Pictures being held to ransom by Photobucket....

motorguy

Ok, so historically i used photobucket to upload, store and share photos from - before the days of OneDrive, etc.

They tried to monetise it some time ago by not allowing you to share photos via links on here, etc, unless you were a paid subscriber and clearly that didnt work.

So now they are "watermarking" the photos. All very well but even when you download the pictures the watermark comes with it.

Done in a very underhanded way too, as when i last logged on they offered me the chance to upgrade to the latest version (as a values member) and its this new version that has the watermarks.

So the solution is to become a paid subscriber and they remove the watermarks from my own photos, which is nice of them.

Anyone know of a way to download the pictures / remove the watermarks so i can close my account with these thieves?

stragglebod

motorguy wrote: »

Ok, so historically i used photobucket to upload, store and share photos from - before the days of OneDrive, etc.

They tried to monetise it some time ago by not allowing you to share photos via links on here, etc, unless you were a paid subscriber and clearly that didnt work.

So now they are "watermarking" the photos. All very well but even when you download the pictures the watermark comes with it.

Done in a very underhanded way too, as when i last logged on they offered me the chance to upgrade to the latest version (as a values member) and its this new version that has the watermarks.

So the solution is to become a paid subscriber and they remove the watermarks from my own photos, which is nice of them.

Anyone know of a way to download the pictures / remove the watermarks so i can close my account with these thieves?

You've already identified the solution.

onomatopoeia99

Use the copy in your local offline backup.

motorguy

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Use the copy in your local offline backup.

The bulk of the photos i have copies of thanks.

Theres probably a few from when we built our house that i havent got but arent significant anyway, and maybe a few of cars.

More irked that they are effectively being held to ransom without notice.

motorguy

stragglebod wrote: »

You've already identified the solution.

Yes, i merely dont want to give in to people holding my pictures to ransom if i can avoid it.

tempus_fugit

You agree to hand over rights to the copies on their servers to them, though, when you sign up for the service, so they are not technically yours. This is why you should always keep local copies too, preferably on a separate drive.

If it were me and the ones I don't have copies of are important then I would just pay the sub, download the pics and then cancel the sub. Cut your losses.

motorguy

tempus_fugit wrote: »

You agree to hand over rights to the copies on their servers to them, though, when you sign up for the service, so they are not technically yours. This is why you should always keep local copies too, preferably on a separate drive.

If it were me and the ones I don't have copies of are important then I would just pay the sub, download the pics and then cancel the sub. Cut your losses.

Yes i must have a check through and see if theres any i really need, and then judge if its worthwhile giving them my credit card details even if it is allegedly just for a month.

A bit underhanded of them to apply that process and not give people the option to remove their pictures first.

forgotmyname

Seems they don't learn from their mistakes.

Had to ask a member not to use them on another forum, we have a good image upload feature on the forum, he said he knows better and there is nothing wrong with using photobucket. Well his pictures/threads are now useless so i removed his threads.

motorguy

forgotmyname wrote: »

Seems they don't learn from their mistakes.

Had to ask a member not to use them on another forum, we have a good image upload feature on the forum, he said he knows better and there is nothing wrong with using photobucket. Well his pictures/threads are now useless so i removed his threads.

Yes they were once the go to place for picture hosting and sharing and most of my pictures on there date from 10+ years ago. I've longsince moved to Imgur for sharing pictures on forums and OneDrive for hosting and ease of access. It was an offering that didnt move with the times or have a value offering that people felt they wanted to pay for.

Clearly they wanted to monetize what they were doing but stopping people sharing pics unless they subscribed was a big mistake and i think they lost users in their droves.

This latest farce seems to be the next step in their doom and smacks of "lets extort what we can from people before we pull the pin".

stragglebod

motorguy wrote: »

Yes, i merely dont want to give in to people holding my pictures to ransom if i can avoid it.

I should really have put a winky emoji on my last comment.

I've just searched for a random image on Photobucket - it's ages since I've used it and I'm amazed by how dated it looks, but there you go. This one allows me to download it and right click > view image with no problems
https://beta.photobucket.com/search/5014ee65-1fb7-4519-98ce-8398365e03d1

Can you give us an example of an image that puts the watermark on when you try to download it so we can have a look?

Here's a really interesting podcast episode about the dangers of trusting your photos to a hosting site
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/2oh9ge

and a follow up episode
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/n8ho8a/77-the-grand-tapestry-of-pepe

motorguy

stragglebod wrote: »

I should really have put a winky emoji on my last comment.

I've just searched for a random image on Photobucket - it's ages since I've used it and I'm amazed by how dated it looks, but there you go. This one allows me to download it and right click > view image with no problems
https://beta.photobucket.com/search/5014ee65-1fb7-4519-98ce-8398365e03d1

Can you give us an example of an image that puts the watermark on when you try to download it so we can have a look?

Here's a really interesting podcast episode about the dangers of trusting your photos to a hosting site
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/2oh9ge

and a follow up episode
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/n8ho8a/77-the-grand-tapestry-of-pepe

Yup

All my photos look like this...

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/v647/pgilc1/2016%20Passat/20170505_183759_zps2dsn7wql.jpg

https://beta.photobucket.com/u/pgilc1/a/c38a2039-3db6-4474-9597-c3fd8ca8e3e7/p/bde6427a-19ac-4eac-a84f-b9bb3b87c7b0