Comments on: Helpful Tip: Remove Flickr Spaceball.gif in Firefox and Opera

By: bob

bob — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 21:04:04 +0000

To be clear: copyright law protects against unauthorized reproduction & distribution; case law has made it clear nobody cares about personal possession. Even when it came to peer-to-peer (p2p) filesharing, the industry was only going after the people actively sharing, not the downloaders. In this case, flickr has already distributed the content (to your browser), and you even have a local file cache of the image on your disk (thanks to the browser). Being able to right-click / save-as is a shortcut for going into your temporary-internet-files folder and pulling the image from there. As long as you’re not turning around and re-sharing / re-publishing the image, you’re not doing anything wrong. If they don’t want you to see the picture, or have the picture (equivalent to keeping the webpage open 24/7 for years), then they shouldn’t post it on flickr in the first place. spaceball is a ridiculous security measure, designed only to annoy, not prevent. They could split the image into little pieces, or display it through a java applet, but even then, it comes back to the rule that if you can see it, you can take a picture of it. Screenshot / crop / save-as. Bam.

By: Miknos

Miknos — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:19:47 +0000

I just added it to GlimmerBlocker.

AWESOME!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:00:41 +0000

Thanks for your method.

By: enorman

enorman — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:09:47 +0000

Thanks for the good simple information. This wouldn’t be necessary if individuals would respond on a timely basis.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:29:53 +0000

Here’s a much EASIER and effective way to fix this problem in Firefox.

You are probably already running the Firefox pluggin “ad block plus”.

AdBlock Plus lets you block images, so… just right click any image in Flickr, and select “block image”. Done. You now blocking the “spaceball.gif” image from being displayed over top of the image you want.

You can save the real image, copy links etc. Life is good.

If you don’t already have AdBlock Plus for Firefox, get the pluggin here: [addons.mozilla.org]

By: Caroline

Caroline — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:04:12 +0000

Understandable about the copyright thing, but if you aren’t going to use it for your own gain, let’s just say I love to sketch nice photos as practice for drawing skills, why Can’t u just download it? so later when not connected to web (laptop)…..
I wouldn’t be using it for any gain, they shouldn’t post it if they didn’t want to share it!
sincerely why not?

By: silent picture

silent picture — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:41:30 +0000

To show people how to break the law borders on criminal activity. However, for those of you who illegally download peoples photographs, you are breaking international & national laws. The photographer owns the copyright of each picture they take. You are bound by law to ask permission to use the photo. Most photographers will allow free usage on the net as long as it is not for profit. You are taking the bread from other peoples tables. Would you like it done to you. Please contact the photographer as the photographer, should he discover your illegal usage of his picture can legally bill you and demand payment. This is successful in almost all cases.

By: zach

zach — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:26:37 +0000

what is the status bar>

By: anonion

anonion — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:40:27 +0000

lol
Search the picture’s title inside the page source, or the field “description” (“img src” is next to it).

By: Hey Hey

Hey Hey — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:36:36 +0000

Look at the criminals. Well guess what. You made the list .. hehehe.