Author Topic: Flickr blocking links to microstock sites? (Read 9727 times)

luder / Luís Brás · « **on:** August 26, 2009, 00:50 »

Hi,

I've been updating my Flickr profile with links to the sites where I sell my photos, but it seems Flickr is filtering most of the URL. I can only link to the following sites: iStockPhoto, Feature Pics, Stockphotomedia and Gimmestock. Dreamstime, Fotolia, BigStockPhoto, CanStockPhoto, ScanStockPhoto and 123 Royalty Free seem to be removed after I save my profile...

I tried to see what would happen if I insert the URL in the description of a photo, so I put a link to Dreamstime. This is what I got:

"Hey! That URL you tried to post has been used for abuse on Flickr before. If that's you, stop it! If that's not you, sorry, but you can't post links to it."

How silly is this?! I can just put the non-html URL, without the "http://www". I wonder if this is because of Flickr being in bed with Getty Images.

I sent a question to Flickr support and it was escalated to a senior representative. Let's see what they come up with.

grp_photo · « **Reply #1 on:** August 26, 2009, 01:50 »

You are aware which company does own flickr

leaf · « **Reply #2 on:** August 26, 2009, 02:02 »

keep us posted.

Perry · « **Reply #3 on:** August 26, 2009, 04:25 »

From Flickr's community guidlines http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne

Don’t use Flickr for commercial purposes.
Flickr is for personal use only. If we find you selling products, services, or yourself through your photostream, we will terminate your account.

I think that says clearly that you shouldn't use Flickr to promote/sell your microstock imagery.

hqimages · « **Reply #4 on:** August 26, 2009, 05:04 »

Here's a good enough link..

http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/16649/

"if you're a normal user of Flickr and happen to have links from your photos to a place where people can order prints, that's fine. If you're *just* here to sell prints, that's probably not."

It seems to be about the only one in the help forum with a Flickr staff response.. and I'm pretty sure they judge any violations on a case by case basis, there is a chance what you were doing is acceptable, but due to abuse by others they had to block certain keywords, sucks for you though, I'm interested to see what they're reponse is anyway keep up posted!

PowerDroid · « **Reply #5 on:** August 26, 2009, 06:49 »

LuMaxArt (creator of the popular gold guys) is pretty up-front about its commercial usage of flickr... http://www.flickr.com/photos/lumaxart/3503978843/#in/photostream/

When I was researching the flickr options, I too saw the language about no commercial use, then I found LuMax and figured if he has been allowed to do what he's doing for so long, building up quite a large port there and a big following, I figured I can do the same. At least that's what I'm going to explain if the admins there shut down my account for doing essentially the same as LuMax is doing. If anything happens to me, you can be sure I'll post an update here.

gostwyck · « **Reply #6 on:** August 26, 2009, 07:02 »

Do you reckon you generate additional sales for your stuff by having it on Flickr? It strikes me as a lot of time & effort for a difficult to measure benefit. I suppose, if you linked to your IS port it might be possible to gain the $10 for referred members if they subsequently bought credits.

lisafx · « **Reply #7 on:** August 26, 2009, 07:21 »

Quote from: gostwyck on August 26, 2009, 07:02

Do you reckon you generate additional sales for your stuff by having it on Flickr? It strikes me as a lot of time & effort for a difficult to measure benefit.

Very good question. If they have the same stuff on Flickr as on the micros it is probably counterproductive.

Lots of people seem to use Flickr as a resource for free photography instead of paying for it on the micros.

gostwyck · « **Reply #8 on:** August 26, 2009, 07:27 »

Quote from: lisafx on August 26, 2009, 07:21

Lots of people seem to use Flickr as a resource for free photography instead of paying for it on the micros.

That's what would concern me most __ attracting the wrong sort of 'buyers'!

luder / Luís Brás · « **Reply #9 on:** August 26, 2009, 07:37 »

Quote from: gostwyck on August 26, 2009, 07:02

Do you reckon you generate additional sales for your stuff by having it on Flickr?

I doubt it. Not much of what I have in there is available at stock sites, I use it more for the kind of shots that are not acceptable as RF or for photos that I processed so much they no longer leave margin for someone to work on. It's really just for the fun. Oh, and obviously resized to the 500xSomething px.

However, I occasionally get messages from people who want to use some photo, so I thought I might save the hassle and point them to the places where they can get them for cheap.

