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Skip Hunt

8 Years Ago

Site Feature Problem, Storing Personal Data And Culling The Herd

Abbie, thanks for sending me my sales data via email in an xlsx file. What does that mean for future sales data requests? Is that feature going to remain broken on my account? If so, so we just contact you every time we'd like to get an updated sales data file? Thanks again for sending me the file, but I'm still a paid premium for the rest of the year and may remain so after I decide if the platform still has value to me at years end.

Also, you closed my previous thread asking about how users can store their own content locally for personal backups, etc. You said that software that allows you to extract your own data from a site can be illegal. Please explain. How so? I'm under the impression that the content I put on a site, ie. my images, my text, keywords I add, descriptions, blog posts, press releases, etc. are my own property. But, are you implying that once the content is on FAA Pixels that it no longer belongs to me and that I have no right to find a way to extract and store such data on my local machine?

Some sites like Facebook and squarespace, etc. allow users to extract and store a file that contains all of their own content for local storage. FAA Pixels doesn't offer that, but maybe that would be a great new feature for Sean to add!!!??? :)

In the meantime, since it's not a feature currently offered here, ie. saving our meta data, image descriptions, and various other user generated account data, how could using a 3rd party solution that helps the user extract their own data be illegal? Please explain.

Lastly, I'm not closing my account right now. I've only come to the conclusion that my methods that used to work here on this site, no longer work and that print on demand platforms might not be for me. The landscape at FAA Pixels is completely different now. The site search algorithm Sean has tweaked, favors volume sales. If your work sells your work is featured prominently in the search engine. This means that even if you have nearly 700 images tagged with the word "Mexico" and if a newer user has just 30 images also tagged with the word "Mexico", but they've recently sold a few at lower prices... their work will come up in a search for "Mexico" and your 700 images will be buried. Kind of a catch-22. If your work doesn't come up in searches readily, it's not going to sell.

This is the way Sean has chosen to go. So be it. It's not the way is used to be, but things change. I've already sold work in the past at a higher rate so I don't feel comfortable lowering my prices just to comply with Sean's volume sales favored algorithm.

So, I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. I do like many aspects of the platform's structure, but Sean's general direction for the site simply doesn't work for me. I've either got to find a new platform that's a better fit for me, or I have to find a way to profit in the environs FAA Pixels Sean has created by trying to be as large as possible and favor volume sales. That might not be possible for me, so that's why I'm starting to capture my personal data as much as I can now since it's likely to be time-consuming. If may be that FAA Pixels is not the best platform for folks like me. But, I haven't given up quite yet.

In the meantime, I'm significantly reducing my footprint here at FAA Pixels by deleting a large portion of my work. If I'm going to go a more limited edition print direction, I can't have a bunch of print on demand images available any more. I may leave a few print on demand, and make the stronger images limited edition only that I'll either display here or elsewhere, and handle the custom printing and fulfillment myself on those. I won't be offering FAA Pixels 30-day guarantee, so that could be too confusing. Not sure how I'm going to handle that yet.

I only offered the current sales discount code to let folks know that many of my photographic pieces are going away from FAA Pixels now, and they won't be able to buy them as print on demand anymore very soon. Some will resurface last limited edition, some may go to a stock agency, and others may be completely retired altogether. So, I offered a temporary 50% discount code THSKMB (good for a few more hours only) so that anyone who likes my work, but have hesitated on purchase due to price, an opportunity to get something before they get deleted off the site.

I've started with the smaller galleries and wish I had the idea of a discount code before I'd already delated about 140 images, but better late than never. :)

Here's another classic that will soon be gone from my "Europe" gallery. So peaceful was this little park in Paris back in 2001

Photography Prints

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"You said that software that allows you to extract your own data from a site can be illegal. Please explain. How so? I'm under the impression that the content I put on a site, ie. my images, my text, keywords I add, descriptions, blog posts, press releases, etc. are my own property. But, are you implying that once the content is on FAA Pixels that it no longer belongs to me and that I have no right to find a way to extract and store such data on my local machine? ".......

