JMG-Galleries - Jim M. Goldstein Photography - Latest Comments in How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

I, too, was shocked to see my images show up in the Getty collection and numerous other sites offering FREE downloads of quality images. I was told by another flickr member that they were actually contacted by Getty. I have been surfing the Internet to see if any of my work has been sold but it is more difficult than looking for a written work.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Dave IF YOU NEED MY LAST NAME — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 23:49:09 -0000

flickr are bad news bud i`m experiencing some of the same things and dont want to upgrade to a pro acct so i cant get my photos off of there because of the size they compress them and not sure if i can resize my photos once i do them 1 by 1 and i have well over 11,000 so i can just imagine what they might have done with some of my photos?? let me know if you get a minute
thanks
dave

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Mike — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 19:16:32 -0000

Anyone can screen grab your photos. It takes a second and nothing can prevent it. It's not just a Flickr issue. They have actually tried fairly hard to mitigate theft of photos. They are one of the few that has always given the option to disble right clicking, and while we know it's fairly useless, it's a symbolic gesture at least. The real problem is the blogs....like Tumblr. Their bookmarklet will blog anything.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

dude — Sun, 09 May 2010 11:43:17 -0000

i use flickr api on many sites it randomly draws in photos. that's cool, but it's not my fault if you picture ends up there because it through the api key that should filter any copyright images out

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

oliver — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:45:13 -0000

Thanks for this informative posting.
It may be a good idea to start placing big fat juicy watermarks on your images with your url. At least if it ends up getting passed around on the web it has the potential to drive traffic to your site.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

novasdtr — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:54:36 -0000

Sounds like a class action suit

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Guest — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:15:16 -0000

I am going to stop using Flickr now as well as Facebook. I do not need more instances of corporate IP theft of my photography. Is Picassa any different?

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Michael McAreavy — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:07:40 -0000

Thank you, Dave.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

iso200com — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:39:55 -0000

You're still able to download [larger] image sizes via the API that image owners have chosen not to make available via via flickr's GUI interface.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Michael McAreavy — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:43:25 -0000

Very interesting string here regarding Flickr image usage rights. In noticing that the feedback went quiet nearly a year ago, does anyone have the latest status update on this issue? For the record, I have been a very active Flickr member for 5+ years. Cheers!

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Liisa Roberts — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:00:55 -0000

Thank you Juha for pointing that out. It was a personal choice on my end. Now I must connect with you and discuss hiking in Finland!

Thank you for taking time to respond.

Liisa~

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Juha Ylitalo — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:12:56 -0000

While this is something that everyone should be aware, I would like to point out that Jim has not left flickr for it. He still has pro account and is posting new photographs on regular basis.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Liisa Roberts — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:03:08 -0000

Hi Jim.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your Flickr experience with all. After reading this post and the comments, I promptly deleted all of my images and my Flickr account. After notifying Flickr why I was terminating my account, of course.

I wish you continued success in the New Year.

Sincerely,

Liisa Roberts

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Lee Wolfe — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:26:52 -0000

Thanks for the article. Up until now I've always uploaded the highest resolution and largest sized photos to my flickr account. Looks like from now on I'll have to save them as low quality jpegs not suitable for commercial use as well as add watermarks.

I agree that it would be very simple to add licensing as a condition for software programmers. Or even just require a rights reserved tag for photos unavailable for commercial use. In the same way the program pulls photos by tags it could eliminate potential photos by tags.

And to think they charge for a pro account and pay you nothing when they sell your content to third parties.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

John Cloutman — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:07:01 -0000

I agree with Mark Goodwin. I disagree with Sean McGee. I am a hobbyist photographer, a semi-pro photog and starving artist who had to get a daygig because art, music, photography, none of it is rewarded either commensurately or consistently. I agree that you have to learn to love your job, and I've succeeded at that no matter what the occupation is/was. The reason I have to work a less artistically rewarding job is because of attitudes like Sean's. The stuff Sean was spouting was pure bovine scat. Many members of my family are authors, composers, photographers, cinematographers and the like. I am an inventor of new Anti-Piracy Technology with 30+ years in engineering - computers, audio, and video, analog and digital.

I am of the opinion that flickr actually doesn't want to do anything about this issue, and as an engineer with 30+ years in technology and computing, I know it'd be a fairly simple matter to make this right if Flickr wanted to do so.

Good luck to all of you. Happy Holidays and a much better 2009.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

andrew — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:52:25 -0000

Ottmar Bierwagen -- If you sign up on flickr, you can send any photographer an email. When viewing someone's profile, there is an option to "Send Flickrmail".

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Ottmar Bierwagen — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:24:04 -0000

I understand your complaints as a former photographer and now stock agency owner (must be crazy these days!)I've seen images on flickr I'd like to purchase but many downloads don't have a way of making contact. You lose and we lose a sale. Please make your contact available and we share any sales 50/50.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Manuel — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:46:36 -0000

Hey Jim:

Long time no talk... I was pleased to find this article. Very thorough, thanks for spending the time to write it.

I haven't read all the comments, so this may have been mentioned already, but I find it interesting that flickr won't provide an optional feature to automatically watermark images as you upload them... my impression is that they are well aware of what's going on and want to keep it that way.

Manuel

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Vanessa Hall — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:36:43 -0000

thanks so much for this info. I had no idea. Looks like i will either discontinue posting to flickr or all my photos will be private...friends only viewing.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Pam — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:57:51 -0000

So stop complaining and build your own flash based website to show your work instead of throwing it on a social networking platform? Add a copyright or make them available to only Flickr users that you want to see them and are sure that won't take them.

Something people have to realize is that most people are not educated on what is stealing and what is not, so if your photos end up on some forum because you added them with no added privacy pictures, these are people who probably don't understand copyright infringement, and just like your work.

So if you don't want your photos our there in an easy to steal setting how about putting them somewhere else, or adding some privacy settings.

Also it wouldn't have been hard for the coin site to also pull, a refer link to where the picture actually came from. That is responsible webmastering. Always linking back.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

CN:Photography — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:10:16 -0000

This is just ridiculous.
More and more every day I lose faith in the common being as I am stolen from or witness such acts.
I for one am moving my stuff to SMUG-Mug.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

nomadhacker — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:36:47 -0000

This is one more reason why I've always built my own galleries and will never use flickr. I don't want to trust any of my images to someone else.

Re: How Every Flickr Photo Ended Up on Sale This Weekend

Alfie Goodrich — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 03:28:28 -0000

Derek, I would like to think my work is pretty good and I shoot professionally but, contrary to what you say:

"If you cannot afford a copyright attorney then your work must not be as great as you think that it is and Flickr spreading it around the world might actually be a benefit to you."

....Flickr was basically enbaling violations of my copyright almost every week. That's expensive to chase even if one's work is pulling in big money. Checked how much copyright lawyers earn recently?