
How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account - mtgx
http://wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/12/how-to-download-your-instagram-photos-and-kill-your-account/
======
imgabe
For those of you who don't think this is a big deal. Instagram is explicitly
stating that they're going to sell the use of your pictures to third parties.
They're also going to start showing ads in their news stream. I know the
pictures are of too low quality to be plastered on a billboard. That's not the
point. What I expect they want to happen is something like this:

I post a picture of me drinking a Coke to Instagram. I expect to share this
with my friends, and maybe the people who follow me on Twitter. I know it's
publicly available, but the chances of anyone beyond my circle of friends
seeing it are slim to none. But now, Instagram notices that I posted this
picture and sells it to Coke. Now, when Coke starts buying ads on Instagram,
my photo shows on total stranger's news streams saying something like "Hey
Enjoy a Coke, like this guy here!"

So, what's wrong with that? Well, for one thing, I never agreed to be in an ad
campaign for Coke. Maybe I don't even like Coke. Maybe MY caption was
something like "Ugh, out of Pepsi".

For another thing, generally, when you appear in an advertisement for a
product, _you get paid_. Your likeness in the context of a commercial ad
campaign has value, and when a company says "Yeah, I'm just gonna go ahead and
take that and not pay you anything" the appropriate response is "hell no".

~~~
webwright
There are tons of stock photography models who live with this risk for a bit
of compensation. So they make (say) $100 to be in a photo and have a 0.01%
chance of being in an ad they find objectionable.

I get a free/fun app instead of $100. Instead of a .01% chance, I have a
.00000001% of appearing in an objectionable ad (my photos just aren't as good
as pros, and I'm just not that pretty). Add to that-- if this happens, I
certainly won't be the first one it happens to and will almost certainly have
an opportunity to delete my account when I start hearing about this happening
in the wild. Even if I don't delete it, the chance of my crappy photos getting
found/used out of the MANY BILLIONS on instagram also seems laughably small.

Statistically, this could bite me-- but I have to figure that the chance is so
close to 0% that the (small) reward of using Instagram is worth the (trivial)
risk. I also tend to dismiss concerns around lightning, sharks, and hijackers.

~~~
jellicle
> Add to that-- if this happens, I certainly won't be the first one it happens
> to and will almost certainly have an opportunity to delete my account when I
> start hearing about this happening in the wild. Even if I don't delete it,
> the chance of my crappy photos getting found/used out of the MANY BILLIONS
> on instagram also seems laughably small.

You don't understand the situation. When you delete your account, it won't
delete the ads in circulation - there won't be anything you can do about that.

And your photo won't be used for a general Coke advertising campaign. It will
be used to sell Coke to YOUR FRIENDS, on Facebook and elsewhere across the
web. Everywhere your friends go on the intertubez, they'll see a picture of
you drinking Coke, with the caption "Drink Coke, just like your good buddy
Webwright does!" And that will stay as long as Coke feels like it.

~~~
webwright
"You don't understand the situation."

I sure do. My point was-- the first time this happens, there will be an outcry
that makes this one seem small. At that point, I can delete my account. Maybe
the poor sucker who was the first victim can't, but I can. MAYBE Instagram at
this point is so malevolent that they give me the finger and retain my photos,
but that seems kinda unlikely.

Edit: And I couldn't give a single damn about whether my friends see my visage
next to a coke logo if I was willing to photograph myself enjoying a coke. It
doesn't inconvenience me or my friends one single bit. Even if they throw my
photo into a cigarette ad, I'd probably send them an annoyed note, nuke my
account, shrug and move on with my life.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
The contract explicitly specifies that they can, and will, retain all your
photos if you don't delete your account by the deadline. After that, they have
a permanent license to do whatever they want with your photos.

~~~
webwright
Yep-- lawyers who write ToS' tend to make them as company-friendly as possible
to give them the most wiggle room (and best defense in case they get sued).
But it'd be silly/suicidal to use photos from deleted accounts when there are
literally BILLIONS from non-deleted accounts.

