Don’t use Flickr for commercial purposes
I like Flickr. I like the community of people it attracts and I like the craft groups.
But it is after-all, a photo sharing site. There are alot of semi-professional photographers edging their way into a new career through Flickr. They are not (yet) in the business of buying and selling objects. And they don’t want us to use it for buying and selling.
Lately, I’ve seen alot of talk about this, and noticed a recent ‘crack down’, with accounts being shut down. Do they have something in the works I wondered? I wanted to find out and clarify somethings once and for all. I wrote to the Flickereenos (as they refer to themselves) and got these answers:
1- There should be no links to ‘buy’ a photographed item
from the photo in the Flickr photostream.
True
2- You cannot link to your own blog from your photo
description, if the blog has “links to” sales sites on it.
(This is the most confusion for me, since I often see links
back to longer descriptions on blogs).
If the intent is to sell something, then linking to a blog
isn’t cool. Bottom line, at the present time accounts are
for personal use and not to be used as a vehicle to sell
stuff.
3- You can link to your online shop or blog from your
profile page.
True
4- You don’t give warnings before shutting down someone’s
account.
Depending upon the extent this is both true and false. For
an individual selling their own stuff we do send them a
reminder of our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines
asking them to remove sales links, etc. If the account is
that of a larger commercial entity, we may elect to
terminate the account without warning as is specified in
our Community Guidelines:
“Don’t Use Flickr for Commercial Purposes
Flickr is for personal use only. If you sell products,
services or yourself through your photostream, we will
terminate your account.”
http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne
5- You can use a tag like ‘etsy’ on items.
true
6- Having a ‘PRO’ account does not allow you to use the
Flickr site for sales.
true
7- You cannot mark or describe an item as ‘for sale’.
true
Otherwise, in case I missed something, what other FAQ have
you been getting that you’d like to clarify once and for
all?
I think that it’s spelled out clearly in our Community
Guidelines as mentioned above:
http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne
Also, if you have anything else you can say officially
about Flickr’s position regarding commercial sales through
Flickr in the future, it would be great to know! ;)
I don’t have anything to share on future plans at the
present time.
Edit, links to read more about Flickr hassle from Etsy sellers
‘my flickr is gone’ thread on etsy: http://etsy.com/forums_topic.php?thread_id=22897
trying to work around the TOS: http://etsy.com/forums_topic.php?thread_id=22390
August 13th, 2006 at 10:30 am
Thanks so much for going to the trouble of asking flickr these questions. A month ago I got a warning from flickr (that my pro account could be terminated) as I had an item which was described as for sale. It freaked me out as I love using flickr just as much as (or more even) than I love selling vintage patterns (which is what I do for a living). I didn’t read the small print and made an assumption it was okay to add a link or say and item was for sale because so many people on flickr seem to be doing it.
Thanks for going to the trouble to find out the facts.
August 13th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
It struck me funny that flickr made so few PR about these issues, but instead just stored them in their TOU/faq. Besides, I know about an account that got closed without a warning, and where the wonderful but relatively vacuous “a larger commercial entity” just didn’t apply.
You did a great job asking them specifically about these points – thanks a bunch!
Social shopping/selfpromotion alternatives to flickr:
http://www.wists.com
http://www.crowdstorm.com
http://www.stylefeeder.com/
http://www.reevoo.com/
http://www.kaboodle.com/
http://shopping.yahoo.com/shoposphere/
http://www.stylehive.com/
August 13th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Thanks for asking the questions and getting things cleared up.
August 13th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
Great article…and I really thank avital for giving alternatives to flickr. I may have to give those other sites a try!
August 15th, 2006 at 1:26 am
Thanks for the post about this, there where some things about flickr I didn’t know. Good advice. ^_^ Nice blog by the way, I am going to add you to my RSS reader for future use. *_-
August 15th, 2006 at 4:48 am
wow.I had no idea! thanks so much for this info-
August 16th, 2006 at 6:04 am
Does this mean that the destash/restash photo pool mentioned here is actually not legal?
August 16th, 2006 at 7:50 am
well, they are making sales from the photos, and putting prices on the pages, so from what the Flickr staffperson says it’s obviously breaking the rules. i would say move the group and it’s members AS SOON AS POSSIBLE to one of the suggested groups from avital above.
i’d say tell your group about these issues, and get the admin to email all asking them to register for another place as soon as possible. warn everyone to remove prices from the photos as soon as possible!
when flickr deletes your account they remove all the photos, your login, and your yahoo login. those groups are probably kind of dangerous, making it easier for flickr to find you!
i think the craftspeople who like flickr for sales like the fact that there is a certain focused demographic in flickr. so, what we need to do is migrate the sales to more friendly environment, and bring the group with us.
August 17th, 2006 at 2:35 am
Wow, I had no idea you couldn’t link to sales on Flickr. Probably 1 out of every 5 photos I look at link to sales. I actually like that people do that–its a way I find out about other people’s shops and stuff they make. I wonder what happens to the Etsy group…? Thanks for the info. Very informative!
August 20th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
Ugh! 128 photos edited! What a job.
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:26 am
But there is even a grouppool ‘for sale’. How strange!
August 24th, 2006 at 6:33 am
Thanks you also for posting this.
I had not realised how strict the flickr guidelines were and had Just (as in that night) posted a link to etsy when I heard about this.
I’m adjusting my posts accordingly.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Great job to ask those questions to flickr.. I knew about this issue ( although I didn’t know they’d terminate accounts that quickly )and thus only give my web site and etsy shop details in my profile.
But I do give details for free knitting patterns or other freebies. I just had a comment (linking to here) on one of those pics : would that mean it’s also wrong to give the url of my free patterns because they’re located on a website where I also sell other patterns ?
just in case, this in the pic in question:http://www.flickr.com/photos/27573937@N00/2068924283/
Now I’m really wondering !! :-P
December 14th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Whoa – guess I never read the terms properly… thanks!
April 20th, 2008 at 1:27 am
I’ve researched this as well, and the responses I’ve gotten are a little different for my posts for a very specific reason-
the photos do not contain the images of what is for sale, because the finished pieces for sale – only the instructions on how to make them. This ends up being a strange fine line, that gets exploited completely by websites like ravelry.com – where Flickr is completely integrated, and Flickr images are hotlinked into Ravelry, including the pages where the pattern is for sale.
As a result, I could just as easily link to the Ravelry page where the pattern is for sale, because the developers of Ravelry are doing so in coordination with Flickr.