Alert: Photobucket Allows Users to Use Your Photos for Other Purposes

Photobucket is a website that allows you to “upload all your photos, videos, and images for free.” You can “make photo slide shows to share pics with friends” and “host and share videos.

But “share” is a dangerous word. The Photobucket terms provide that:


By displaying or publishing (“posting”) any Content on or through the Photobucket Services, you hereby grant to Photobucket and other users a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels, except Content marked “private” will not be distributed outside the Photobucket Services. Photobucket and/or other Users may copy, print or display publicly available Content outside of the Photobucket Services, including without limitation, via the Site or third party websites or applications (for example, services allowing Users to order prints of Content or t-shirts and similar items containing Content).


Fortunately, the terms also state that: “after you remove your Content from the Photobucket Website we will cease distribution as soon as practicable, and at such time when distribution ceases, the license to such Content will terminate. If after we have distributed your Content outside the Photobucket Website you change the Content’s privacy setting to “private,” we will cease any further distribution of such “private” Content outside the Photobucket Website as soon as practicable.

If you don’t want other Photobucket users to be able to put your photo on a t-shirt, make sure that your account is “private” or just don’t post at all.

Thanks to Jim Poor for submitting this alert.

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This information is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
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