So, Photobucket has basically ruined a lot of sites just recently.
No longer a free image hosting site, they gave their users no forewarning and now many images are replaced with photobucket disclainers.

Personally, I'm pretty pist off about it all.
I manage a few forum sites that have extensively used photobucket for image hosting over 10 years!
Now, every single image is broken! No warning, No way to fix it all!

I don't care if they make everything free again I will never trust Photobucket again!

Photobucket and a Different Kind of Content Theft
www.plagiarismtoday.com/2017/07/06/photobucket-different-kind-content-theft/

From the user perspective, Photobucket did four things wrong:

1. No Warning: Photobucket offered no warning that the change was impending change. The blog post made no mention of it, no emails were sent to users and the only indication about the change was deep in their terms of service. Far too little warning for such a massive change to an important and widely-used feature.

2. Retroactive: The change didn’t just impact new users or newly-uploaded images, it impacted all images hosted by Photobucket. This includes images that have been working for over a decade.

3. Expensive Fix: $399 per year or $39 per month is an insanely expensive amount for an image hosting acount. This site, for example, shares a VPS with about two dozen other sites that I run. That VPS, which is on a major provider, costs under $30 per month. Simply put, there are hosting solutions that offer far more for far less than Photobucket’s high-end account.

4. Poor Communication: In response to the backlash, Photobucket has said precious little and has often responded to pointed criticism with stock replies. That has further fanned the flames of user anger.

In short, what Photobucket did was guarantee that countless images and websites on the internet would break and that their users could neither prepare for the sudden move nor trivially fix it.

For users impacted by this sudden move, there are no good solutions. They can either pay for the (exceedingly expensive) upgraded account or go through the headache of replacing all of their images.

That, in turn, punishes Photobucket’s longer-term users more, making it so that they have more work and more to lose.

When users liken the move to a ransom demand or a hostage negotiation, the feeling is very understandable.

While Photobucket certainly has the right to change its terms of service and charge for the features it provides, the way they have chosen to institute this change not only broke countless websites, but gave their users an impossible choice.

It’s a choice that’s so bad and so unfair, it becomes its own type of content theft.

Bottom Line

As many have pointed out, this is one of the perils of of relying on free services or services that you can’t easily transition away from. After all, Photobucket could have just as easily gone out of business or stopped working altogether.

However, this is not a financial or a technical disaster. It wasn’t created by a failing company or faulty hardware, it was created by flawed ethics.

If Photobucket had simply provided ample warning of the move, users could have made a choice about whether or not they wanted to stay. Instead, Photobucket is trying to force users into staying (and paying up) by breaking their sites and making paying for the account the easiest way to get back up.

Creators have to give up a certain degree of control when they use third-party services. That’s why terms of service exist. However, third party services have an ethical obligation to not abuse control and most, including free ones, understand that.

Photobucket failed in that and, in doing so, it hurt creators in a way that no pirate or plagiarist ever could.

If we look at copyright and content theft through the prism of control, then Photobucket’s actions amounts to one of the largest and most egregious examples of content theft ever committed.

For its users, the sting is made even worse by the fact that Photobucket is a company they trusted for over a decade. For some, their entire history online is connected with that site and that history is now gone, erased by greed, not failure.

Yeah, I had to replace some stuff on my forum too. So far just the rank images. In their stead I'd gotten annoying pictures above each member's avatar from Photobucket, urging ppl to upgrade.
That was it so far, not the smileys, even though they are also on Photobucket.
In the meantime I've sorted it, replaced the rank images. Fingers crossed.

Indeed a Fiasco,costly one at that,for any Professionals!
Amounts to Extortion IMO!
Either pay up,or lose all your Images!
Making you an Offer you can't really refuse!

Google photos is one I am trying out.
I had a few picasa accounts that went bye-bye a few years ago - lol - backed those up to photobucket - hahaha.

Just found
http://imgbb.com/
has a 16mb limit tho.

Imgur and image shack have been unreliable for me.
Same with tiny pic and 500PX

One forum site - archived 154 topics due to dead images.
Not even 1/3 of the way finished checking either.
I have 4 more sites just like it but bigger.
Not to mention the related blogs and webpages.

All the sites are free. Thus free hosting is vital.
If you have a blog, facebook or website that has photobucket images on it you might want to check.
I have read about online auction sites that are useless now as well.
If you are selling something and have a pic of it at photobucket - you might want to check.

