Photobucket

[wired]

Bad news!



Photobucket says photo-f**k-it, starts off-site image shakedown

Photobucket accused of blackmail after quietly requiring users to pay $400 a year to hotlink

Amazon and eBay images broken by Photobucket's 'ransom demand'

Photobucket Just Broke Billions of Photos Across the Web

I just saw the first "ransomware" image here in one of Doc's threads. I have looked at some of my posts and the images still show up even after dumping the cache. I did pay Photobucket some money a LONG time ago when I was hosting a bunch of pix. I'm sure that has expired and it was nowhere near $400/yr. I have never linked images on Photobucket to a commercial site like eBay.

While I sympathize with PB when the images they are hosting for free are used for commercial endeavors it is disheartening to see them destroy web content this way. Like many here I have spent considerable time consuming and hopefully adding to the skating hive mind. If all this content goes missing it is a loss to all.

I understand why site owners don't want the additional expense of storing images and the bandwidth required to host images. However that decision and resultant policy now has consequences. I wonder if Photobucket would allow a site to download all linked images as a fix?

Without a fix it is just another nail in the coffin of forums.

I tried copying a image location and using it as a URL hoping would allow me to go directly to the image on Photobucket but once there I still get the ransomware image along with a bombardment of ads. Truly evil...

What is happening to others?

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[gotsk8s]

Sad. I haven't used them in a while for that purpose. I used it for posting stuff for sale on Craigslist so I guess that's a bust now.

[SSpinball]

I used to use them in the early 2000, because they were they only game around, now they are holding all pictures hostage for $400 per year.
so if you don't see some of my pictures, you can give Photo bucket the finger.
they will history in a very short time, for screwing their customer base.

[nickajshelden]

oh well, I only used them a few times (usually I host things on my own servers or on google). But $400? They aren't trying to market this, they are really going for a fast change, and fast they will get. RIP to them

[bjvircks]

anybody come up with satisfactory alternatives?

I've seen there are several other similar sites out there but I suspect they will eventually do the same thing. Gotta pay the bills somehow.

[wired]

Originally Posted by bjvircks

I've seen there are several other similar sites out there but I suspect they will eventually do the same thing. Gotta pay the bills somehow.

Exactly.

That is why it is incumbent for sites like SkateLog to shoulder their part of the burden. Back when forums started storage and bandwidth were considerably more expensive than now. It is insane for the contributors here to each pony up $400/yr for content that makes this site what it is. Not to mention the contributors that are no longer here and couldn't pay or fix links if they wanted. If this were my site I'd approach Photobucket for a one time deal to download all linked images so they could be hosted on site.

While there are those out there that believe forums are dead the content on forums will continue to draw page views for quite some time to come. If that is worth something then it needs to be preserved, and the only practical way for that to happen is via the site owners.

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[Dec8rSk8r]

http://tinypic.com/ Not saying this is the best alternative, but this is one I've used.

[bjvircks]

so... you happy with tinypic?

I was reading thru the terms & conditions and discovered that... surprise, surprise... tinypic was actually a part of PHOTOBUCKET !

Has anyone used their google drive for sharing to sites like this?

[PRFunky]

I've no experience with this one. I could be a guinea pig later when I have time...
But if someone else wants to take a stab at it first, well, charge right ahead!
https://postimages.org/