Photobucket - Please Read

[moonbeam]

Jul 7, 2017 11:17:38 GMT -8 Gibby said:

oh i see , well i tend to talk with the organ grinder rather than the monkeys     ( joke)

Only the 'organ grinder' in this case has nothing to do with the 'monkeys' who create plugins. Best you can hope for is that the creator shows back up, or someone else re-does the plugin from scratch. In any case it isn't PB's responsibility.

[Scott]

Gibby , have you thought of just fixing the plugin yourself?

So far the plugins by Wormopolis that I've come across that use images hosted on photobucket, are not locked in such they have the image fields available for the admin to use their own images. Just navigate to the plugin's settings and you'll find the area to update the image URLs.

You can even open each current image link in a browser tab/window, save to your desktop, upload to a new host and then update the URLs in the plugin thus having the same images that came with the plugin.


This might be more productive than subtle slams.

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Actually, Scott , that opening the image in another tab trick worked for awhile.

But it didn't last night when I tried to get Wormo's color smear image.

It showed the ransomware image. I think P'Bucket wised up to that trick.

It's why I created a new button myself.

[Scott]

Jul 7, 2017 11:42:53 GMT -8 ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ said:

Actually, Scott , that opening the image in another tab trick worked for awhile.

But it didn't last night when I tried to get Wormo's color smear image.

It showed the ransomware image. I think P'Bucket wised up to that trick.

It's why I created a new button myself.

Just checked the chess images and the ones for the Profile Comments plugin before posting and they were there. So may be a hit or miss. Perhaps the quicker the better for some of these?

And either way, the ability to update with your own is still an option.

[m2marsh]

Jul 7, 2017 5:46:28 GMT -8 m2marsh said:

Jul 7, 2017 2:08:15 GMT -8 bouncy said:

I came on here when one of our forums members raised this issue last night. We virtually all use Photobucket to host images and animated smilies for our forum, so we're a bit gutted.

Really dumb question time, but is it really a case of going through each individual broken link and replacing it? I'm thinking more about the smilies, as they are repetitive. Members can be responsible for sorting out their own pictures (if they're still around).

if you have an image that is used often, once you get a working link, an Admin can use the forum's censored word feature to fix a lot of them.

Quoting myself to note that this doesn't appear to work dangit.  Perhaps with some massaging....

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Jul 7, 2017 11:45:19 GMT -8 Scott said:

Just checked the chess images and the ones for the Profile Comments plugin before posting and they were there. So may be a hit or miss. Perhaps the quicker the better for some of these?

And either way, the ability to update with your own is still an option.

Yup, most likely the quicker the better is the operative phrase.

I just checked a few others occurring randomly and I can't snag the image.


This is really devastating for some of us. I'm grateful I have everything on my computer. That was never an issue. But lordy, the rest is a fiasco of epic proportions!

[bluegranite]

Jul 7, 2017 8:40:17 GMT -8 Scott said:

Jul 7, 2017 8:29:08 GMT -8 bluegranite said:

So what I do now, which I recommend to other ProBoards users, is 2 things:

(1) I have a couple free Wordpress websites,. and I'm able to upload my own images to those sites, which then get a URL that then allow any of my images to be embedded on my Proboards forum using the HTML code to add web image links to posts.  Free Wordpress sites only allow a certain limited GB storage for images, so there is that limitation.  

(2) FaceBook allows images to be posted without charge and apparently without limit.  So if you have a FB account, you can post images to a private (or public) area on your own page, or private (or public) group, and then this will give you a URL for those images so that you can link them to your forum.  

I strongly urge you not to make the recommendations you listed above or to do this yourself. Wordpress and Facebook are not image hosting sites and they can monitor the usage of the image links from their site that are used in the manner you described and could very likely shut your accounts down for not using them as intended.  If we discovered a member using PB this way, hosting images used on another site/service, you'd be out of here faster than you can say quidditch!

You need to use a true image hosting service.  Here is our External Resources list.  It includes image hosting services.  I suggest you check them out and find the one that best meets your needs.

I didn't realize it would create any type of problem to copy images from one site I use, to another website.   Can anyone elaborate or point me to relevant terms of service which would help clarify this issue?  