------
siglesias
Can somebody explain to me what the big deal is about Instagram and these new
terms of service? I can't fathom that anything but 1% of 1% of photos taken
there are good enough to be used commercially, and if folks are so afraid that
their pictures of Starbucks lattes will be used in some kind of marketing
campaign (in which case they should actually be flattered), what exactly is
stopping users from removing location information from the pictures they want
to keep private?

For me, if the local coffee shop here wants to dig up some pictures I took of
their business to help them get more customers, why not let them? I'm not
Richard Avedon, and I never, ever, expected to profit from my Instagram
photography. I'm more than happy to support small businesses _and_ Instagram.
Have a ball, guys. _It's all public anyway._

~~~
dfxm12
The big deal is that _someone is profiting from my work without my consent and
it isn't me_.

It's that we (the people) get slammed by DMCA violations for taking someone
else's content (for private consumption). When a huge corporation takes ours
(and gets paid for it), what recourse do we have?

It's that these corporations can change the rules on us in the middle of the
game. It's the classic bait and switch.

It's that we're not even getting asked or given credit.

The Instagram developer page (<http://instagram.com/developer>) says _users
own their images_. They expect third party developers to respect that. Why
won't they?

Who fights for the user?

~~~
bjornsteffanson
Technically we _are_ giving our consent by using the service. In fact, we
already agreed to the current terms, which state "We reserve the right to
alter these Terms of Use at any time." It's not even a classic bait-and-
switch. It's clearly stated in the contract we all signed up for.

I agree that it's sort of uncool on Instagram's part, but as fellow app
developers, shouldn't we also be siding with Instagram for their right to
protect the interest of their product?

I hate to be the guy that points this out, but it's an important distinction.

~~~
mstefanko
Your view just plain scares me, there wouldn't be so much heat over this right
now if it was something the majority of people including app developers
thought was the right thing to do. There's plenty of examples of things that I
feel is uncool, but I can understand it from the business side. A few weeks
ago, when people went nuts over the possibility of ads showing up in peoples
instagram feeds, I was like, fine. In every single terms of service that I
have ever read, that line, "we reserve the right to alter these terms of use
at any time", appears in some form or another. That is not an end all, and
it's not an important distinction. What you alter the terms to still matters,
especially on this big of a scale.

You make it sound like if they did this and didn't tell anyone about it, just
opted everyone in, and started selling off photos. That you'd be ok with this.
Not sure where you draw the line, but facebook/instagram finally decided to
cross it. Users of products do have rights, and honestly app developers should
head this as an important warning/lesson. You should always have a right to
protect the interest of your product, but sometimes, when you decide to
monetize a service years after its conception, you mess up. Even
facebook/instagram can make huge mistakes. Instagram is going to take a
gigantic hit from this.

~~~
bjornsteffanson
My view scares me, too, but I think you have the right idea: It's a terrible
business decision. Much like the Netflix/Qwikster ordeal, I imagine the result
to be some sort of mass exodus.

Obviously, our use of any application is simply a privilege, and participation
is not compulsory. As creators of the application, it's Instagram right to
control their application how they see fit.

That point is easily overlooked. It's the principle I'm defending, not the
decision.

My hope is that great companies will make great decisions. I think we've seen
a little bit of that from organizations like Google and MapBox doing the
"right thing", and they have great products to show for it.

------
podperson
I think the interesting question here is "how many folks will simply ignore
all of this and keep on using Instagram?" -- if privacy scandals were going to
hurt user bases, Facebook would long since be gone. I suspect that any loss of
users Instagram has suffered are more likely to have been through the dumbing-
down of their iOS app than privacy concerns.

~~~
sharkweek
I will continue to use Instagram, as I don't feel particularly concerned with
my photos on there. I'd even feel honored if they were a bit smarter about
their approach and planned on asking for permission to use specific photos
first. Shit, that would probably have kept this from being a PR disaster and
instead become a bonus for some users, as I think it would be really cool to
see my photos featured in different mediums.

~~~
podperson
Good points -- although I suspect that the reason they don't ask permission is
they want to be able to transparently do the kinds of things they've been
doing with profile pics for years ("your friends love X, click here").

