PHOTOBUCKET CHANGES TERMS OF SERVICE - no image sharing any more.

[Borsos]

From one day to the other PHOTOBUCKET changed their terms of service. From now onwards that's the way it is:

"Free account : Each individual Member gets one free account that provides 2 GB of free storage or space available for your original photo files, or videos under 10min. The free account does not allow any image linking or 3rd party image hosting. If a free account Member exceeds their Content Limit, their account will be immediately suspended and they will need to become a “Paying Member” (defined below) in order to continue accessing their account. You can upgrade to a Plus account at any time."

That means nothing less than every picture that I shared on this forum is blocked for everyone else if I don't become a paying member immediately.
And they don't mean to pay 2.49$ per month or so: i go on quoting:

"Plus 50 Plan: 52 GB of Storage for $59.99 / Year. The Plus 50 Plan does not allow any image linking or 3rd party image hosting.

o Plus 100 Plan: 102 GB of Storage for $99.99 / Year. The Plus 100 Plan allows for unlimited image linking but does not allow 3rd party image hosting.

o Plus 500 Plan: 500 GB of Storage and unlimited bandwidth for $399.99 / Year. The Plus 500 Plan allows for unlimited image linking and unlimited 3rd party image hosting."

So for 3rd party sharing (and that's what we do on this forum, if I am not completely wrong) you need to pay 399.99$ per year.

They changed their terms from one day to the other without notifying their clients or offering a transition time to anybody who would like to change their image hosting platform. I am shocked by this behaviour.

I browsed through the posts on this forum and saw that many posts do have the same problems: their pics are replaced by placeholders that want to extort from you upgrading to a paying membership.

I for myself won't deal with blackmailers. I posted in total 535 photos on this forum, uploaded on photobucket. I will look for a new image hoster asap and upload my pics there (even if it costs time and even if I should have to pay something to this new hoster). Then I will repair all the broken links in my posts. I don't know how fast this will work as I have plenty other things to do. I beg your pardon if my posts on this forum are useless untill then.

Borsos

[IanB]

That's nothing short of extortion! I also have a lot of my old pics there, I only switched a few months ago to Flickr. I may have to do the same, I'll see what happens to my links.

thanks Borsos.

Ian

[lone modeller]

I too have only just discovered what PB have done. In fact I had stopped using them a while ago as the service was such that I decided to change to Flickr. I too will go through all of my build logs and restore the photos using another site but this will also take some time.

Stephen.

[Bughunter]

This decision kills "half of the internet" - at least I feel that after seeing this photobucket wait to be paid-image everywhere.

I had a issue last year, as Google has stopped the service Picasa and replaced by Photos. I had a lot of pictures shared with Picasa, at least Google was clever enough, that no link is lost. You can still login to Picasa web, but only downloading or deleting a image is possible, no more a new upload is possible.
And be warned, Google Photos is not a option as replacement (official statement in support forum):
"Google Photos doesn't support embedding album or photos into web forums or pages.
Any direct links to the image files of photos you may get are undocumented, unsupported, and may break at any time."

So I guess, I have to rework my links (used Photos) here too

Cheers,
Frank

[lcarroll]

   My photos are still there near as I can tell, but not for long obviously. I'll be "voting with my feet" along with you Guys, what a great business model this is! I've got well in excess of 1000 photos stored there, what a complete PITA this has precipitated. Extortion of the worst sort, I hope they suffer the rewards brought on by their lack of ethics and fair business practices.....disgraceful!
Lance

[IvotB]

All my pictures in posts in this forum and 2 other have been lost too, becaus of Photobucket changing their policy last monday. I'll do as suggested and change to flickr, although I don't expect them to give any guarantee either. The best way is to start your own website with image server with your Internet provider. But usually that's not for free, but much better than paying Photobucket 399 USD every year. It's their decision and their rigth to do so, I just wished I would have recieved a warning a month before.

And for me I think it's 500+ images which will take a long time to change all my posts with images.

regards,
Ivo

By the way guys: my account showed that I've used only 27% of the allowed free capacity of storage. The reason they are offering us their deal is not the storage, but the bandwidth that is used on my account. It seems that every time somebody looks at my posts it requires bandwidth at photobucket. So their deal means that you're popular! So we're not doing it for nothing...

[Des]

I used to use Photobucket years ago but opted to leave when they kept changing their rules, I then moved to Postimage, this is a free and easy to use photo hosting site, but like all other companies they will probably start charging as well. I read yesterday that Mozilla Firefox are contemplating charging users as well, gone are the good old days of computer use, it's all about money now.

It's a sad state of affairs when blackmail has now become legal.

Des.

[Adam]

Des what is about our dioramas GB ? Me and some our friends also has photos in Photobucket. 
These photos are now invisible. 

Adam

[Des]

Thanks Adam for pointing this out, this certainly throws a different light on the GB results. I am hoping that those who have a GB build have kept their photos and can download them onto another photo storage site then put them back onto the forum.

Des.

[Borsos]

Thank you for reminding us on the GB photos! I switched now to picload.org – seems to work quite fine and is for free, but as Des said, you never know, if or when they start charging... I am still reworking all the broken links on the GB entry, finished pics are now restored and some in-progress shots. But it takes its time to redo... how annoying!
I don't know when I'll j´have finished at least all the GB pics, but I hope it's fine for the deadline now, as the pics of the finished dio are back now.
Borsos

[Gisbod]

Disgraceful!

I don't have any of my model images anywhere else but on PB - which has been useless and buggy anyway.

Nightmare - can't update my Fokker topic now 

Guy

Ps if anyone gets a solution or another easy provider - please post...

[53ryder]

I went to my Photobucket 'free' account and looked at all the pictures there and downloaded the ones I wanted to keep to my IMac. Now the question is which online image hosting provider will be next?

Glenn

[lcarroll]

   With so many image hosting choices out there recommendations would be most welcome. I agree that most do or will in future charge for the service however my many years with PB are over, and their prices combined with the "extortion" and thoroughly immoral business practices will ensure I won't be returning........
Cheers,
Lance

[RAGIII]

I had the opining price paid account with Photo Bucket. What worries me is that my photos are still on my threads and I can still upload and post to a thread. Are they doing an auto charge of $399.00? I have not authorized that so if they do I will have a big issue!
RAGIII

[mike in calif]

Same situation over at LSP.