Hey, I know the rss feed is bad news. However, for every problem there’s a solution. I don’t care that much for the people that grew up thinking they can do whatever they please. Life handles that on its own.
I care that the work these photographers do isn’t displayed in any other site I can’t control. Seems people find republishing the feed is a quick dirty way to make some money? And that can harm the image of the site. It’s a shame that people are abusive.
But anyway, here’s the possible solutions:
I’ll check if there’s a way to ban ips from getting the rss (i’d need to move the feedburner feed back to this site, which probably means, as usual, more bandwith and all that).
Provide the rss feed with just the image code, and a firefox plugin that would translate that to an image again. Of course that will force you guys to use firefox, which isn’t a bad option either.
I had a half baked firefox plugin that would put the latest photos in the browser sidebar. Specifically, this page: http://flickrbabes.com/sidepanel.php I guess I could continue development of that and publish it one of these days.
I was once developing a module for netvibes, so netvibes users could also keep enjoying the flickrbabes there.
Finally, I guess it’s not the end of the world. The site is still here, and you can always come and visit 
December 18th, 2006
Dear readers,
yesterday I got contacted by one of the photographers whose photographs was featured here weeks ago. That photo was removed from the site weeks ago, as I immediately do with anyone that requests this, because they are the ones that own the photo (not even flickr are the owners of these photos). I got authorization from many photographers to post these photos. From others I don’t have asked, they are aware I’ve posted these photos (as I leave a message at flickr for every photo I post) and most of them are ok with it, as they’ve added me as a contact at flickr.
Back to the story, this photographer that contacted me yesterday, asked me to remove her photo from another website that is not mine. Why did she contact me? because I put a link back to this site on every post in the rss feed, and there’s a nice little form you can use to contact me. Anyway, it turns out this site, another blog, is copying the content of this blog, not copying the idea or concept, as two sites I’ve recently seen: pd5.de and las chavas de flickr (hey, i didn’t invent this type of site, I’m just saying these two sites have the same concept as this one, and actually I think they are great).
This other site I’m talking about takes the feed from flickrbabes and just republish it at his blog (even the title says flickrbabes.com and a link back to the site, as you can all see in your rss readers). I went on a little research and found out there are several sites that do exactly the same. There’s one specific site that has added porn ads next to each repost. I don’t want this site being related to porn.
I emailed the owners of sites asking them to remove any flickrbabes.com content from their sites. I hope they do so. While I can deal with the authors from flickr to remove any photo from this site, I cannot do so in sites I do not own. I’ve provided the feed for over a year, happy that you like the site and don’t caring if you read it here or in your rss feeds. I do care if flickrbabes.com content is read from other sites because I cannot control their content or if they decide to put porn ads or any kind of freaky thing.
Anyway, I was going to wait until I see an answer back from the owner of the site featuring porn ads, but there was another answer from one of these sites ( www.doublenegative.com/wordpress ) that just made me immediately change the feed.
The anwer I got was:
> I have links back to you. And besides, you’re stealing from Flickr.
> Every link has flickrbabes.com in the title of the post too, it’s not
> like you aren’t getting credit.
>
> This is no different than having your feed in my news reader. It’s just
> my news reader is my website. I’ll cut you in on the 2 cents per day my
> personal blog makes.
He can think that way I guess, but I disagree. Unfortunately, this one person, plus the owners of the other sites (specially the one that added porn ads) are ruining the feed for the other 3000+ of you. I am not going to discuss this issue anymore, and I’m sorry guys that you have a crippled feed now. It’s a shame.
If you’re willing to do so, you can contact Daniel (owner of doublenegative.com ) and thank him for making me realize there are people without respect, which are usually the ones that ruin the fun for everyone else. His email is dblaisdell@digitaljedi.com (please don’t send him any nasty emails).
I’ll update you on the info about the site that has porn ads, as that’s the one I’m interested in at the moment. Daniel’s site, well, I could probably given him permission to keep posting the content at his site, but his attitude isn’t just right, don’t you think?
I’m sorry 
I had the wrong name, it’s not David, it’s Daniel.
December 18th, 2006