------
mikeleeorg
tl;dr:

Use this to download your Instagram photos <http://instaport.me>

Then use this to delete your account
<http://help.instagram.com/customer/portal/articles/95760>

~~~
sp332
Does deleting your account actually remove your photos? I've seen some people
claim that you can still load the images if you know the URL. Not sure if it's
just a CDN that hasn't expired the content yet or if Instagram really keeps
your photos after you "delete" them.

~~~
mseebach
Deleting your account certainly implies that you don't accept the new TOS.

~~~
ceejayoz
Ah, but the TOS states using the site means you accept it. You have to use the
site to delete your account.

~~~
mseebach
The new TOS doesn't come into effect until one month from now.

------
blhack
My god, people, calm down. This isn't instagram trying to use your photos as
stock photos.

First: they're not good enough. They're snapshots taken with camera phones,
they're not marketing materials.

Second: that would piss off their users, and no sane company would ever do
this. The thing you're seeing in their ToS is an interpretation that _allows_
for this.

Expect a statement from instagram confirming that they will change their ToS
to explicitly disallow this sometime today.

In the meantime: calm down, go outside for a walk.

~~~
epaga
I came here to post almost exactly this. This happens regularly with the big
sites - some idiot lawyer writes an overly cautious ToS change, everyone gets
up in arms about it, the site writes an apology clarifying (and probably fires
the lawyer).

It seems common sense to me if you just think it to the end: do you REALLY
think taking a photo of me drinking Coke (against my will) would be good
advertising? Or selling my photo as a stock photo without compensating me -
that that would fly? Really? It seems absolutely obvious to me that Instagram
has no interest whatsoever in doing what people are all afraid they'll be
doing.

~~~
Karunamon
>It seems absolutely obvious to me that Instagram has no interest whatsoever
in doing what people are all afraid they'll be doing

The same question is raised: Why have it in the TOS if it's not going to
happen? At the very least it shows a great lack of care for the operation of
their business (in which case you should think twice about using the service),
at most it shows a complete disregard for their users (also in which case you
should think twice about using the service).

------
benlower
Wait. Lot's of people were telling me that lack of Instagram app prevented
them from switching to Windows Phone. Turns out lack of that app was just
trend setting? :-)

------
jstrate
There are also free services to migrate your photos to dropbox, drive, etc.

Full disclosure and shameless plug, I work for one. pi.pe

~~~
groby_b
Not to completely derail this into a pi.pe thread, but...

a) I'd love to use it, but you're really making it hard to find out what
destinations/sources you support.

b) There's quite a bit of bandwidth cost, so I'm baffled as to how you can do
this profitably. This makes me wary. Which plays into

c) Your facebook app requires permission to post on my behalf? Sorry, but over
my dead body. Especially since I can't give you money. (I _assume_ it's to
upload pictures, but there's no way to know. If you had separate up/download
apps, you could sidestep that if I just want to export)

So, overall, it's an _awesome_ idea. And I'd happily give you money to do this
for me, but you don't let me :)

And if you want to make me really happy: Allow me to set up a continuous job,
add s3/google drive destination support.

Now back to your regular instagram discussion :)

~~~
sek
You can skip the permission to post on facebook.

------
rwhitman
News flash - YouTube also has a TOS that allows them to license and resell
your uploaded content and it has worked this way for years.

~~~
grinich
Sortof. They have similar clauses, but the YouTube TOS (similar to other
services like Dropbox, Flicker, etc.) gives them a "worldwide, non-exclusive,
royalty-free ... transferable license" to provide the service. Legally, you
need a "license" for somebody's content in order to access it and generate a
thumbnail.

This change in Instagram's TOS is different:

    
    
        Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising 
        revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored 
        content or promotions, you agree that a business or other 
        entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos 
        (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, 
        in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, 
        without any compensation to you
    

Note, this is essentially what Facebook does when you "like" a company's page.

------
hnriot
many might be surprised that instagram only keep 612x612 images, so if you
were hoping to download full resolution images,. you're out of luck...

that, however, also makes the whole issue moot since the images are so small
to be of little/no use in any commercial sense.

flickr's iOS app, by comparison, stores on their server the full resolution
image.

#nofilter FTW

