airliners.net .....anyone experiencing problems

[tor lives]

Hi guys,
Is anyone else having problems bringing up airliners.net ???
For some reason the site will simply not load for me and I am trying to establish if the problem is at their end or mine.
TOR

[Cap'n Wannabe]

No problem here, Ray..

[tor lives]

Looks like I got it back....don't know what was going on there
TOR

[erussell]

Some people have experienced "problems" at Britmodeller and other forums.
The problem is that if you repeatedly post pictures or, even worse, post pictures with the Airliners.net logo cropped, you are banned from the site.
It's quite okay to post links to Airliners.net pictures.

Here's the reason
Airliners.net have a lot of money, they are subscription based to use their forum, they also sell the photographs for stock images and rely on links to their website to generate traffic for further sponsorship and advertising revenue. Therefore they can afford to chase down websites and individuals who do not follow this simple requirement and we are not willing to put BM at risk over this.
How does it affect you on Britmodeller? Quite simply, post a raw photo from Airliners.net and it will be removed.
If you continue to post them you will attract a warning and a suspension followed by removal from the site reserved for the very hard of understanding . If you decide to edit out the Airliners.net tagging along the bottom, and we find it (we do check) then it will be an automatic ban.
This also applies to any other sites who share the same policy.
Therefore please think before you post any picture that has not been taken by you.

I assume this policy applies to A/CAM as well.

[hrtpaul]

So does that mean I can post up a pic from airliners at all? What a load of horse crap if so

[tor lives]

This is news to me as A/CAM site owner, and as such, NO formal A/CAM policy on this issue yet exists.
I myself have link-posted airliners.net photos here and on AMI when I was there, without any backlash.
Unlike some other model sites that have clearly taken a hard-line on this issue, I will NOT be removing photo links that have been posted, threatening bans etc. However as a matter of professional courtesy I will be approaching the airliners.net site managers to seek further clarification on this issue.
I guess the best way to avoid any such problem is, as Ed suggests, simply post link.
TOR

[Cap'n Wannabe]

There's no issue if you post a link to the photo, only if you download the photo and post it directly.

[hrtpaul]

There's no issue if you post a link to the photo, only if you download the photo and post it directly.

EVen if it's got Airliners.net plastered on it? There goes a lot of my pics

[tor lives]

Yeah....I must admit, I am with Paul here in being a little confused
If a photo is posted with the airliners.net watermark clearly visible, is that not, by default, a photo credit/acknowledgement of ownership???.
Is it not also good, (and free) advertising and plugging for the airliners.net site???
As mentioned, I will seek clarification for the airlierns.net site managers, but in the mean time, lets just play it safe and link to the photo.
TOR

[erussell]

That's correct - it's okay to post a link but not okay to download the picture and post it here. And very not okay to crop it.

The reason is site traffic - Airliners.net is funded by sponsors who wish to see a lot of site traffic as it exposes their product to lots of viewers. If you post the picture here it sends them nothing = bad. If you link it, then that adds traffic for them = good. If you crop it, any defence of "Aww, i didn't know..." is vitiated as you are obviously aware you are copying their property.

It all seems reasonable to me and if I didn't have that rule today, I'd sure make it tomorrow.