External Images Links / Use "remote" storage servers

[flux]

allow_url_fopen is defined in the server config files, so only server administrators can change that and really doubt they will change it for you as it would be a global change for everyone on the server.

I would suggest you change your webhost and make sure fopen works with urls before you install cpg and the remote hack.

.flux

[ctcentralinfo]

This is a great addition to coppermine. The fact is that it is NOT a good idea to allow mwmbers to upload images to your hosting site because of the potiential for uploading viruses.

My question though is that I plan on uploading some videos I produced myself and upload them to www.youtube.com and I was wondering if this hack will allow me to remote play my videos.


I also want to be able to screen photos to view the content before I give permission for members to upload them. This is already avialable with coppermine, but will it work with your hack?

[cgc0202]

Hi flux,

I do not have the capability yet but this is one feature similar to what Gallery2 that I liked, before I decided that there are so many features that Coppermine have that made it more attractive.  Having this mode therefore is a welcome addition.

Anyway, before I go any further, I agree with the point raised in the first response of Gaugau to your post -- stealing bandwidth even from free sites is not something that we should promote, even if it is technologically feasible.  I did not know about the implications when I first started awhile back, so I have been linking photos before also, until I realized the potential implications.  This is one of the reasons why I have decided to create my own photogallery websites. 

I will still rely on "Creative Commons" photos (and secure copyright permissions from others) aside from citing the ownership, but I decided to download those photos and create archives of them to be presented hopefully using mods like yours.  But, as pointed out by Gaugau, these must be accessed through sites that the webmaster owns, not "stealing bandwidth" even from free sites.  I believe there would be less need for people to deface their photos with ugly watermarks or copyright ownership markings, if we try hard enough to follow certain rules.

I should point out too that you expose yourself to potential legal complicity suit, if one of the users of your mod would be charged for copyright infringements.  You may want to think about this.

The flipside is that you might expose the visitors to sites that are stealing bandwidth (and photos) from other parties with potential viral attacks, and other more diabolical creations that invade the visitor's privacy or actual steal information from them (or worse take over their computer).  Not too many people, I should say developers of websites or programs think about this anymore.  In the process, we all contribute to our debasement as human beings, with the continued errosion of our privacy and at times outright more diabolical manipulations of everything that we considered safe before.

I think there would be complications also even if the above scenarios do not apply.  In allowing the use of third party sites, the "gallery owner" really does not have control of the contents of his/her virtual gallery as allowed in your mod.  As a result, when the third party decides to move or delete specific photos that the mod remotely linked, then ou would end up with many dead sites.

Thus, I would recommend highly that you will steer the development of your mod so that it will work mainly with something that the user of the mod has control of.

I commend you for developing this mod, and as important for your desire to share it, much like Coppermine is oding and all those involved in the "open source" movement.  I bookmarked this thread, and I hope when I finally would need your mod, it has been refined further.

cgc0202

[ctcentralinfo]

They are not stealing bandwidth if they are using programs like photobuck. Beside it should be up to the owner to decide if they will allow members photos to show up. Anyway, I am wording if this will work with youtube. I have an account and planning on uploading my OWN videos to my youtube account so that I can have them on my site.


If you want to prevent folks from hot linking to other site, just creat rules for linking to your site, if they don't comply just deny them access.

[Joachim Müller]

If you're low on valuable php-powered webspace and therefor use another server that is under your control to store your pics on (using this mod), that's fine. But don't allow your users to store files remotely. That's ethically wrong. Closing your eyes to what will definitely happen, denying your responsibility about the content on your page (that will get stolen from other's bandwidth without their approval) by just hiding behind a disclaimer ("I told my users that they mustn't hotlink pics they don't own") also has a legal impact in many countries. I am not a lawyer, but I'm sure that you can't get away that easily.
Look: I'm convinced that you (the people who posted on this thread so far) don't plan do use this mod for something that is ethically or legally wrong. But others will - that's a fact. That's why we (the dev team members) don't like remote storage hacks and we won't add such functionality to coppermine's core code.
The only option that is legally and ethically OK imo would be that the hack would check for existance of a token file on the remote server that must have been uploaded by the owner of that remote webspace deliberatly before allowing to add pics from that webspace to coppermine's database. But then, it's not easy to accomplish this in a re-usable way.

