Post by tomishereagain on Jul 16, 2017 13:47:42 GMT -6
Photobucket and a Different Kind of Content Theft
www.plagiarismtoday.com/2017/07/06/photobucket-different-kind-content-theft/
From the user perspective, Photobucket did four things wrong:
1. No Warning: Photobucket offered no warning that the change was impending change. The blog post made no mention of it, no emails were sent to users and the only indication about the change was deep in their terms of service. Far too little warning for such a massive change to an important and widely-used feature.
2. Retroactive: The change didn’t just impact new users or newly-uploaded images, it impacted all images hosted by Photobucket. This includes images that have been working for over a decade.
3. Expensive Fix: $399 per year or $39 per month is an insanely expensive amount for an image hosting acount. This site, for example, shares a VPS with about two dozen other sites that I run. That VPS, which is on a major provider, costs under $30 per month. Simply put, there are hosting solutions that offer far more for far less than Photobucket’s high-end account.
4. Poor Communication: In response to the backlash, Photobucket has said precious little and has often responded to pointed criticism with stock replies. That has further fanned the flames of user anger.
In short, what Photobucket did was guarantee that countless images and websites on the internet would break and that their users could neither prepare for the sudden move nor trivially fix it.
For users impacted by this sudden move, there are no good solutions. They can either pay for the (exceedingly expensive) upgraded account or go through the headache of replacing all of their images.
That, in turn, punishes Photobucket’s longer-term users more, making it so that they have more work and more to lose.
When users liken the move to a ransom demand or a hostage negotiation, the feeling is very understandable.
While Photobucket certainly has the right to change its terms of service and charge for the features it provides, the way they have chosen to institute this change not only broke countless websites, but gave their users an impossible choice.
It’s a choice that’s so bad and so unfair, it becomes its own type of content theft.
Bottom Line
As many have pointed out, this is one of the perils of of relying on free services or services that you can’t easily transition away from. After all, Photobucket could have just as easily gone out of business or stopped working altogether.
However, this is not a financial or a technical disaster. It wasn’t created by a failing company or faulty hardware, it was created by flawed ethics.
If Photobucket had simply provided ample warning of the move, users could have made a choice about whether or not they wanted to stay. Instead, Photobucket is trying to force users into staying (and paying up) by breaking their sites and making paying for the account the easiest way to get back up.
Creators have to give up a certain degree of control when they use third-party services. That’s why terms of service exist. However, third party services have an ethical obligation to not abuse control and most, including free ones, understand that.
Photobucket failed in that and, in doing so, it hurt creators in a way that no pirate or plagiarist ever could.
If we look at copyright and content theft through the prism of control, then Photobucket’s actions amounts to one of the largest and most egregious examples of content theft ever committed.
For its users, the sting is made even worse by the fact that Photobucket is a company they trusted for over a decade. For some, their entire history online is connected with that site and that history is now gone, erased by greed, not failure.
www.plagiarismtoday.com/2017/07/06/photobucket-different-kind-content-theft/
From the user perspective, Photobucket did four things wrong:
1. No Warning: Photobucket offered no warning that the change was impending change. The blog post made no mention of it, no emails were sent to users and the only indication about the change was deep in their terms of service. Far too little warning for such a massive change to an important and widely-used feature.
2. Retroactive: The change didn’t just impact new users or newly-uploaded images, it impacted all images hosted by Photobucket. This includes images that have been working for over a decade.
3. Expensive Fix: $399 per year or $39 per month is an insanely expensive amount for an image hosting acount. This site, for example, shares a VPS with about two dozen other sites that I run. That VPS, which is on a major provider, costs under $30 per month. Simply put, there are hosting solutions that offer far more for far less than Photobucket’s high-end account.
4. Poor Communication: In response to the backlash, Photobucket has said precious little and has often responded to pointed criticism with stock replies. That has further fanned the flames of user anger.
In short, what Photobucket did was guarantee that countless images and websites on the internet would break and that their users could neither prepare for the sudden move nor trivially fix it.
For users impacted by this sudden move, there are no good solutions. They can either pay for the (exceedingly expensive) upgraded account or go through the headache of replacing all of their images.
That, in turn, punishes Photobucket’s longer-term users more, making it so that they have more work and more to lose.
When users liken the move to a ransom demand or a hostage negotiation, the feeling is very understandable.
While Photobucket certainly has the right to change its terms of service and charge for the features it provides, the way they have chosen to institute this change not only broke countless websites, but gave their users an impossible choice.
It’s a choice that’s so bad and so unfair, it becomes its own type of content theft.
Bottom Line
As many have pointed out, this is one of the perils of of relying on free services or services that you can’t easily transition away from. After all, Photobucket could have just as easily gone out of business or stopped working altogether.
However, this is not a financial or a technical disaster. It wasn’t created by a failing company or faulty hardware, it was created by flawed ethics.
If Photobucket had simply provided ample warning of the move, users could have made a choice about whether or not they wanted to stay. Instead, Photobucket is trying to force users into staying (and paying up) by breaking their sites and making paying for the account the easiest way to get back up.
Creators have to give up a certain degree of control when they use third-party services. That’s why terms of service exist. However, third party services have an ethical obligation to not abuse control and most, including free ones, understand that.
Photobucket failed in that and, in doing so, it hurt creators in a way that no pirate or plagiarist ever could.
If we look at copyright and content theft through the prism of control, then Photobucket’s actions amounts to one of the largest and most egregious examples of content theft ever committed.
For its users, the sting is made even worse by the fact that Photobucket is a company they trusted for over a decade. For some, their entire history online is connected with that site and that history is now gone, erased by greed, not failure.