Automatically convert hotlinked images ...
 

Hi guys,

Wondering if anybody has heard of a mod for auto converting, or even if this is possible at all.

I want the board to automatically convert hot linked images from Flickr, photobucket etc into attachments as I'm fed up of "This image is no longer available" or "this user has exceeded their bandwidth" etc when the OP gets bored.

Doesn't need to be done instantly, can be one of the crons that happens overnight etc, just searching through the posts and looking for them, or it can be instant I'm not fussed.

I'm happy to pay for a mod if that is necessary as I really want this feature, but Google has not been my friend on this one so if anybody knows of one before I start spending (even more) coding money on this site ... it would be great !

Many thanks :)

This might be the modification you're looking for. It doesn't convert them to attachments, but it does store them on your server as files (or so it seems--I've never used the mod).

Converting the hotlinked images does make for fewer of the image not available messages, but essentially, what you seem to want is a way of automating what could be the theft of other people's content. That is not advisable.

@Macsee, if the image is being posted on a forum in the first place, I can't see how it'd be content theft. What the OP seems to want is to avoid a bunch of unavailable images by image services such as photobucket, imageshack, Flickr, etc. If you are uploading to those services in the first place, their respective terms of service already require that any content you upload does not infringe on somebody's copyrights, trademarks, or other contract rights.

And why do you think those image services remove images?

User loads illegal image to Flickr. A member at your forum posts that image. Flickr removes it for being illegal. You want it to remain visible on your site anyway. How is that not trying to circumvent IP owners protecting their images?

Macsee, read the first post again. :)

The OP is clearly not talking about content removed by the image services, otherwise they would have been saying something about "This content has been removed due to a violation of out Terms of Service."

Quite right.

I'm not talking about images removed from the servers due to breaches of copyright, and I don't allow anything that is unsuitable for under18's etc anyway.

A lot of my threads contain pictures of picturesque parkland and walks that people have been on etc that they have taken themselves and chosen to share with the forum. Just scenery etc, which is ruined a bit when people decide that the photo is a bit boring for their photobucket album etc and then my thread dies.

We don't have any copyright protected stuff :)

Just looking for a way to keep the threads alive and the content good for people who come along later and want to look at the older stuff.

@Sartek Thanks for pointing me in the direction of the mod, it's exactly what I'm looking for. It doesn't matter if they are attachments per say, as long as I have them on my file system somewhere. There is over 20tb of storage to play with so I'm figuring it won't hurt to store them locally.

@Macsee I appreciate what you are saying, but there is no intent to steal copyrighted/prohibited stuff. As this is a mod, if it looks like it might be causing issues, or if any copyrighted stuff is being used then I can simply turn it off.

I beg to differ. Image companies, especially the industrialised content thieves such as Pinterest, don't have a standardised message like the one you describe. In any case, it doesn't matter what message they have as the OP wants to grab a copy of ALL images used in posts. Whether they later turn out to be just removed or illegal or whatever doesn't seem to be of concern to him. Members may be sharing photos they've taken of beautiful countryside. But they likely post photos that others have taken too. The latter is open to accusations of copyright infringement and installing a mod to facilitate such infringement could be viewed seriously.

His "claimed" intent isn't important. The legal position is ...as he may find out in a painful way some day.

If the forum owner is willing to pay for the bandwidth, the safer option is to get members to upload the images themselves (we are talking images on their hard disk, right? ;)). This allows him to shift the onus on to the members. Whatever the intent, grabbing an image from a third party site and continuing to show that image on your site long after the source site has taken it down (or been forced to take it down) is begging for trouble.

@Macsee

As I stated previously, I do take your point, copyright and legal issues are becoming more of an issue on the net. But I assure you my intentions are genuine.

If the owner of a copyright covered image asks Photo-bucket or Flickr to remove such, they do so as per their copyright and protected image guidelines. Would this not also apply to my site? Would I not receive the same notice to remove so that I could act accordingly?

@mollypix, yes, that is correct. (Having been the target of DMCA notices, I can confirm that. XP)



@Macsee, no, we are not talking about images on their hard drive. Again, read the original post. :P We're talking about images uploaded to other services that (for many reasons) disappear.

If you go on my forum and look at threads from six years ago, you'll probably find a metric butt-ton of posts that contain images that no longer show. Sometimes it's that sites that once contained them no longer exist; sometimes it's Photobucket images that have since been moved or deleted. Hell, sometimes it's because the user violated the Terms of Service in some other way than copyright infringement (such as adult material) that I do allow on my own forum. I would say that the number of those types of images exceed by a tremendous amount images that have been "stolen" or in some other way infringe on someone's rights.

Hell, some of my own posts at my forum are like that. I have posted images to my Photobucket before, linked them at my forum in posts, and then later moved the images to a sub-folder to better organize them. The result? Obviously, "The image cannot be found." I'd wager a lot of other people do that all the time. :awe:



Installing such a modification is in no way different than enabling the cache on a browser (which most browsers do by default). Like that modification, the browser stores images for ease of browsing. :P

Sorry, I just think that kind of stance is pretty ridiculous, heh.