The Article

For years photobucket has been a free image hosting site where users can share their photos, artwork, and host their webgraphics. Their photos, artwork, and webgraphics. Of late I've seen more and more galleries comprised of nothing but artwork ripped from other artist's galleries, often without credit. What I was unaware of... is that every photo uploaded to photobucket not placed under private - do not display url settings is available as a print! There is no filter or moderation to protect ripped images. As an artist this is doubly disturbing. Not only is my art being displayed without any sort of credit - it's being sold as well.

Getting images removed from photobucket is physically painful. First you have to report the image and hope photobucket takes action... but often after they do take action and get the image removed, the image or artwork in question just re-uploaded the next day by the user again. Nice.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's great to have a free site where people can host their images. But it should be their images. Photobucket needs to protect its entries from Qoop prints by default, and use a heavier hand when it comes to protecting copyrighted material.

If you're an artist or someone who's concerned about the copyright infringement happening on a daily basis at Photobucket, please consider signing the petition and spreading the word.