Photobucket images

[palewatery]

I was searching for something with Google earlier and when I was clicking through the links that came up I ended up looking at one of my own image files from Photobucket, listed on another site as a free image to be used as part of the services they offer people to jazz up myspace pages etc.
I'm not precious about anything I put up on Photobucket, if I was I'd add some sort of visual copyright, and they've not picked out my images because they're cool or anything like that.... In fact it seems like all the images on their site are from Photobucket. I looked through some posts on another forum and noted filenames from a few other members whose images are hosted on Photobucket, went back to the site, searched and found those images being used on the site as well.
Maybe I'm a bit naive and you guys already know about this website or others like it and already protect your stuff from miss-use. I just think it's bad form, I contacted Photobucket about it and they said they didn't know anything about this site so it's not like they have permission from anyone. Like I said I don't really mind anything I put on Photobucket being used but it would be nice if they asked my permission first, in this case I'd probably have said no as this site is profit making.
Anyway for anyone bothered about this type of thing the site is http://www.butterfunk.com/ if you want to see if they're using your images too just get a title or filename from one of your Photobucket hosted images and type that into the search box on the Butterfunk site.

Jim

[adam]

Jim, that is so blatant.

I don't use photobucket.

My photo's have appeared on other people's web sites without permission for a long long time. I don't care anymore, could care less. I took the picture. I've even had friends say they took the picture and they didn't, no worries from me.

I've just given up on the Internet that way.

I know a lot of Matt's images have been stolen, he uses a watermark. That is what I would do if I cared about it.

I totally understand why you are concerned, I've just given up.

[palewatery]

I'd be more bothered if it was someone passing off my images as their own or using them to directly make profit, the site I mentioned just grabs whole albums from Photobucket and nothing I put there is anything I'm particularly bothered about. Anything I think is good or I want to be credited for I'll host on my own space and put a visible watermark on, Photobucket is really just for forum images that I dont want to take up too much space with.
I just got a reply from the site saying if I send them the URL's they will remove the images and also.. as a kind of afterthought I'm guessing since it was in a different typeface and colour.. they recommended I make my Photobucket account private so no-one else pulls my images. I just thought "why should I need to"?

Most folk think anything on the net is fair game, which is life but also kinda sad.

[gusstrand]

On images I care about, I use a watermark and a secure site (gusstrandphoto.com)

On my photobucket images, I assume they'll be linked, but also check the stats for egregious offenders, and then change the photo...

This one was linked to a site a while back...

[ryan]

Thanks for the heads-up. I assumed that whatever photos I uploaded to my account would be available to only those I shared it with.

[ryan]

I went into Photobucket and found that you can change settings to "block" in the "account settings". Unfortunately, the default allows others to not only view, but copy and link to your images unless you change the settings. You can add watermarks to photos (which I just did) under the "edit image". This is all new to me, so may be old news to most of you, but I thought I'd share anyway.

[adam]

Ryan, it's ok. Common knowledge isn't always so common and it is good to see that others have not given up.

Gus, that is clever.

Jim, I host my own images that I share and in the account settings, there is an area where I can "allow" what ever domain to use my photo's in posts I use. smallstreams.com is one that I have open settings to pull grassart.net photos from, same with clarks. That's one way of controlling who sees them.

I have always supported asking the original photographer for permission to use a photo. Only in instances where "I" am the subject, I may not ask permission however for the most part, I will give credit to the photographer if it is pertains to the content.