~~~
mseebach
> since the images are so small to be of little/no use in any commercial sense

The most likely scenario for Instagram photos being used in advertising would
be online, not in print. So the size is fine.

~~~
stock_toaster
Probably even more likely is that they would be used on mobile.

------
jenius
Relevant: [http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-
te...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-terms-of-
service-what-they-really-mean)

------
itsprofitbaron
Instagram's new TOS[1] state:

    
    
      To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.
    

In other words, they're trying to monetize Instagram a similar way Facebook is
- Sponsored Posts - your photos and associated data can be promoted by
companies without having to notify you about it.

Furthermore under Section 106: Exclusive rights in copyrighted works aka. 17
U.S.C. § 106[2] Instagram _cannot_ sell your photos and it _cannot_ use your
photos and alter them in any meaningful way.

Having said that Instagram could have communicated this better as this hasn't
helped the situation either.

[1] <http://instagram.com/about/legal/terms/updated/>

[2] <http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html>

====

NOTE: Also posted this at: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4939650>

------
kloncks
Wouldn't the simplest fix be to let users opt-in to this?

Hell, opt me in automatically by default. But maybe this is the compromise,
that way Instagram can make money (as they should) and users don't feel ripped
off.

------
juddlyon
You're in their casino, you play by their rules. The house always wins.

------
betelnut
As far as I can tell, some Android devices also save your photos (with
filters) in a separate album, so you may not need to download them from
Instagram directly.

~~~
mediacrisis
They should. I recently switched from a Droid X running Gingerbread to a newer
Android phone, and it was super easy to grab all of my instagram photos (and
everything else, really) out of the files directory.

------
duggan
Alternative export tool, doesn't require login, open source and can be
trivially rehosted by anyone if the traffic overwhelms:

Source: <https://github.com/duggan/instazip>

"Demo" (aka, you can use this unless traffic kills it):
<http://instazip.orchestra.io/>

Caveats: bit buggy, running on a free Orchestra plan, wants a very recent
browser to run.

PRs obviously welcome/sought.

------
product50
Love Flickr due to this. See this: [http://blog.flickr.net/en/2011/05/13/at-
flickr-your-photos-a...](http://blog.flickr.net/en/2011/05/13/at-flickr-your-
photos-are-always-yours/)

Here they have explained how Y! can't use your photos for anything else except
for the purpose the content was made available. Additionally, users have the
option to make content licensable if they want to using Getty.

------
zemanel
Sometimes when these discussions appear, people talk of alternatives like
"personal clouds" or "peer to peer photo sharing and blogging".

I know of at least Diaspora but there is at least one other i can't remember
the name of, that you can install on your own server but i doubt that these
projects in their current form will ever take off and be of any competition to
the Facebook/Instagram models, because the technical aspect is just too
complicated to the average user (assuming it to be a kind of user that has no
existing or minimal skills to install Wordpress on a shared hosting).

Was just wondering about this on my way here to the "office" and a solution
for this mess regarding user content ownership, privacy and companies
"slipping the rug" under the user's feet could be the separation of service
provider, the software itself and hosting (where the content is) ?

Basically something along the lines of:

* the user signing up for the hosting part on his prefered provider (Amazon Cloud, Rackspace, Linode, Google appengine, etc)

* the user signing up for his favourite social software provider, let's say as example, software companies that provided on-demand installed software distributions that provided services similar to Facebook, Instagram, Posterous, etc ... including personal e-mail services. Could be addons on a base system or a full distribution per se, rolled on subdomains (photos.bilbobaggins.com, blog.bilbobaggins.com, ... )

* the software provider would be given access (through OAuth or whatever credential system) to roll their software on the hosting provided by the user)

* discoverability (ask aggregated public timelines and the sorts) could work based on a system akin to DNS for humans/peer to peer.

* a form of standard for interoperability between service/software providers would have to bee in place for the users to be able to switch between them and allow competition.

This would mean that:

* users would retain ownership of their content since they control the hosting, meaning they could pull the plug on a service provider or switch to the competition.

* since much of this can be abstracted from the user as automated devops keep getting better, the technical barrier would be lower.

