Well following on from the TwitPic updates terms of service again post I wrote a couple of weeks ago it looks like the ball has started to roll.

The New York Times has done a piece Fine Print Blurs Who’s in Control of Online Photos which has an interesting comment from a popular TwitPic user who has photos that get on average way over 40,000+ hits each.

World Entertainment News would not say whether it intended to pay celebrities for their Twitpic photos or how they might opt out. A representative for “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” said that Ms. DeGeneres, a regular Twitpic user, had not been consulted about the agreement. She added that Ms. DeGeneres would stop using the service.
If you check TheEllenShow TwitPic account you can see that she stopped using the service on the 12th May and in the comment above is now going to stop using the service completely.

It also mentions that the user was not contacted about the agreement which was obvious because if someone emailed you stating that we own your photos and we can sell them to the WENN corp when we see fit you would no doubt tell them to piss off. In other words when TwitPic can make lots of money from your photos they will sell them.

150 Celebrity account to several hundred in 2 weeks

The other thing they mention in the article is that the deal only covers several hundred celebrity accounts.
Twitpic did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and neither company has made the details of the agreement public. Mr. Beiny said in an e-mail that the deal covered only the accounts of several hundred celebrities. He declined to comment further.
Well when I wrote my last post (TwitPic updates terms of service again) 2 weeks ago, I actually contacted TwitPic regarding my photos and they came back with the following comment and they even stated that it only covered 150 celebrities.
To put it in the clearest non-legal words (since I’m not a lawyer–just a lowly customer service rep) We are selling images from about 150 users–all of them big name celebrities. You’re not on the list. We will not be selling your images or trying to make a profit off of you (beyond placing ads on the photo pages on Twitpic.)
So in 2 weeks it has gone from 150 celebrity accounts to several hundred, which means in two weeks we will be on a 1000 celebrity accounts and so on, so my advice is to stop using TwitPic right now.

I think after I have finished my TwitPic Exporter (see below) I will need to write a post that shows that TwitPic won't be the only company making this move. Quite a few of the other Twitter-Photo sharing sites have terms of service that state they could make this move as well and even if they don't nothing stops them from changing terms of service a year down the line.

Exporting TwitPic Photos

If you are looking to export your photos then keep an eye out as I will be releasing a TwitPic exporter very shortly that will let you export all your photos, descriptions and tags. I have now released the TwitPic Exporter by all means check it out if you want to remove your images.

Unfortunately my first release will not be including video uploads, but checking over 50 random accounts with over 200 photos not one had posted a video.

You can follow me on twitter @stevenbullen for the latest updates but initial release will be in the next day or two.