My other POS host (Zenfolio) stores images, even raw images, for our own personal backup so I don't think that's illegal....at least not in the US. I do pay more for Zenfolio, so maybe it's a cost issue? If the last part of what Skip says about implying that content on FAA Pixels is no longer ours, that needs to be made very clear to the users of Pixels so they can make an informed decision of whether or not to use the site.

 

Cynthia Decker

8 Years Ago

"If your work doesn't come up in searches readily, it's not going to sell."

I would say "if you are relying on on-site casual shoppers and internal searches, your work won't sell". And to that end, it seems you've figured out that PODs aren't for you - maybe for this reason. I wholeheartedly think that POD is a tool for selling. It's where you send customers, not where customers find you.

FAA is a shopping cart with a lot of perks. If you expect it to market for you, you'll be disappointed, regardless of how beautiful your work is. And your work is really beautiful, Skip. Again, though, if you're not into doing the marketing I get that, and I can see why POD may not be your platform.


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JM, the content is yours, the servers on which it resides are not yours. To scrape or rip data off of someone else's computer/server/storage without their knowledge and consent is the problem.

 

It's not like you're ripping data off without their knowledge. If they offer that as a service it's not without their knowledge or consent.

 

Skip Hunt

8 Years Ago

@JM, yeah... I was puzzled by Abbie's implication there, that's why I asked for clarification. She could be referring to something else I guess. Best to get vague claims of "possibly illegal" clarified. :)

@Cynthia, first THANKS for the compliments! Much appreciated. Secondly, yes... I know that FAA is a good option for many due to the perks. Good tools for marketing on the back end too. No question about that. Otherwise, I'd just close my account and go elsewhere... or do it myself. The trouble is, I spent a lot of time going one direction with my efforts, and Sean/FAA/Pixels went another direction. I wanted to hang out with a manageable group of artists and cultivate a niche audience who where willing to spend a little more money for work they love instead of bulk, volume, bargain priced sales. Those two paths don't really cross. So, you have to either pivot and get on-board with Sean's direction, ie. volume, social interaction, lower pricing, volume, etc. or, you have to go another route. For me, I'm beginning to think a limited edition model might fit better. Sean may have that component somewhere down the road, but it doesn't look like it'll be anytime soon so I'm exploring new avenues in the meantime.

Ideally, at least for me, I could use Sean's tools and fulfillment in less of a giant low-priced volume market and more of a smaller niche fanbase, more private limited edition only platform. I'm not sure that even exists any more. Most of the art sites seem to all be going in this same Costco/Walmart direction. I'm sure there's a good reason for that, and I'm certain it's great for some people, just not for me.

 

Cynthia Decker

8 Years Ago

If they offer downloading descriptions and keywords you've entered for your images as a service, like Zenfolio, then it's all open and fine. But here on FAA they don't offer that. They might, at one point, but I think what's being discussed here is using 3rd party software to effectively break into servers and scrape the image descriptions and keywords into some kind of file or database. That's illegal.

A person can absolutely cut and paste the info themselves all day long. As you said, it's the artist's content. It's when someone tries to do it using external software on a server they don't own over hundreds or thousands of images that there's a problem.

 

Skip Hunt

8 Years Ago

@Cynthia, to be clear... my interests are solely to capture the my own data that I placed on the servers. There ought to be an easy way of user owned data to be captured instead of trapped behind some gatekeeper who won't easily allow you access to large amounts of data the user has he/she generated themselves. Don't you agree?

There are services that are completely legal to capture your own data. Squarespace does it for their users as well as offering their users a way to capture and download a data base of their data any time they like. Unfortunately, their tools only work with the larger platforms that conform to some standard like wordpress, tumblr, etc. and not for custom jobs like FAA Pixels.

I'll say it again, that would be an excellent new feature that Sean could likely easily add to a premium user's account that would be of great value.

 

Abbie Shores

8 Years Ago

RE my last post:

QUOTE I am afraid I am going to have to ask you not to share ripping programmes or sites. That is illegal in some instances and as such against the rules. UNQUOTE

I am afraid that I am going to have to repeat that here. If this thread again goes into ripping whole site programmes, or sites where same can be got, it will be closed and the person saying where to get such a programme will be banned.

