[michaelmior]

While I can understand your frustration, I also understand the frustration of photographers and other creators trying to make a living who have their work stolen. Their anger was wrongly directed at you, but it is a real problem.

[greggman3]

While I agree with you that photographers are hurt by having their photos copied I'm not convinced my app was a problem. I personally doubt anyone was using it to bulk download copywritten photos and somehow use those photos. I could be wrong but I believe most people that steal photos still them a few at time. Basically they're making some article, they need a related photo, they search, grab a 2 to 5 and stick them in their article. They'd do this with the browser, not my app.

My app didn't let you search by keyword, only by user. Further it didn't remove watermarks or do anything else. If photographers put their photos on flickr and they care about stealing they usually both watermark and only put relatively low-res versions there and you have to pay them for high res versions.

If flickr provided logs that showed bulk download and further some proof that even with bulk download that it was actually affecting professional photographers and not just a few geeks collecting some pictures they liked then I'd be more inclined to buy into their ban but without that I'm pretty confident the ban had no basis in reality.

[michaelmior]

I wasn't intending to suggest you were contributing to the problem. If others used your tool improperly, that's not your fault. But I can understand why some photographers who have had their content stolen could be upset. As far as Flickr's response in banning your app, it does seem at least misguided. I also wonder if they were concerned about making it too easy for people to move to another platform.

[deepspace]

I would argue that the "stealing" does not happen at the time of download; after all the photos are free to view on Flickr as many times as you want, and your browser needs to 'download' them in order to show them to you. Saving a copy to your own hard drive for offline viewing does not fundamentally change that interaction.

It is only when you re-publish the photos that it becomes theft of intellectual property.

[M2Ys4U]

Either way it's not "theft", as the original owner of the exclusive rights to copy (etc.) the work still has those rights.

After all that's what the "property" in "intellectual property" is - the bundle of exclusive rights. Owners of those rights aren't deprived of them by somebody copying the works over which the rights exist.

[0xf8]

Try convincing the RIAA of your (perfectly valid IMO) argument...

[michaelmior]

I would agree with that, although it could still be the case where a tool which technically does not violate any laws is still used to ultimately facilitate illegal activity. In which case I think it would be reasonable for a platform to ban the use of such a tool.

[JoshTriplett]

It's also off-topic, and it's especially off-topic because it was misdirected. The response to "my legitimate tool was attacked because people thought it was for X" should not be to talk about the problem of X and why it's important. It should be to figure out how we prevent useful tools from being taken down. Amplifying a different problem, the fear of which led to breaking a useful tool, does not help.

Also, if you don't want something downloaded, don't post it on the Internet in the first place. The problem you're talking about isn't that photos get downloaded, it's how those photos are subsequently used.

[michaelmior]

> It should be to figure out how we prevent useful tools from being taken down

I would argue that recognizing the reason that useful tools are taken down, even if you argue that reason is not legitimate, is an important part of figuring out how to stop those tools from being taken down.

> Also, if you don't want something downloaded, don't post it on the Internet in the first place.

I understand the argument although I do wish photographers could be free to post their work without fear of others taking it.

[pjc50]

It's basically over now; since photographers don't have a cartel backing them like film or music, and photos are so easy to copy, everything is basically everywhere.

Newspapers will routinely rip off photos from social media, sometimes in the face of explicit non permission.

[jdndbfbf]

If I run that script in an infinite loop, downloading the same persons photos, can I make they go bankrupt?

[i386]

this is as stupid as saying "evolution isn't real otherwise I could grow eyes on stalks when I want to see around corners"

[jiggunjer]

Not really, being against copyright (or at least against calling it theft) is a pretty defensible stance.