[Kami]

Jul 7, 2017 12:40:54 GMT -8 bluegranite said:

Jul 7, 2017 8:40:17 GMT -8 Scott said:

I strongly urge you not to make the recommendations you listed above or to do this yourself. Wordpress and Facebook are not image hosting sites and they can monitor the usage of the image links from their site that are used in the manner you described and could very likely shut your accounts down for not using them as intended.  If we discovered a member using PB this way, hosting images used on another site/service, you'd be out of here faster than you can say quidditch!

You need to use a true image hosting service.  Here is our External Resources list.  It includes image hosting services.  I suggest you check them out and find the one that best meets your needs.

I didn't realize it would create any type of problem to copy images from one site I use, to another website.   Can anyone elaborate or point me to relevant terms of service which would help clarify this issue?  

No, not really. Each service has their own TOS, so that would be something you'd have to take up with them / research yourself.

On that note, though, it's not really a matter of "copying" the image but using the resources of another provider.

Imagine if you were charged $1 every time your image was loaded. On the "source" website, your page is loaded 100 times, so that's $100 dollars, something you budgeted for. Then imagine that image was posted on someone else's website, and you had no control over it. That image then gets loaded 1,000 times. That's another $1000 dollars you haven't accounted for in your budget.

Similarly, a service allocates a certain amount of resources to each user, within the parameters of their service. Using a service for something they weren't meant for in order to take advantage of their resources is a financial strain as well as a resource strain for that service (and not to mention rather ... jerky to do).

Part of the reason there are paid plans in addition to free plans on these services is so that the service can offset their own costs; if you notice, paid plans are frequently targeted at those who expect to use more resources, and while the payment turns a profit, there's also an actual need for money to accommodate the higher resource use.

The reason Photobucket has decided to hold peoples' images ransom is because they're not making enough money. Do I think they're charging something reasonable? No. Do I think their methods are ethical? Also no. But the base concern -- the company's bottom line -- is a very real, very common one.

Using a service's resources to circumvent limitations on another service contributes to this problem for another company so unless you want to see all free services go belly up, do not encourage people to do this.

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

bluegranite , a hosting site is set up specifically to host images. Whether that host will allow sharing the images to a 3rd party will be in their ToS. All sites have Terms of Service, Terms and Conditions, or Conditions of Service. Just click on those links on any site you are on. 

Image hosting sites are provided on this ProBoards' link.

Word Press, Facebook do NOT advertise as, nor are they, image hosting providers. That is not the intent or purpose of their business.

So when you hot link from their site solely for the purpose of hosting that image on another site, you are not using that site for its intended purpose.

[bluegranite]

Jul 7, 2017 13:04:55 GMT -8 ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ said:

bluegranite , a hosting site is set up specifically to host images. Whether that host will allow sharing the images to a 3rd party will be in their ToS. All sites have Terms of Service, Terms and Conditions, or Conditions of Service. Just click on those links on any site you are on. 

Image hosting sites are provided on this ProBoards' link.

Word Press, Facebook do NOT advertise as, nor are they, image hosting providers. That is not the intent or purpose of their business.

So when you hot link from their site solely for the purpose of hosting that image on another site, you are not using that site for its intended purpose.

What is a "hot link"?  I am sorry I'm apparently so un-knowledgeable...today is the first time I've heard the term "image hosting", and I've also never heard the term "hot link".  I guess I'm not as knowledgeable about running websites as some are... I didn't realize there were all these complexities.  

Kami  thank you for the explanation of expenses involved in loading pages and budget amounts...your explanation helps and I am getting some hint of what is involved here, but I know so little about how the internet works that I did not realize there could be costs associated with pages or images loading.  I do think it's difficult for those of us who are not familiar with all of these things about the internet, to understand the reasons for the protocol/terms of service that you're explaining here.  

I don't know if I'm an anomaly, but I would expect that a substantial number of  people who create websites are like me in that we really don't understand much about how the internet works...we're just amazed that there is such a thing as the internet and that it's possible to create websites.    Terms of service can be quite long and even if we read all the info, it may be difficult to understand it all particularly if we dont' know these phrases or how the internet works.  

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

Jul 7, 2017 14:43:28 GMT -8 bluegranite said:

What is a "hot link"?  I am sorry I'm apparently so un-knowledgeable...today is the first time I've heard the term "image hosting", and I've also never heard the term "hot link".  I guess I'm not as knowledgeable about running websites as some are... I didn't realize there were all these complexities.  

bluegranite ,  Photobucket has actually changed what traditional hotlinking was considered.