[ctcentralinfo]

YOu are not getting what I am saying. A disclaimer will be put up. YOU the owner will check the link. If it is not from a site such as photobuck will get deleted.

[cgc0202]

I got you the first time ctcentralinfo.  However,  I stated my point in the first response and I was planning not to elaborate further.  But, the issue has become an exchange, as you try to insist your point.  Instead of trying to understand our perspective,  you repeat yourself in your response to GauGau -- as if that will make the point right.  [You were presumptuous into thinking that we did not understand you.]  Is it possible that you might be the one who is not getting the point?

Gaugau elaborated further and I hope flux will incorporate the safeguard Gaugau suggested. 

I want this mod by flux.  I have to start rearranging the architecture of  my entire website this weekend and that will be a big job that will take a very long time.  The reason for this is that the CPMFetch that Vuud created worked if the mod is in the same domain (or subdomain) as the gallery and the website where the photos will be added outside of the gallery.  I made that work now thanks to Vuud's very kind replies to my inquiries when it was not working properly.  Unfortunately, the Fetch design (in my hands at the moment) will not work when Fetch and the other site are in different domain (or subdomain).  That was also stated in the FAQ section of CPMFetch. 

Maybe this issue with  CPMFetch will be resolved by Vuud or someone else who knows programming, at some point.  In the meantime, a way around it would be using this mod that flux is developing -- or at least I think I can.

Now back to your point (in the first response to my post):

If you want to prevent folks from hot linking to other site, just creat rules for linking to your site, if they don't comply just deny them access.

You are placing the burden to the owner of the site -- who if (s)he did not want any of his/her creation stolen has already placed a copyright note.  If the photos are not copyrighted, i.e., released through "Creative Commons" (although some have restrictions), why not take the responsibility of dowloading those photos yourself and store them in your site?  Then you can use them however you want -- there is no need for you to hotlink, as already pointed by Gaugau.

The plain and simple truth is that you will not want to take the extra work to do the right thing.  Your own admission -- "hotlinking".  What a fast way to have a "photo gallery site" filled with photos, without the extra trouble.

Please put this in your head and try to think about it when you have time to reflect: Even those who would give away their website contents for free would not want their bandwidth stolen and that is especially true for photos (and other multimedia) because they use a lot of bandwidth.   

However you try to sugarcoat your words, technical jargon or hide yourself in any technology, it is outright stealing -- because you cause other people to pay  money for your "hotlinking". Have you ever looked at how much it costs when a site exceeds its bandwidth?

English is not my native tongue and that may be the reason why I was not able to express myself clearly enough to get through to you.  Please allow me then to repeat myself, if I have not made my points clear enough the first time. To quote you:

YOu are not getting what I am saying. A disclaimer will be put up. YOU the owner will check the link. If it is not from a site such as photobuck will get deleted.

Here is a better suggestion.  I am not familiar with the software or technology you keep suggesting.  So, why not ask the developer to place a script whereby if it does not see the statement: "Hotlink allowed!" it will not do any hotlinking.  If this cannot be automated yet, why not take the trouble of manually visiting sites that you like and see i they would explicitly allow "Hotlinking".

Hotlink only those sites that would say so.  In this alternative, place the responsibility in your hands -- do not pass the burden to others.

Maybe you have all the time in the world to be babysitting your website but most webmasters do not have your luxury. They only find out that some other websites are hotlining when they exceeded their normal bandwidth usage.  If you have a popular site worth hotlinking -- do you honestly believe you will have the time in the world to be sitting there wasting your time blacklisting sites, that can be from all over  the world?  The plain answer is no.

Because of the attitude that you espouse as a site developer, some webmasters have taken draconian measures instead.  There are ways to fool "hotlinking" bans of individual sites, or it will cause added inconvenience for webmasters will multiple websites.  To counter this, I have read of instances where the webmaster banned  an entire webhosting service because those IP addresses are "static".

As a result, because of attitudes like yours, you will cause problems to others sharing a webhosting service with you, as well as added work to your webhosting service itself -- to rectify the banning of their site -- simply because you would not want to follow rules.  These, aside from the points that I raised earlier already. 

