[ARCHIVED] Update: Flickr NOT deleting millions of Creative Commons photos

[Linkletter]

November 7th, 2018 update: Great news! Flickr has announced they will not delete photos uploaded and marked Creative Commons prior to this month: Flickr promises it won’t delete Creative Commons photos when it limits free storage - The Verge 

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I've been processing Flickr's announcement that they will be deleting millions of photos on January 1st and what that means for our Canvas environment. The Flickr integration with the Rich Content Editor has led to a lot of embeds. Blackboard also had Flickr integration, so a lot of them migrated over from our time in that platform.

What are next steps for addressing this issue, which affects all Canvas customers?

• How can we detect all Flickr embeds?
• Is there some way to automate the copying of Creative Commons images into courses with proper attribution?
• When will the Rich Content Editor remove the Flickr integration?

This might be something we could tackle as a community, but because it affects all Canvas customers I'm hoping to see some leadership from Instructure as well.

Thoughts, all?

[ProfessorBeyrer]

 @Linkletter  Thank You for starting this discussion. I found it when I did a Google search from the (soon-to-be-archived) comments on the How do I embed images from Flickr Creative Commons in the Rich Content Editor as an instructor? page in the Canvas Guides. 

Based on the announcement it looks like individual photos licensed as creative commons will not be removed even if the individual user sticks with a free account and has over a thousand photos. Those users won't be able to upload new photos unless they either upgrade to a pro account or delete photos to drop below a thousand. There might be a problem for Canvas users in that case, but I wonder if it will be any different than any time we leave ourselves at the mercy of embedding someone else's hosted content.

[scottdennis]

Hey Greg and Ian,

I just wanted to update this thread to let you know that we are aware of the situation with Flickr and the upcoming changes for their free users.  We will share a more comprehensive plan before January. In the meantime please know that we are working on changes in Canvas for when an image embed fails and how an instructor will be notified.  We are also working on a replacement photo sharing partner to replace the Flickr integration. As the plan becomes more specific we will keep you updated via the release notes.

Thanks

[laurakgibbs]

Hi  @scottdennis ‌, based on what I had heard about the results of the Flickr negotiations with the people at Creative Commons, plus the free licenses that are being offered to government agencies, museums, etc., I cannot see why you would be looking for another partner...? Based on what I heard (and that is basically just following Alan Levine and some CC people at Twitter), it was looking like the changes to the free accounts were not going to be that disruptive...? Maybe I missed something though; this is the first time I've really been online in a few days! 🙂

[scottdennis]

Hey Laura!

From what I understand (and I may be wrong) the move to bring in another partner was in the works previously and not sparked by this latest decision by the parent company of Flickr to limit free accounts.  There are other technical issues if I understand correctly.

[laurakgibbs]

Oh, yes, okay, got it: that I totally understand. There are some big limitations with Flickr and how it works; I'm just glad that they are still committed to supporting people who have shared CC-licensed materials. I was so worried when they were talking about deleting things that were part of the Commons! 🙂