It is also is against our Terms of Use

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As for the Excel file. Glad to have helped. I do not know when that area will be fixed I am afraid

 

Skip Hunt

8 Years Ago

@Abbie, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you again... since you're going in a direction of "breaking into servers" etc. and that I've NEVER suggested anything of the sort. I ONLY asked for help or suggestions on how users can get a copy of THEIR owned and user-generated data other than cutting and pasting page by page as I'm forced to do now since I've yet to get any other help or suggestion from you.

So again, as a technical support representative/employee who's job it is to help the paying and non-paying users on this site with technical questions related to this site, can you please offer any suggestions as to how users can most easily capture, extract and export THEIR own data without utilizing hacker programs? Any Technical Support help with this matter would be greatly appreciated. Something other than "no, it's not possible" would be preferred. :)

It's so strange, I can ask a question like this on many other platforms, a completely valid, legal and legitimate question that I bet a lot of users would like the answer too, and not get a bunch of threats and forum thread closures. Why is that?

 

Abbie Shores

8 Years Ago

Skip

You asked about programmes or sites that could get all your data off this server, circumnavigating FAA. That is a ripper or scraper and that is against the Terms of Use.

Cynthia said it perfectly above.

I have said no already, we do not have this in place.

 

Skip Hunt

8 Years Ago

@Abbie, as a technical support and forum liaison for FAA Pixels, could you please pass this on as an excellent feature that Sean could/might implement in further updates to the platform?

I'm asking about broken features like the sales data one because I'm still a paying premium member who is using the platform and may continue to after my current year membership is expired. Instead of just saying "I don't know", could you ask someone who does know when/if this feature will be fixed and made to work again? Thanks.

 

Abbie Shores

8 Years Ago

There is no timeline at present on a fix.

He has already seen your suggestion.

 

Skip Hunt

8 Years Ago

@Abbie, ok. Thanks for your technical support.

And now... how about a funny little story related to a precarious mixup in Paris? This image is getting culled soon, but it's a classic that could've had a potentially harrowing outcome. I'll put it in a new thread as per your request.

 

Cynthia Decker

8 Years Ago

" my interests are solely to capture the my own data that I placed on the servers. There ought to be an easy way of user owned data to be captured instead of trapped behind some gatekeeper who won't easily allow you access to large amounts of data the user has he/she generated themselves. Don't you agree? "


Sort of. I think it's the user's responsibility to maintain that dataset for themselves. If the data you seek is embedded in thousands of individual HTML pages, then the ONLY way for anyone to get it out is to cut and paste from each individual page. It's up to the user to keep records. Hindsight is 20/20, and I realize in your case your horse got WAY in front of your cart, but in all frankness, I don't believe that's FAA's problem to solve.

 

Skip Hunt

8 Years Ago

@Cynthia, I appreciate you sticking up for Abbie, FAA and all, but I don't think my original question asking FAA and users for suggestions on how best to solve this problem was in any way putting the burden of solution on FAA. My question was given the situation, are there any suggestions on how users can export their data without having to cut/paste page by page. It's a clear, honest, legitimate technical support related question I have. Plain and simple.

 

Cynthia Decker

8 Years Ago

But you've phrased it as being a feature that FAA should provide. Maybe I misunderstood, it has been known to happen! :)

In the other thread, I mentioned that it depends on how the data is stored and if the admin can give it to you. Seems like the admin can't give you the info in a neat pile, because it may not exist in a neat pile.

And I defend no one, I'm just being logical and sharing what I know with you.

 

Skip Hunt

8 Years Ago

@Cynthia, ok. thanks for your input and suggestions.. and again for the lovely compliments. :)

 

Abbie Shores

8 Years Ago

Ok, the excel download is working perfectly

It appears you are using an outdated version of Excel (or similar) which, for some reason. is not opening the file. You need to upgrade your software I am afraid.

Thank you for your patience

 

Skip Hunt

8 Years Ago

@Abbie, Ok, I'm afraid you're mistaken or confused. My software opened the xlsx file you emailed just fine. The file that downloaded from FAA was called test.xls and had no data at all. Sorry, but swing again champ.

Would you or Sean like me to email the test.xls files that downloaded using the feature to see for yourself? I may have already deleted them, but I'll see if I can retrieve. I'll try the feature again to see if it's now working, but it definitely wasn't yesterday.

 

This discussion is closed.