4 ms·

All your Flickr photos in Dropbox, with style

18 points by jmathai 14y ago

incongruity 14y ago
It seems like a precarious position to be in, supporting a service that helps users walk away from a competitor. Not to say that you shouldn't – I just wouldn't expect flickr to stand idle while it's done. This is particularly true if it's being done via the flickr api – beyond the API being explicitly for non-commercial development (without other arrangements), the number 1 item on the "you shall not" list is: Use Flickr APIs for any application that replicates or attempts to replace the essential user experience of Flickr.com. (source: http://www.flickr.com/services/api/tos/ http://www.flickr.com/services/api/tos/ ) Just say'n...
- jmathai 14y ago
  Valid points. To apply for a commercial license one of the criteria is that you have to represent a major brand. Not sure why but if you don't say yes to that, you end up with a non-commercial license. Using the Flickr API to "recreate" the experience is a bit vague. Probably intentionally. But it's unclear if it means to build a Flickr-like interface on top of their API or exporting your photos and then re-uploading them somewhere else. Additionally, we're helping users move their photos into their own storage accounts. Which is a bit different than moving them onto ours. We do offer a layer of functionality on top of their storage account so I can see how there might be some concern. Nonetheless, we're respecting their rate limits and even have libraries on Github[1] if you wanted to do it yourself. [1] https://github.com/openphoto/export-flickr https://github.com/openphoto/export-flickr
- jlarocco 14y ago
  I think you're misreading the TOS. That part of the TOS prohibits creating a photo sharing site that uses Flickr as its backend. The OpenPhoto site doesn't give much detail, but this tool is (apparently) just downloading the photos to DropBox and importing them into OpenPhoto. Since the actual OpenPhoto code doesn't have anything to do with Flickr, it's not violating the TOS. There are similar "import from Flickr" tools for almost every photo sharing service there is, and I've never heard of any of them getting their Flickr API key revoked.
  - jmathai 14y ago
    Unless they go over the rate limits :)
owenjones 14y ago
Ha! I was planning on writing a Flickr photo "liberator" this weekend after I recently learned there is no way to download all my original photos in bulk, even as a Pro user. Signed up for a beta invite, hopefully now I don't have to.
- jmathai 14y ago
  If you're a PRO user you get access to the originals, but not in bulk. You can sign up for a 3 month pro subscription for about $4. Just make sure you have enough space in your Dropbox (if that's what you choose to use). Check your email :).
  - owenjones 14y ago
    Thanks! I was also planning on exporting photos to S3. It's like you read my mind...
    - jmathai 14y ago
      There's a bug in Chrome for the AWS linkage. Working on a fix now but if you get it, try Firefox and it'll work.
      - owenjones 14y ago
        Hmm, I skipped linking my account to S3 or Dropbox during setup assuming I would have an option to later store my pictures there. Am I out of luck?
    - jmathai 14y ago
      No reply link to your last question so doing it here. The ability to change storage providers is probably 2 months out. If you wanted to do it now, I could just reset and delete your account and you could start over and link it from the start. Let me know.
- jlarocco 14y ago
  FWIW, a cheap/fast one off way to bulk download all your photos would be to sign up for a free trial SmugMug account, use their Flickr import tool and then do a bulk download from SmugMug. Using SmugMug's Flickr importer Firefox plugin (no, I don't know why they chose to make it a Firefox plugin), it took less than 2 hours to import ~8100 photos (44 GB) from Flickr to SmugMug and it preserved the metadata I had for the photos. Definitely not the most elegant way to do it, but if you needed to do it in a pinch it would work.

18 points by jmathai 14y ago

It seems like a precarious position to be in, supporting a service that helps users walk away from a competitor. Not to say that you shouldn't – I just wouldn't expect flickr to stand idle while it's done. This is particularly true if it's being done via the flickr api – beyond the API being explicitly for non-commercial development (without other arrangements), the number 1 item on the "you shall not" list is: Use Flickr APIs for any application that replicates or attempts to replace the essential user experience of Flickr.com. (source: http://www.flickr.com/services/api/tos/ http://www.flickr.com/services/api/tos/ ) Just say'n...

jmathai 14y ago
Valid points. To apply for a commercial license one of the criteria is that you have to represent a major brand. Not sure why but if you don't say yes to that, you end up with a non-commercial license. Using the Flickr API to "recreate" the experience is a bit vague. Probably intentionally. But it's unclear if it means to build a Flickr-like interface on top of their API or exporting your photos and then re-uploading them somewhere else. Additionally, we're helping users move their photos into their own storage accounts. Which is a bit different than moving them onto ours. We do offer a layer of functionality on top of their storage account so I can see how there might be some concern. Nonetheless, we're respecting their rate limits and even have libraries on Github[1] if you wanted to do it yourself. [1] https://github.com/openphoto/export-flickr https://github.com/openphoto/export-flickr
jlarocco 14y ago
I think you're misreading the TOS. That part of the TOS prohibits creating a photo sharing site that uses Flickr as its backend. The OpenPhoto site doesn't give much detail, but this tool is (apparently) just downloading the photos to DropBox and importing them into OpenPhoto. Since the actual OpenPhoto code doesn't have anything to do with Flickr, it's not violating the TOS. There are similar "import from Flickr" tools for almost every photo sharing service there is, and I've never heard of any of them getting their Flickr API key revoked.
- jmathai 14y ago
  Unless they go over the rate limits :)

owenjones 14y ago

Ha! I was planning on writing a Flickr photo "liberator" this weekend after I recently learned there is no way to download all my original photos in bulk, even as a Pro user. Signed up for a beta invite, hopefully now I don't have to.

jmathai 14y ago
If you're a PRO user you get access to the originals, but not in bulk. You can sign up for a 3 month pro subscription for about $4. Just make sure you have enough space in your Dropbox (if that's what you choose to use). Check your email :).
- owenjones 14y ago
  Thanks! I was also planning on exporting photos to S3. It's like you read my mind...
  - jmathai 14y ago
    There's a bug in Chrome for the AWS linkage. Working on a fix now but if you get it, try Firefox and it'll work.
    - owenjones 14y ago
      Hmm, I skipped linking my account to S3 or Dropbox during setup assuming I would have an option to later store my pictures there. Am I out of luck?
  - jmathai 14y ago
    No reply link to your last question so doing it here. The ability to change storage providers is probably 2 months out. If you wanted to do it now, I could just reset and delete your account and you could start over and link it from the start. Let me know.
jlarocco 14y ago
FWIW, a cheap/fast one off way to bulk download all your photos would be to sign up for a free trial SmugMug account, use their Flickr import tool and then do a bulk download from SmugMug. Using SmugMug's Flickr importer Firefox plugin (no, I don't know why they chose to make it a Firefox plugin), it took less than 2 hours to import ~8100 photos (44 GB) from Flickr to SmugMug and it preserved the metadata I had for the photos. Definitely not the most elegant way to do it, but if you needed to do it in a pinch it would work.