Photobucket Demands $400 Ransom to Release Photos
Photobucket has, without warning, changed the terms of service of their product and is no longer allowing anyone to display the photos on forums, blogs, etc (as we have all done for many, many years) unless you submit to their demands and pay the ransom of $400 per year.
All the gun photos I've posted here since 2007 - GONE - no longer displayed.
I think the biggest disappointment for me is the older photos of our dogs who are now deceased were lost on my computer and only existed on Photobucket. If I want to see them again, I must pay them $400.
And I had three free Photobucket accounts, so if I wanted to see all my images again, I need to pay $1,200.00.
I also have a paid account for my business photos. I haven't looked yet because I'm so pissed, but I heard that even the paid subscriptions are blocked now until you submit to their demands.
This is how they "announced" it...
http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/ralor...4_original.png
I hope they all choke on something and die a slow, horrible death.
Re: Photobucket Demands $400 Ransom to Release Photos
And there is the business model of the cloud. Give the service away for "free" while bombarding the users with ads. Once you have enough of a user base that relies on your free service, start charging for the service. Paying the fee will be less painful than moving to another similar service (or setting up your own {whatever service that just fucked you - image hosting in this case}).
Re: Photobucket Demands $400 Ransom to Release Photos
I just logged in and saw my old pics..... didn't pay anything.
Re: Photobucket Demands $400 Ransom to Release Photos
I don't use Photobucket anymore since I've been using Imgur, but I do have a small collection of images there. I just logged in and thankfully didn't get that warning (yet). What a bunch of crap that is EM that they're wanting you to fork up money for your pictures.
If they didn't want us to use the photos in forums why do they give so many options to copy the url etc for pasting someplace?
.
Re: Photobucket Demands $400 Ransom to Release Photos
Is there a lower price plan that will give you access to your account where you can then download all your photos and then tell them to get fucked?
I've been using ImageShack, I think it's around $38/year. The only problem I've had was a crash that occurred a couple years ago and I had to replace some lost photos. I also keep copies of everything that's been uploaded, JIC.
Re: Photobucket Demands $400 Ransom to Release Photos
I haven't even been able to log into my acct.
I think they now require you to click on the banner announcing the new terms of service before you can even see your stuff again. That way "you have acknowledged the new terms".
You know, if it had been something like $75 I probably would have paid up for the more important stuff, but $400 is unacceptable.
I hate Photbucket more than Dick's.
Re: Photobucket Demands $400 Ransom to Release Photos
People have replaced using hard drives and PCs with saving all of their personal pictures and files to "the cloud", which I think is dangerous and borderline foolish to entrust someone else with your private files.
Just like they they post pictures on Fakebook or Insta-lookatme-gram, and get mad when it gets shared, photoshopped or used against them...once you save to someone else's server, it's THEIR file, their picture, their property. Yeah, yeah, there's a legal "intellectual property" argument but in reality, if you post or save something to the PUBLIC internet, it's now out there for the taking and using.
Re: Photobucket Demands $400 Ransom to Release Photos
Mine are still there, but they did ask if I'd be interested in 100GB extra space for $9.99. Declined and still have my pics. But, I also have them on my hard drive and flash drives.
Re: Photobucket Demands $400 Ransom to Release Photos
I'm going there right now and deleting my entire account. That place sucks major ass. The only reason that I haven't deleted my account previously was it's so god awful slow.
Re: Photobucket Demands $400 Ransom to Release Photos
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Roadking
Mine are still there, but they did ask if I'd be interested in 100GB extra space for $9.99. Declined and still have my pics. But, I also have them on my hard drive and flash drives.
Ahhhh... but can you post any images here?
My magic 8 ball says "ALL SIGNS POINT TO NO"