed your own personal content to third party sites through them provided they're not website related) for the record, and is one of the services I mentioned (though did not name, hoping people would read the TOS of any site on their own) that people are suggesting without realising they also have provisions in their terms of service prohibiting website image usage.

I wasn't aware of that.

Perhaps the easiest way forward is for Proboards to enable us to host our own images?

Is this possible Scott ?

[Kami]

Jul 1, 2017 5:32:01 GMT -8 Barkley said:

Jun 30, 2017 19:27:48 GMT -8 Kami said:

Flickr forbids using their service as a web graphics host (though you are allowed to embed your own personal content to third party sites through them provided they're not website related) for the record, and is one of the services I mentioned (though did not name, hoping people would read the TOS of any site on their own) that people are suggesting without realising they also have provisions in their terms of service prohibiting website image usage.

I wasn't aware of that.

Perhaps the easiest way forward is for Proboards to enable us to host our own images?

Is this possible Scott ?

ProBoards already allows this on a per theme basis.

[Scott]

Jul 1, 2017 7:12:41 GMT -8 Kami said:

Jul 1, 2017 5:32:01 GMT -8 Barkley said:

I wasn't aware of that.

Perhaps the easiest way forward is for Proboards to enable us to host our own images?

Is this possible Scott ?

ProBoards already allows this on a per theme basis.

Well just to clarify, what we allow is theme related images to be hosted within the theme. This includes the forum logo, default theme avatar, thread icons, forum icons, groups & rank stars, smiles and wysiwyg/bbcode buttons.  There is also a custom theme image section for things like the banner image or background image. Images uploaded to a theme are theme specific.

So other than that and the attachment system, we don't offer any other image hosting.


Now whether we'll consider expanding our services some day to adding image hosting, I can't really say.  Think users vs. number of images per users vs. requests vs. sizes. Images can be very big data files.  So image hosting itself can be a costly endeavor as a 'free' service (as evidenced by the actions of imgur and photobucket).  And personally speaking... we can't even get some users to let three unobtrusive ads display on a page

[Kami]

Scott - thanks for the added clarification. I had figured that since we were speaking of flickr disallowing website / theme graphics that the train of thought would follow but it doesn't hurt to be extra clear. :3

[Stinky666]

For anyone interested, imageupload.co.uk seems to be fine
Knowing me I am missing the terms saying it's forbidden ??

[Kami]

Jul 1, 2017 7:54:48 GMT -8 Stinky666 said:

For anyone interested, imageupload.co.uk seems to be fine
Knowing me I am missing the terms saying it's forbidden ??

They don't have a ToS. Personally I would avoid using any site that doesn't have a clear ToS (or a ToS at all).

[Barkley]

Jul 1, 2017 7:42:33 GMT -8 Scott said:

Jul 1, 2017 7:12:41 GMT -8 Kami said:

ProBoards already allows this on a per theme basis.

Well just to clarify, what we allow is theme related images to be hosted within the theme. This includes the forum logo, default theme avatar, thread icons, forum icons, groups & rank stars, smiles and wysiwyg/bbcode buttons.  There is also a custom theme image section for things like the banner image or background image. Images uploaded to a theme are theme specific.

So other than that and the attachment system, we don't offer any other image hosting.


Now whether we'll consider expanding our services some day to adding image hosting, I can't really say.  Think users vs. number of images per users vs. requests vs. sizes. Images can be very big data files.  So image hosting itself can be a costly endeavor as a 'free' service (as evidenced by the actions of imgur and photobucket).  And personally speaking... we can't even get some users to let three unobtrusive ads display on a page

If ever it was a time for the Proboards team to discuss it Scott, I'd guess the time is now.

No point designing v6, 'then' discussing it.

I have a feeling too that if the v5 themes won't work in v6, then any images uploaded to those themes will crash too.

Each forum has a Megabyte 'limit' of 50mb, with an option to increase that limit if we pay for it, so since when have Proboards dictated what the images can be used for?