Flickr fail?

Time for another tech post: fresh from the saga of Photobucket's disastrous changes of last year, I once again find myself discussing an unpopular change to an online photo hosting service but this time it does affect me personally. Back in the mists of time I had an account at Fotopic.net but since that company went out of business, Flickr has been my (and many other photographers') site of choice.

After a tough recent past that has seen a lot of ups and downs as part of the Yahoo empire, Flickr has now found itself in the ownership of fellow photography site SmugMug, which it was hoped would create a new era of focus and stability. However, in recent weeks a controversial and potentially damaging change to Flickr policies was announced, sparking a vocal backlash in the wake of Photobucket's similar actions. Read on to see the message in full and why I think this change isn't all bad news...

Photobucket's commercial suicide

A return to the subject of tech after a few months of vehicle-related posts. You will no doubt have noticed a recent major change to the Photobucket photo hosting website as the consequences are far-reaching and have single-handedly destroyed a large part of the internet through what I fear is a commercially-suicidal decision. For years Photobucket have offered free third-party hosting and thousands of people have taken advantage of this to host photos for use on forums, auctions and blogs, but they have now got greedy and decided to start charging an annual subscription of $399.99 for the privilege of displaying Photobucket-hosted images on other sites. Needless to say, there has been a huge backlash and the company is losing custom at a rapid rate, so the popular nickname of 'Photofuckit' is fully justified as angry customers give up and move elsewhere.

The most hated image on the internet right now. It's everywhere and has replaced countless photos.

Copyright or copywrong?

Copyright law made simple

I was moved to write this piece because total ignorance of how copyright law works with regards to photography seems worryingly widespread and has recently reared its head once more as someone has yet again made the all-too-common mistake of trying to claim they hold the copyright to a photo because they are the owner of the subject matter. The person in question seemed absolutely convinced his understanding is correct, to the ridiculous extent of claiming a government document explaining the law was wrong! He was most put out by the photographer rightfully asserting his copyright, with a rather peeved attitude of "how dare he try to claim copyright to a photo of my property?", so a simple explanation of the law appears to be called for.