Originally, it meant taking an image off of one site and using that site's URL on your forum/website, etc.

Now, after 14 years of allowing the images hosted on Photobucket to be used on 3rd party sites, Photobucket is now saying using their links on third party sites is hotlinking and no longer permitted ~ unless you pay them an annual fee of $400.00. 

[Kami]

Jul 7, 2017 14:52:58 GMT -8 ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ said:

Jul 7, 2017 14:43:28 GMT -8 bluegranite said:

What is a "hot link"?  I am sorry I'm apparently so un-knowledgeable...today is the first time I've heard the term "image hosting", and I've also never heard the term "hot link".  I guess I'm not as knowledgeable about running websites as some are... I didn't realize there were all these complexities.  

bluegranite ,  Photobucket has actually changed what traditional hotlinking was considered.

Originally, it meant taking an image off of one site and using that site's URL on your forum/website, etc.

Now, after 14 years of allowing the images hosted on Photobucket to be used on 3rd party sites, Photobucket is now saying using their links on third party sites is hotlinking and no longer permitted ~ unless you pay them an annual fee of $400.00. 

To expand on this: while the bare bones definition of hotlinking would be "link an image hosted on X site to Y site", the general spirit of hotlinking was that it would be take a link to an image you don't own from a site that isn't yours and put it on your own site. It was considered theft of bandwidth, because the host may not have had the resource to pay for the extra costs of their image being linked on other sites that weren't their own.

So, for example, if I right clicked on an image on ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥'s forum and used that link to display the image on my site, that would be hotlinking. If I saved the image to my computer, then uploaded it to my own host, then it would not (though it would still be stealing an image that didn't belong to me).

Photobucket, and other image hosts, played a vital role in this. Not everyone can afford their own host (which includes paying for your domain, and hosting package), or afford large hosting packages to accommodate for high traffic, so free resources like Photobucket became a way for those people to still be able to host images for their free websites without incurring extra costs.

By blanket claiming any image hosted by them posted on an external (ie: non-photobucket) website is "hotlinking", it essentially accuses all non-paying users of stealing from Photobucket.

[moonbeam]

A short and simple explanation of hotlinking: simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotlinking


A different way of explaining (written in a more dramatic fashion): altlab.com/hotlinking.html

[bluegranite]

Jul 7, 2017 14:58:47 GMT -8 Kami said:

Jul 7, 2017 14:52:58 GMT -8 ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ said:

bluegranite ,  Photobucket has actually changed what traditional hotlinking was considered.

Originally, it meant taking an image off of one site and using that site's URL on your forum/website, etc.

Now, after 14 years of allowing the images hosted on Photobucket to be used on 3rd party sites, Photobucket is now saying using their links on third party sites is hotlinking and no longer permitted ~ unless you pay them an annual fee of $400.00. 

To expand on this: while the bare bones definition of hotlinking would be "link an image hosted on X site to Y site", the general spirit of hotlinking was that it would be take a link to an image you don't own from a site that isn't yours and put it on your own site. It was considered theft of bandwidth, because the host may not have had the resource to pay for the extra costs of their image being linked on other sites that weren't their own.

So, for example, if I right clicked on an image on ♥ ℒʊ√ ♥ 's forum and used that link to display the image on my site, that would be hotlinking. If I saved the image to my computer, then uploaded it to my own host, then it would not (though it would still be stealing an image that didn't belong to me).

Photobucket, and other image hosts, played a vital role in this. Not everyone can afford their own host (which includes paying for your domain, and hosting package), or afford large hosting packages to accommodate for high traffic, so free resources like Photobucket became a way for those people to still be able to host images for their free websites without incurring extra costs.

By blanket claiming any image hosted by them posted on an external (ie: non-photobucket) website is "hotlinking", it essentially accuses all non-paying users of stealing from Photobucket.

Thank you, Kami, this is a helpful explanation.  
It seems that using images online is more complex than I realized, and I get the sense that if the other "image hosting" services that exist, end up following the lead of PhotoBucket and requiring users to pay a significant annual fee, it may even become more complex.  

[♥ ℒʊ√ ♥]

The best advice for theme images here on ProBoards, bluegranite , it to utilize ProBoards' storage for theme related images. Then you'll have no problem going forward.