Tumblr has been doing a purge of blogs in the last two days, reading around posts i found that both Backgrid and now SplashNews are using a third party reverse image system for their pics and then reporting for copyright to tumblr so PLEASE PLEASE if you ever posted pap pics or event pics go now and PUT YOUR BLOG UNDER PASSWORD and delete everything!!!!!! Do it before they get to you and terminate you, bc trying to get a blog back is hard and tumblr might not give it back even if you argue and argue with them! PLEASE be safe and don’t let your hard work get deleted!!
and another thing: go to the settings of your blog and scroll down to visibility and turn on the ‘hide your blog from search engines’ button! that way you will be harder to find on all search engines, its not much but it could really help!!
NOT JUST THAT!
Check off everything! If you hide the blog and make it only viewable over the dashboard NO REVERSE IMAGE SEARCH CAN SEE YOUR PICTURES!
And the explicit one makes it even HARDER to search your posts because it HAS to be someone, who is logged in to see your posts. SO REVERSE IMAGE AND LOGGED OUT MAKES IT NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE ANYTHING.
I tried it out on this website and made one small blog visible for EVERYONE, search results, outside of Tumblr, logged out and it SHOWED IMMEDIATELY my original posts. Then I checked off everything made it hidden and it couldn’t find anything. It took like a looooooot of time and I was worried at first that they got it and are searching it now and terminating it but my settings made it impossible for that search engine to even find these posts I have on my blog.
So, honestly, you don’t have to password protect your blogs. You can check off everything and it will take A LOT OT TIME to even search those posts..maybe even make it impossible to find them at all.
Try it out and if you still get terminated, please let me know!! Thanks!
an incredible number of blogs have been terminated in the past few days for copyright violation. they were targeted for posting edits (photos) of celebrities – mostly candids and event photos. people have been issued DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notices via email as tumblr is supposed to have a three strike copyright violation policy – although i have heard from some people that they were not given any strikes and were terminated without warning.
Several news and photo agencies have enlisted the services of a third party agency called Okularity which uses advanced image recognition software to identify edits that people have posted on tumblr which use copyrighted material. Tumblr is taking immediate action to terminate these blogs to protect their own asses as they are protected by a tiny little loophole in the DMCA. the DMCA protects web hosts and websites like Facebook, Twitter, etc… as long as they comply with DMCA notices and make reasonable efforts to stop copyright infringement. this protects them from being slammed with the infringement lawsuits themselves.
Again, as long as the edits aren’t a direct copy and something is changed, they’re protected by free use.
But free use has been fucked over in recent years.
this is something that i have been thinking on. there is, in fact, a doctrine in the United States copyright law called “Fair Use” which allows people to use others’ content without permission. It allows the limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the copyright owner. Items considered Fair Use would be commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, photos, teaching or scholarship. The Fair Use Doctrine provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another person’s work under a four-factor balancing test. These four factors are:
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
This is important because if a smaller photo of some photo agency is used or a few words out of an entire document is used this could fall under Fair Use depending on the site and the use. If someone were to take a paragraph of your work, or a site has copied your entire site or pictures, and they run a business profiting from your copyrighted work, then most likely its copyright infringement. It seems like it would be very obvious when you see how work is being used on Tumblr that the content is being used under the Fair Use criteria because it: isn’t being monetized; the potential market of the copyrighted work is not really effected; and there’s something to be said for the nature of the copyrighted work and how the photos themselves are somewhat morally grey (taken without consent). The problem truly is that as soon as Tumblr receives a DMCA takedown notice, they would rather immediately cover their own asses and terminate a blog/give a strike than deal with any nuance.
i’m not defending agencies but i totally get what’s going on. the problem is not on people posting candids, but how they are managing to get these photos. some people have not so legal ways to get these images. and if you don’t understant, these kind of photos cost A LOT of money to be bought on agencies sites. i’m not saying it’s right because they are profiting over ppl’s lives, but that’s how it works. theses photos cost A LOT and people have found ways to have direct access to them. the problem is not tumblr users posting candids, but people that have been providing ways to get these pics without paying the right amount to the photographers/agencies. that way, other people from the paparazzi business, like sites and magazines, have a way to get access to the same photos for a low price. so of course agencies are trying to find a way to stop this and they’re basically shooting everywhere cause its probably something out of control and tumblr users are the ones paying the price now
If your main blog gets terminated, then all your sideblogs go, no matter if you are a member or an admin.
If you get warnings for your sideblog then only the sideblog gets terminated.
Notes or no notes, if you have posted anything from the above category, it will be flagged.
It’s not limited only to the United States, it’s happening internationally.
If your edit is a part of a larger graphic and different form the original offending photo you’re probably safe.
It’s not limited to one fandom, everyone is being effected from Marvel, to Musicians, to WWE, EVERYONE.
Gifs are fine, only copyrighted images are under scrutiny.
Protective Measures:
The best option so far is to delete any photos you posted (POSTED, not reblogged).
Like I mentioned above it was limited to only paparazzi photos but now it’s rumoured to be extended to everything that was not posted by the celebrity themselves.
If you’re very attached to your edit, changing the post to “private” may help (but probably not for very long.)
You can also take a backup of your blog by going to tumblr.com/settings/blog/your url and clicking on Export at the bottom of the page.
@captainevanss has answered many asks on this, please go through her blog before sending another ask, she has answered every possible question there is.
Future Blogging:
If you post photos in future remember to save it as a new post and remove existing EXIF details before posting through third party apps (via @tessathompsson and @steven-rogers)
obviously tumblr is deleting blogs without warning due to copyright issues (such as photo edits from celebreties … ) ;(
with all the blog deleting that’s going on at the moment, I want to know the best way to back up my tumblr? I read about wordpress a while ago…any other possibilities??
hiddleston-daily has been deleted y’all. this is not a joke.
i modded that blog for SIX YEARS. six years of my work is just…GONE.
if you’re running any kind of celeb blog, PLEASE PROTECT YOURSELVES because they’re not fucking around about this.
other blogs that have been terminated that i know of:
celebsofcolor
spideycentral
mancandykings
breathtakingqueens
galgadotsource
chrisxchrisxchris
i’m sure there are more.
i’m so fucking upset. i’ve been sitting here crying for the last hour.
with all of this going on, i’ve changed my safety settings just in case–my blog can only be viewed via the dashboard and can’t be found via google. i’m still here though. if i suddenly disappear, you know what happened.
it’s just fucking amazing to me that porn bots and n*zi blogs and real csa blogs are still here on this hellsite, but they’re deleting blogs for editing celebrity photos.
Oh wow tumblr deleted the option to hide your blogs from outside search engines and such
abbys_little_whippersnapper 