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How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account

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Re: How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account

#71
post #50

For those of you who don't think this is a big deal. Instagram is explicitly stating that they're going to sell the use of your pictures to third parties. They're also going to start showing ads in their news stream. I know the pictures are of too low quality to be plastered on a billboard. That's not the point. What I expect they want to happen is something like this: I post a picture of me drinking a Coke to Instag…

> For another thing, generally, when you appear in an advertisement for a product, you get paid. Your likeness in the context of a commercial ad campaign has value

I don't think this is going to be a popular opinion, but keep in mind that Instagram has untold engineers and UI people, all of whom are fairly expensive, and this advertising clause is really in lieu of a licensing fee, not something consumers provide "for free".

I'm not really in favor of the business model, but in a world where apps are licensed at 99c I think models like this are to be expected. To fix this problem, we would have to return to a system where the costs to develop software are paid by the people who use it.

Re: How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account

#73
post #4

many might be surprised that instagram only keep 612x612 images, so if you were hoping to download full resolution images,. you're out of luck... that, however, also makes the whole issue moot since the images are so small to be of little/no use in any commercial sense. flickr's iOS app, by comparison, stores on their server the full resolution image. #nofilter FTW

> that, however, also makes the whole issue moot since the images are so small to be of little/no use in any commercial sense.

612x612 images as ads on instagram would make a whole lot of commercial sense.

Re: How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account

#74
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big deal is that someone is profiting from my work without my consent and it isn't me . It's that we (the people) get slammed by DMCA violations for taking someone else's content (for private consumption). When a huge corporation takes ours (and gets paid for it), what recourse do we have? It's that these corporations can change the rules on us in the middle of the game. It's the classic bait and switch. It's tha…

Technically we _are_ giving our consent by using the service. In fact, we already agreed to the current terms, which state "We reserve the right to alter these Terms of Use at any time." It's not even a classic bait-and-switch. It's clearly stated in the contract we all signed up for. I agree that it's sort of uncool on Instagram's part, but as fellow app developers, shouldn't we also be siding with Instagram for the…

First, would anyone sign a credit card agreement that said "we can change the terms at any time without telling you"? No. In fact, a material change to a contract means that either party can back out of the original contract. This is how people get out of cell phone contracts when rates are changed without having to pay the ETF.

Second, yes, the new terms are exactly why people are pissed. They don't like the new terms and they are upset that Instagram would form something so distasteful on them (or try to do so).

Just because Instagram is legally protected doesn't mean everyone should be happy about their decision and keep using the service. That's how a market economy works. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it will be popular in the market.

Re: How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account

#75
post #36

Can somebody explain to me what the big deal is about Instagram and these new terms of service? I can't fathom that anything but 1% of 1% of photos taken there are good enough to be used commercially, and if folks are so afraid that their pictures of Starbucks lattes will be used in some kind of marketing campaign (in which case they should actually be flattered), what exactly is stopping users from removing location…

The big deal is that someone is profiting from my work without my consent and it isn't me . It's that we (the people) get slammed by DMCA violations for taking someone else's content (for private consumption). When a huge corporation takes ours (and gets paid for it), what recourse do we have? It's that these corporations can change the rules on us in the middle of the game. It's the classic bait and switch. It's tha…

"The big deal is that someone is profiting from my work without my consent and it isn't me."

You know you've just described all the popular free services[email,facebook,instagram, dropbox....and so on...].

It is amusing to see people get irate over something that is such OLD news.

Implicitly, your information and your privacy has been up for sale for years but when the reality is explicitly stated, some people get upset?

Re: How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account

#76
post #50

For those of you who don't think this is a big deal. Instagram is explicitly stating that they're going to sell the use of your pictures to third parties. They're also going to start showing ads in their news stream. I know the pictures are of too low quality to be plastered on a billboard. That's not the point. What I expect they want to happen is something like this: I post a picture of me drinking a Coke to Instag…

There are tons of stock photography models who live with this risk for a bit of compensation. So they make (say) $100 to be in a photo and have a 0.01% chance of being in an ad they find objectionable. I get a free/fun app instead of $100. Instead of a .01% chance, I have a .00000001% of appearing in an objectionable ad (my photos just aren't as good as pros, and I'm just not that pretty). Add to that-- if this happe…

What about the risk of your image being attached with a company/idea that disagree with your believes nor doesn't reflect your ideas?

Re: How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account

#77
post #50

For those of you who don't think this is a big deal. Instagram is explicitly stating that they're going to sell the use of your pictures to third parties. They're also going to start showing ads in their news stream. I know the pictures are of too low quality to be plastered on a billboard. That's not the point. What I expect they want to happen is something like this: I post a picture of me drinking a Coke to Instag…

You have no imagination, a better idea would be to sell the photos and all the data Facebook and Instagram have on you to Coke so in a couple of years when you're pumping gas a little camera recognizes your face and the gas pump says "Hi Imgabe! You like Coke! You can't fool us! Press yes to buy a Coke! Your mom's birthday is next Tuesday but since she's a diabetic would you like to buy her a Diet Coke? STOP TRYING TO HIDE YOUR FACE AND PRESS YES TO BUY YOUR DIABETIC MOM A DIET COKE IMGABE.

It's coming.

Re: How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account

#79
post #50

For those of you who don't think this is a big deal. Instagram is explicitly stating that they're going to sell the use of your pictures to third parties. They're also going to start showing ads in their news stream. I know the pictures are of too low quality to be plastered on a billboard. That's not the point. What I expect they want to happen is something like this: I post a picture of me drinking a Coke to Instag…

There are tons of stock photography models who live with this risk for a bit of compensation. So they make (say) $100 to be in a photo and have a 0.01% chance of being in an ad they find objectionable. I get a free/fun app instead of $100. Instead of a .01% chance, I have a .00000001% of appearing in an objectionable ad (my photos just aren't as good as pros, and I'm just not that pretty). Add to that-- if this happe…

> Add to that-- if this happens, I certainly won't be the first one it happens to and will almost certainly have an opportunity to delete my account when I start hearing about this happening in the wild. Even if I don't delete it, the chance of my crappy photos getting found/used out of the MANY BILLIONS on instagram also seems laughably small.

You don't understand the situation. When you delete your account, it won't delete the ads in circulation - there won't be anything you can do about that.

And your photo won't be used for a general Coke advertising campaign. It will be used to sell Coke to YOUR FRIENDS, on Facebook and elsewhere across the web. Everywhere your friends go on the intertubez, they'll see a picture of you drinking Coke, with the caption "Drink Coke, just like your good buddy Webwright does!" And that will stay as long as Coke feels like it.

Re: How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account

#80
post #33

My god, people, calm down. This isn't instagram trying to use your photos as stock photos. First: they're not good enough. They're snapshots taken with camera phones, they're not marketing materials. Second: that would piss off their users, and no sane company would ever do this. The thing you're seeing in their ToS is an interpretation that allows for this. Expect a statement from instagram confirming that they will…

I came here to post almost exactly this. This happens regularly with the big sites - some idiot lawyer writes an overly cautious ToS change, everyone gets up in arms about it, the site writes an apology clarifying (and probably fires the lawyer).

It seems common sense to me if you just think it to the end: do you REALLY think taking a photo of me drinking Coke (against my will) would be good advertising? Or selling my photo as a stock photo without compensating me - that that would fly? Really? It seems absolutely obvious to me that Instagram has no interest whatsoever in doing what people are all afraid they'll be doing.

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