7 ms·
Why should it be "illegal"? There's nothing wrong with things being forgotten.
by warrenm 12y ago
Why should it be "illegal"? There's nothing wrong with things being forgotten.
- sp332 12y agoFirst, it's my data and the service should keep it instead of deleting it. If I put some stuff in a storage locker, the locker's owner can't just toss it in the garbage, even with 10 day's notice. Second, there's a loss to our culture when a huge trove of media gets trashed like that. It's like a museum deciding it's too expensive to maintain some artwork and just pitching it.
- MarkPNeyer 12y ago"it should be illegal" is very different from "it should not happen." if anything, i'd bet that law would just make a bunch more data disappear, as hosting any data for anyone else would now become extremely risky; you open yourself up to permanent liability by taking anything anyone uploads. who wants that?
- sp332 12y agoI don't think anyone said "permanent". But 10 days is not enough time. How about 6 months from the first notification sent to the user? And it should be extended if the export service itself goes down (like TwitPic's is broken right now).
- bitJericho 12y agoI'm ok with companies not taking data that can't handle it.
- wise_young_man 12y agoIsn't Twitpic a free service? You would pay for a storage locker right? Museums charge money. This stuff isn't free to maintain.
- sp332 12y agoA free storage locker couldn't chuck my stuff in the trash either. TwitPic didn't ask anyone to pay to keep their data. They just decided to delete it. And museums don't charge the artist for upkeep.
- nemothekid 12y agoIf I had a friend tell me that his free storage locker chucked his stuff, I'd tell him thats what he gets for using a free storage locker.
- sp332 12y agoAnd you would be wrong, because no one deserves to have their stuff chucked and it's actually illegal. Your friend has recourse in that situation.
- Igglyboo 12y agoSo say TwitPic literally had no money to keep the servers running that housed your data, what then? Tell them to suck it and all get new jobs to support your data? Or give you a grace period to reclaim that data? Number 2 sounds like a completely reasonable approach.
- sp332 12y agoSo they ran out of money suddenly? With no warning, they discover they have only 10 days to survive? They should still work with archivists to offload the data. They could at least turn off new registrations, and put some kind of notice on the home page that they're about to shut down. TwitPic is still accepting new signups and uploads.
- Igglyboo 12y agoI don't know but what if they did? You offer no alternative other than saying it should be illegal, what if a service actually did run out of money immediately? Throw them in jail because their servers got repossessed by the bank? If a storage company went under and gave everyone notice to pick up their old shit and after the deadline there were still unclaimed items, what are they supposed to do?
- dyeje 12y agoIt costs money to keep the servers running. If the data is that important, perhaps you should pay for the service?
- sp332 12y agoSure, where do I send the check?
- tbrownaw 12y agoIf I put some stuff in a storage locker, the locker's owner can't just toss it in the garbage If something is in a storage locker, it cannot possibly also be in your attic at the same time. That doesn't apply to bits.
- scholia 12y agoAlthough that doesn't apply here. Twitpic was never promoted as -- and never operated as -- a "storage locker".
- slig 12y ago> First, it's my data and the service should keep it instead of deleting it. If the data is important to you, clearly you have a working backup (or multiple), don't you?
- sp332 12y agoSure. But I don't let Seagate off the hook if my hard drive dies just because I have my data backed up. I get a warranty with that.
- scholia 12y agoOne difference is that Seagate provides a data store and Twitpic doesn't provide a data store, it provides a service. It's not even certain that Twitpic kept your original photo or artwork. If you uploaded a 4000 x 3000-pixel image, it reduced it to 600 pixels wide for posting inline on Twitter. Did you actually use it?
- function_seven 12y agoAnd the warranty replaces the lost data?
- colbyh 12y agoWhen businesses shut down it's legally acceptable for customer data to be destroyed. Your pictures are just data, and if those images are so important then you should have backed them up in another place. Furthermore I'm positive the EULA you signed when registering covers all of these events. Expensive artwork doesn't get thrown away, but you'd be amazed how often it gets donated away when a business can no longer operate and can't find a buyer. And this is art that has actual monetary value, not the random sorts of things that find their way to Twitter/Twitpic.
- sp332 12y agoDon't be so positive. Laws for consumer protection, copyright, and data privacy override EULAs.
- bitJericho 12y agoI can guarantee you there are works of art on twitpic that cannot be found anywhere else.
- squeaky-clean 12y agoIf it's your data, you should keep it instead of handing it off a to a service. Especially a free one with no obligation to hold onto your data. The cool thing about data is you don't need to store it in just one single place. >If I put some stuff in a storage locker, the locker's owner can't just toss it in the garbage, even with 10 day's notice. If you never paid for the locker and it wasn't yours in the first place, of course they can.
- scholia 12y agoCorrect. In addition, Twitpic wasn't a storage locker, and it never pretended to be. As its name implies, it existed for the sole purpose of posting pics to Twitter. Further to that, I suspect most of the stuff uploaded to Twitpic wasn't actually owned by the people who uploaded it. That was certainly true in my case.
- scholia 12y agoHm, downvotes for making true and accurate statements ;-)
- Shorel 12y ago... said the horde who burned the Alexandria library.