PowerDroid · « **Reply #10 on:** August 26, 2009, 08:47 »

I have definitely had sales I can attribute to having a port on Flickr.

Every day I get one to three messages asking to use a photo (I have small watermarked versions on Flickr, so people ask for the non-watermarked ones.)

I have a standard message I reply with, stating that my non-watermarked work is available on sites like Shutterstock, and they should consider a subscription which entitles them to 25 downloads a day for a reasonable price. I provide the link with my affiliate code in it, and I have seen about three referred sales come through that way in the past month since I started posting to Flickr.

Also, I've been contacted to do custom work and sell images directly to people. I recently invested the $25 to upgrade to a pro account. I know there's a risk that Flickr won't like what I'm doing and will close my account, but I've already made back the $25, so I'll be fine with it.

lisafx · « **Reply #11 on:** August 26, 2009, 09:21 »

Another very informative post PowerDroid. Hope it works out well for you as a promotional tool

hqimages · « **Reply #12 on:** August 26, 2009, 10:57 »

Quote from: lisafx on August 26, 2009, 07:21

Quote from: gostwyck on August 26, 2009, 07:02
Do you reckon you generate additional sales for your stuff by having it on Flickr? It strikes me as a lot of time & effort for a difficult to measure benefit.

Very good question. If they have the same stuff on Flickr as on the micros it is probably counterproductive.

Lots of people seem to use Flickr as a resource for free photography instead of paying for it on the micros.

Sxc and Istock? Same thing no?

travismanley · « **Reply #13 on:** August 26, 2009, 11:08 »

Quote from: gostwyck on August 26, 2009, 07:02

Do you reckon you generate additional sales for your stuff by having it on Flickr?

Not that I have seen. I have done a lot of work getting images up on flickr and promoting them and all I ever get is people asking if they can have them for free.

corareed · « **Reply #14 on:** August 26, 2009, 11:18 »

I recently made all my stock images on Flickr friends only. I was spending too much time chasing down people who "borrowed" or stole my images. I did get a few purchases through flickr, but nothing significant. I use it for storage, and for when I am traveling and want to dump my mem. card mostly now. And for things to "arty" to sell on stock sites.

PowerDroid · « **Reply #15 on:** August 26, 2009, 12:15 »

Quote from: gostwyck on August 26, 2009, 07:02

I have done a lot of work getting images up on flickr and promoting them and all I ever get is people asking if they can have them for free.

I've found that being friendly and giving several reasonable options can go a long way in turning a freeloafer into a paying customer.

I do get a lot of "can I get the image for free" requests, but I've been able to turn a number of them around with a standard reply that is friendly and points out how economical a 25-per-day subscription is at Shutterstock, plus I give the option to purchase directly through me for a very reasonable price.

Finally, I give permission to use the small watermarked version wherever he/she would like to use it.

I'd say my success rate with this approach is about one sale for every four requests... I'm happy with that.

elvinstar · « **Reply #16 on:** August 26, 2009, 12:18 »

Why not use a URL-shortening service like twitter does? Then you won't have the keywords that they're flagging in the URL...

luder / Luís Brás · « **Reply #17 on:** August 26, 2009, 14:21 »

Quote from: elvinstar on August 26, 2009, 12:18

Why not use a URL-shortening service like twitter does? Then you won't have the keywords that they're flagging in the URL...

Yeah, that was my first thought, but it turns out they're blocking tinyurl.com, too. Didn't try other, though...

elvinstar · « **Reply #18 on:** August 26, 2009, 18:21 »

I believe that I read somewhere that they have gone with bit.ly exclusively.

luder / Luís Brás · « **Reply #19 on:** August 26, 2009, 18:27 »

Quote from: elvinstar on August 26, 2009, 18:21

I believe that I read somewhere that they have gone with bit.ly exclusively.

Nope, just tried it and it is blocked too. The same goes for tr.im.

elvinstar · « **Reply #20 on:** August 26, 2009, 18:47 »

You could send link to a file on a private server that does an auto redirect to where you would like it to go. I can give you a hand with that (as well as space to host the required files) if you'd like. I'm always happy to help out a fellow photographer rather than some big company!

luder / Luís Brás · « **Reply #21 on:** August 26, 2009, 19:44 »

Yeah, that would probably work, elvinstar. Thank you for your kind offer, but as I have my own website I guess I can do it myself

. I'm thinking on configuring subdomains to redirect to my portfolio at each site, so that, for example, dreamstime.lbras.net would redirect to www.dreamstime.com/Luder_info.

