After seeing a lot of chatter on the Etsy forum about individual's flickr accounts being terminated. I decided that it might be a good idea to backup my flickr photos. Although I do not use flickr for direct promoting or any kind of selling as it is against their terms of use, I do have a lot of product photos stored there. I have a pro account and really like to use flickr as my photo storage for arts and crafts images as well as some personal photos. And, flickr has a wonderful community. I have over 2,500 on my friend's list now! I also belong to several fun groups.Unfortunately, it appears that in the last few months there has been at least a few fellow Etsy sellers' accounts deleted by flickr administration for whatever reason and without warning. (I'm assuming that the account termination is related to a violation or suspected violation of flickr's terms of use.) The fear of that happening to me is always in the back of my mind even though I feel like I comply with the site's terms of use and have always had a "safe" rating on my account. I guess that you can never be too careful when it comes to important business things though - in this case, a lot of good photos and great photo storage!
In light of all the chatter that I've seen about accounts being terminated, I searched out a way to backup all of my flickr photos. Perhaps it is just the paranoid woman in me - she is present all the time! I am happy that I did do a little research though because I came across a wonderful download-able application called FlickrEdit. It allows you to not only edit your flickr photos but also back up all of them to your hard drive or a cd/dvd. It is totally free and compatible for both PC and Mac. How great it that! So even if you are not as paranoid as I am, I highly recommend that you take advantage of this program provided by SunkenCity.org - it is a real little gem! I backed up all my flickr photos yesterday. Since I had over 700 photos, it did take a little while (maybe 30 minutes to an hour), but it was well worth the time and piece of mind.
Now, as far as flickr goes, I love it! I hope that I never have my account terminated for any reason. It is a great community to be a part of and an inexpensive photo storage with wonderful options offered. I enjoy being part of groups there and having so many on my friend's list. I don't know all the circumstances of those whose accounts have been terminated, but I know that it would break my heart if that happened to me. Those who it happened to probably feel a little of the same way. I hope that things work out for the best in the end.
