Comments on: My Beef with Flickr

By: Rachael Towne

Rachael Towne — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:36:13 +0000

I’m currently on my second Flickr account in 3 months. The first one was deleted without warning because I was putting links in my Photostream to my blog and stating that I had high resolution stock images for sale there. Lesson learned about commercial use of Flickr.

This account I have been very careful to not make any commercial reference whatsoever in my Photostream or anywhere else on Flickr. I’m clean as a whistle there.

Today I discovered that my account is “safe” and “NIPSA”. Sigh. I guess this is because about 30% of my images are textures that I created myself in Photoshop. In other words they are not “photos” but more “illustrations”. Making my content not appear in searches is so silly.

I was so excited about Flickr for awhile there…DeviantArt grew old because there are so many kids there and I have enjoyed interacting with other adults on Flickr.

I can understand moderating content such as porn but abstract Photoshop textures?

By: James

James — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:05:59 +0000

they shouldn’t* mess with what you post.

Sorry, typo

By: James

James — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:04:32 +0000

Someone here mentioning drawings and all that crap. This is no different than when someone says a photographer is not an artist. It doesn’t matter if you have a drawing or a photograph, unless it’s copyright infringement, they should mess with what you post. The biggest BS thing I have with flickr is that I loved it, but now that you “have” to have a Yahoo account, I closed my account and refuse to give them the time of day, not even to browse someone else’s work.

Yahoo is to the internet, what Microsoft is to computers… Bloat.

By: cat

cat — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 04:06:43 +0000

I just deleted my account with Flickr because they censored my protest-art (you can see it on my blog). They claimed I was harassing and abusing other members by having it posted.

My protest-art has the words “Summertownsun sucks”. I put this artwork up in protest of Summertownsun complaining that i was infringing on their copyrighted work. They said I was posting images that they own. So flickr removed the images. But the images are actually in the public domain. So I protested Summertownsun’s actions by creating a piece of artwork and posting it on Flickr.

Then Flickr, in all its controlling, tightwad glory, removed that image too, and sent me an email which said, ”

Hello, dazzlecat!   Hi dazzlecat,   In joining Flickr, you agreed to abide by the Terms of  Service and Community Guidelines. Specifically, you must  not abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate  other Flickr members:   http://flickr.com/guidelines.gne  . We’ve removed the content, “SummertownSun Publishing Sucks!”, from your photostream. Please note that similar  activity may result in the termination of your account  without warning.   Regards,   Omar  ”

So what really happened here? The simple fact is that Flickr censored my artwork!!!

I sent out an email to all my contacts on Flickr letting them know I was deleting my account and why. Now I’m going to have to make another piece of protest-art called Flickr Sucks!

By: live wire

live wire — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:50:09 +0000

Flickr sucks.

They delete PRO account at the whim of staff members.

Please don’t create PRO account on flickr, you can be deleted the next day and not given a word for reason.

By: Vilyamnh

Vilyamnh — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:12:02 +0000

Hello! great idea of color of this siyte!

By: gail orenstein

gail orenstein — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 10:09:52 +0000

Well, can I just say-there are SEVERAL long threads on my FLICKR site about this debate, some have a graph-flickr has just attempted to rollout a shit filtering (censorship) system-

you are not alone-
we are still helping people adjust their settings-THEY HAVE SWITCHED ME FROM UNSAFE TO MODERATE 4 TIMES WITHOUT EXPLPAINING WHY-NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING

We are doing flickrs work!!

Best of luck-
Gail orenstein

By: Sam

Sam — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 21:46:44 +0000

Flickr’s customer service absolutely sucks. That is the truth.

By: sigh clone

sigh clone — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 07:28:00 +0000

I was put on NIPSA status over a year ago… it corresponded with me posting this “illustration” straight after the london underground bombings

I was also hassled by the london underground authrority for using their trademark logo… but was suddenly aware my imaghes were not showing up on flickr… I wrote to them and the they sent the same reply as above… I also got lots of hate posts on my blog… plus a hacker or two that kept defacingand killing my blog template….. If my mememory is correct this was before Yahoo were involved

Anyway I decided bugger them amd now I mainly just post sketched on flickr…. but i not longer pay for a pro account.!

I like flickr and it has helped me get images into my blog, if that means being NIPSA I can live with that. Whay should I bother competting on the photo searchg with all those that just rip of pictures from other web site and post them as their own

By: Trip D.

Trip D. — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 19:16:52 +0000

We can argue for years about what a photo is or not. There’s always gonna be different thoughts about that. Still Flickr allows people to upload image files, which can be of everything. And of course designers and artists are using it to post their works. Flickr’s choice: make them happy or disappoint them. This kind of issue is one which makes artists pissed….and they can’t complain.
Now. Maybe someone should do a community specific for art and illustration. It would be great if it would embrace differences instead of creating them (what the hell. It’s narrow mindness which makes the world the mess we are in). Deviant Art? It takes forever to post a single piece because you have to put it in the right directory. I didn’t like it right away. Time for something new?