Not sure about here?
All my profile pics are still good but they were direct uploads to this site. I think they are hosted by M2 servers.
Other dating sites may not be site hosted so if you have profiles at other dating sites you might want to check them too.

yea, greedy bastards.

My art topic on here must be rather empty and/or full with replacing Photobucket "upgrade now!" piccies.
I'd also posted some photos of myself a few years ago that I don't mind being gone now
It means these pictures will become un-Googleable which I must say I can appreciate in some cases.

but I understand for many it is a disaster.

Hummm I use Photobucket and have not had a problem posting them on facebook and have in the last week...


You don't loose your pictures they just might not post to another site.. But you can always download them then post them to another site...

i can think of some people on here that aren't
gonna be very happy about this...namely 2kidsmom & no1phd
they were both quite prolific with pics and from what i just
checked out it's all disappeared now...

Yup

For the last few days I have been downloading and uploading pictures to a different host.
I haven't even scratched the surface of fixing all the damage in the forums I manage.
Certainly not planned workload.

One place even lost all its members avatars. I still have them because I downloaded the folder from photobucket but I don't remember, nor do I have a way to recall whick image each member chose for their avatar. I'm starting to get irritated PMs from some members.

I have a Halloween topic that has been very popular. It exceeds 20 pages and is interspersed with horror/Halloween related images. The whole topic is busted. I have all the pictures but I have to edit every post to fix all the images so the topic works right.

On a different forum, where we talk about movies, each topic is supposed to have a picture of the movie poster in the review topic, then each member has the option to post screenshots and discuss the review. Over 1,000 topics busted!

On a personal note. I have two photobucket accounts that hold family pictures and videos. While I still have backups on my hard drives the family uses it for their own purposes. Their websites are now broken too.

With facebook you actually upload images to their server in most cases. Those images are intact but most forums will not accept facebook image urls for BBCode image tags. Thus, anything on facebook is not a viable hosted image (in most cases).

Many of the blogs that I have RSS are now broken as well. Some of the blog authors have discontinued their blogs because of this. I fell it is a loss to my interests.

As far as I am concerned - Photobucket is gone forever.
I will tell EVERYONE I know not to trust them ever again.

Nothing is safe, secure or permanent on the internet.

Multi billion gazillion $ companies are hit thousands of times a day by thieves attempting to infiltrate. We, the people have not a chance hanging onto digital data in some "Cloud".

I gave up on photobucket yrs back as I had to use it to post to a site I visit often. They gave up on them as well and just allowed folks to put pics in posts.

Lots of hosting sites come and go so off we go.

Photobucket is not gone.
It didn't fold, crash, get hacked or fail.
It is extorting its members to use their own content.
It changed its ethics due to greed.
If it had just closed down, it would have been a different thing.
Its still there.

My bank just recently did the same thing to me.
I had an account that was an interest earning free account for many years.
I got a notice that they are renaming the account and now they will assess a service charge on it no matter the balance.
They also (in fine print) stated that the may change the amount of the service charge annually to their discretion.
I am in the process of finding a new bank.
I have 3 accounts to move.

Most forums do not permit file uploading.
It costs server space.
A lot of social media sites have alloted server space to uploads of their members.
M2 has server space dedicated to profile pictures but does not support uploads in the forums.
It saves money.
File/photo hosting sites allow the files to reside on their servers and grant bandwidth to their members.
M2 recognizes those addresses when tagged with an image code.
The only thing M2 keeps is a redirect address, the source host supplies the image bandwidth and storage.

Banks out of control greed long time!

Good luck.

maybe time to run ones own Server to host ones own Images!

What the hell is "photobucket?

A long time ago sought rarity overcome with many copies so the bucket raised their prices from free to sky high.

Soon to be very dead website.

Move along the bus....Move along.

I have considered that.
Right now not fea$ible for me.

I also considered starting a co-op server.
Member based, but then its not free hosting.

Thing is, free image hosting is not practical
unless you have huge tubs of money laying around.

If a blog or website is set to expire at a certain date then 'buying' server hosting for a predetermined time might be worth it.
However, sites tend to stay active for long periods or fall flat before prime.

If you buy 5 years of server hosting for $100 and your site goes down in 1 year you lost 4 years of value. Which makes the cost of your site's images $100 instead of $20 per year.

But...$399 per year! - outrageous costs to have images hosted, even for a commercial site. Who would do that?