* most of the hosting and networking costs would be shared between the users, so the software providers could focus more on business models relating to a better service/software, much like app stores work these days i guess?

------
crististm
"...will not be able to sign up for Instagram later with the same account
name" - I wonder why?...

~~~
micaeked
i'm guessing to prevent the possibility of impersonation

~~~
crististm
That is a valid assumption. But I don't give them full credit for it.

------
clark-kent
It depends on how instagram implements this policy, they need a policy that
gives them enough flexibility to try new things and find out what will stick.
It's too early to start a kill your instagram campaign. Why not wait and see
how they implement this.

------
Pelayo
Does anyone what the legal implications are if someone takes a picture of my
baby and Instagram sells it to somebody for an ad? Would they need some sort
of release?

Because I can delete my own photos but what what happens with other people's?

~~~
dfxm12
There are none _. They probably wouldn't_. You can certainly try and fight it
though!

Food for thought: [http://photorights.org/faq/is-it-legal-to-take-photos-of-
peo...](http://photorights.org/faq/is-it-legal-to-take-photos-of-people-
without-asking)

~~~
antiterra
How can you say there are none when the very link you provide mentions a
release can be required for commercial use? You cannot imply that another
person endorses your product or service without permission, and I've never
seen an exclusion for babies. One may exist, but that FAQ doesn't say anything
about it.

------
tetomb
Why wouldn't they implement a system where you can flag certain photos for
promotion and receive a cut if that photo is used for promotion?

Why can Facebook only come up with monetization strategies that take advantage
of its users?

------
isalmon
I'm really curious why <http://instaport.me/> redirects you to
<http://54.246.82.151/> Did anybody else notice that?

~~~
tlrobinson
I'm seeing that too. They probably just got a massive spike in traffic.

------
mfringel
I think what we're actually seeing is users declare that the value that
Instagram provides them is _not_ worth a perpetual and transferable commercial
license for all photos taken, past and present.

------
iomike
I feel sleezy using Flickr, because they were doing the same thing,
uncredited, and running Flickr images in Yahoo! ads. This has been years ago,
but one of the reasons I stopped using Flickr.

~~~
tomflack
Details?

------
kmfrk
Still won't help you save your comments/photos commented on and likes all too
well, though. I personally find them more important as someone who doesn't
submit many photos.

------
Shtirlic
"...except Content not shared publicly ("private") will not be distributed
outside the Instagram Services." from the TOS. Seems interesting to me.

------
felipebueno
Hahah loved this part: "That’s it. Of course you’ll need to find another photo
service to see photos of meals and your friend’s feet." ^_^

------
laurentoget
I feel bad for the lawyer who wrote that TOS and will be blamed for killing a
toy project facebook paid a billion for.

------
state
Whenever something like this happens I immediately look for the open
alternative. But, does one exist?

~~~
marquis
Such a massive infrastructure is expensive, and given that (arguably) the most
useful open system, Wikipedia, constantly has funding drives it doesn't seem
viable as a free, large-scale consumer-fronting service. I could see such a
service being run as a non-profit perhaps, given some monetization or
donations.

~~~
state
I'd pay for it.

------
justhw
So, how's instaport making money?

~~~
zalew
'donate' and 'Ads via Adsie' banners on the right?

------
ck2
Someone explain to me how instagram is evil and facebook is okay?

------
najhr999
Everybody is always trying to get something for nothing.

------
nthitz
The fact that the article uses a crappy Instagrammed photo for the picture is
baffling

~~~
hnriot
why? seems on-topic and relevant to me. Maybe you missed the irony.

~~~
stephengillie
The photo felt like it was also trying to frame Instagram in a harsh light,
similar to how articles about violent crime often feature mugshots.

------
abuella
check out www.instabyebye.com built today

~~~
kremdela
I had the same (great) idea, but your site doesn't do what I thought it would.
Instead of being able to download all of my large size images, I now have a
publicly viewable listing of thumbnails of all of my photos that are now
mirrored on your amazon account. There are no privacy settings, or ability to
delete them from your server.

I think you should be clearer about the ability to delete them from your
server.