I just got an answer from Flickr senior representative. Perry was spot on, it has to do with the "don’t use Flickr for commercial purposes":

Quote

Hello luder.pt,

Thank you for contacting Flickr Member Support.

In general, you can put links to your personal site on your
profile page, but not on photos or any other place. Also,
again, please avoid posting any sales verbiage, or putting
any product, commercial logos or banners, etc, in your
account.

Don't use Flickr for commercial purposes. Please do not
sell products, services, or yourself through your
photostream, or we will terminate your account. Any other
commercial use of Flickr, Flickr technologies (including
APIs, FlickrMail, etc), or Flickr accounts must be approved
by Flickr.

The best place to refer for clarification on what is and is
not allowed are the Community Guidelines and Terms of Use.

http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne

These URLs that you are trying to use have been blocked due
to spamming users in the past.

Thank you again for contacting us. If you have any other
questions, please feel free to reply to this email.

Regards,
Jake

I replied with this:

Quote

Hello Jake,

Thank you for your answer.

I accept Flickr reasons, but then I don't understand why some members are allowed to place links to stock agencies websites on their photo descriptions. Here are a few cases:

http://www.flickr.com/people/lumaxart/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lumaxart/3296928881/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiger_empress/sets/72157605193525066/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiger_empress/2755858633/in/set-72157605193525066/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pirate59/sets/72157605220285023/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pirate59/2404666419/in/set-72157605220285023/
http://www.flickr.com/people/nekiy/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nekiy/3179802684/
http://www.flickr.com/people/sookie/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sookie/388527150/in/set-72157602473137517/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ari-face/1106081123/in/set-72157600576729994/

As you can see, most of these member blatantly advertise their services directly on the photo descriptions, with links to their products and, sometimes, even a referral code. I assume they got approved by Flickr, somehow, so I would like to know what do I have to do to get approval, too.

Thanks you, once again.

Best Regards,
Luis Bras

Ok, I don't want that bad to put my links on my profile, but now I'm curious why some people manage to do it, while others don't.

Adeptris · « **Reply #22 on:** August 27, 2009, 06:43 »

Why not just accept the 'Non Commercial' policy?

Sending them links to other users that are abusing the system is not good, they have answered your question with an answer that you likely already knew, just accept it and move on.

Use your own website or use a WordPress blog with a gallery or article and add your links from there.

There is PhotoShelter and SmugMug paid services as well to host your gallery or portfolio, but then you have to do the hard work of marketing yourself.

David

luder / Luís Brás · « **Reply #23 on:** August 27, 2009, 07:22 »

As I said, I'm curious why some people can put a link and it isn't blocked. It seems like Flickr specifically allows them to do it and that doesn't seem very fair. Either block it for all or allow it for everyone, no?

hqimages · « **Reply #24 on:** August 27, 2009, 07:31 »

Quote from: luder on August 27, 2009, 07:22

As I said, I'm curious why some people can put a link and it isn't blocked. It seems like Flickr specifically allows them to do it and that doesn't seem very fair. Either block it for all or allow it for everyone, no?

I think they only take action if someone uses the 'report abuse' button, so those other guys just haven't had people click that button, you were just unlucky that someone or multiple people did..

madelaide · « **Reply #25 on:** August 27, 2009, 10:04 »

Flickr has a Pro account of something of the sot, doesn't it? Paid, I suppose, and in this case possibly you can use to for commercial purposes.

There was this difference also in Yahoo Geocities, you were not allowed to use the free hosting for commercial purposes, but for the paid storage this was ok.

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Author Topic: Flickr blocking links to microstock sites? (Read 9727 times)

luder / Luís Brás

grp_photo

leaf

Perry

hqimages

PowerDroid

gostwyck

lisafx

gostwyck

luder / Luís Brás

PowerDroid

lisafx

hqimages

travismanley

corareed

PowerDroid

elvinstar

luder / Luís Brás

elvinstar

luder / Luís Brás

elvinstar

luder / Luís Brás

Adeptris

luder / Luís Brás

hqimages

madelaide

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