Take the responsibility of following the rules (at least the ethical rules, for decent people) -- do not let your irresponsible attitude become a burden to others.

If you are a decent person, why not link the main site of the websites that you think are worth visiting?

However much you have persuaded yourself that what you are doing is legal and ethically right, it does not make your actions legal nor ethical, in the eyes of others.  At least two people here already think differently.  True, it is technically feasible and doable; but it is not legal.  And, even if it is legal (which I doubt) it is not ethically right to do so, because you are costing others money.

Unfortunately, no one can teach you anything about ethical responsibilities if you do not want to listen. 

cgc0202

N.B.

I must admit offhand that when I was new in developing my website  I never realized what "hotlinking" and related stuff meant nor understood their implications.   Gradually, I begun to understand them. 

One of the reasons why I am developing my own photogalleries is to rectify these mistakes.

And yes, as I suggested to you above, I am downloading those photos that I liked that have been released through "Creative Commons".  My website is not commercial, so that my use of the photos are within the restrictions indicated in the "Creative Commons" agreement.  And yes, the entire process takes a lot of work.  I have spent months so far poring through thousands and thousands of internet photos and sites, to select a few hundred so far. 

I have downloaded copyright photos too.  One of the reasons why I have not released my site URL yet for the photogalleries was because I want to get permission from other people who had copyright notices; and  at least to have the decency to inform even those who released their photos under  "Creative Commons" agreement that I wish to use their photos for my website.

Once I have created a credible site, I may then invite others if they are interested to share photos.  Here,  as the webmaster, I have to make sure that all individual copyrights are respected.  More important, as a webmaster, I take the responsibility of ensuring that I have the resources that I can indeed afford to finance such an undertaking.

Maybe you ought to consider the same option -- if you wish to do the right thing.

[cgc0202]

Hi!

Going back to a more important issue. It would be quite powerful if this mod was developed so that it is also able to extract the info (text and other embedded stuff) associated with each photo in a remote site and carryover the info to the other site where the photogallery is located.

cgc0202

[ctcentralinfo]

Now that we are back on track. Will I be able top play videos I have on youtube?

[Joachim Müller]

we can't tell for sure, there might be things interfering with it, but after all it's the purpose of this mod to allow you doing this. Why don't you try to find out?

[edgarg]

hello, the youtube way it is a small embeded code that calls up a flash video player, so I think the implementation will be kind of easy
as long as it is factible to allow code to be embbeded in some way
this is an example of the code  of  a you tube video...


<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dIzvcqoUB9I"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dIzvcqoUB9I" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

BTW I do not know if we should open a tread of its own about this, I think is quite relevant.

Code Select Expand

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dIzvcqoUB9I"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dIzvcqoUB9I" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

[donpeyote]

hmm am i missing something here?
my files.txt are something like this all jpgs are ok..why 0 Files...

/IPT/Aulas/
http://alienbrothers.no.sapo.pt/fotosmaio2006/AulaElectronicaMaio2006_01.jpg
http://alienbrothers.no.sapo.pt/fotosmaio2006/AulaElectronicaMaio2006_02.jpg
http://alienbrothers.no.sapo.pt/fotosmaio2006/AulaElectronicaMaio2006_03.jpg

0 Remote Pictures Links Found

File Uploaded : files.txt
File Size : 2126
0 Remote Pictures Links Found
433 Remote Pictures in the database
After filtering 0 NEW Remote Pictures will be added.

[donpeyote]

anyone can see something i might be doing wrong..those 3 pics i just uploaded thru URI/URL Uploads: with no problems so....

[donpeyote]

i dont want to be a boring ass but can anyone help me ??

[krnboy]

I've ended up with quite a dilema........ I installed the mod successfully, but i still have 2 small problems. 
1) after i upload a remote picture i get the message "The previous file was placed successfully." but i did not have the picture uploaded before.
2) My original problem was tat i used photobucket and i jux wanted the original picture pulled up from photobucket rather than being stored in my own webspace.  It now pulls up from photobucket, but i checked my FTP for my website and saw that the gallery still downloaded the file into my album.  Is there a way to keep it from doin tat?  Will it be ok to manually erase those big original pictures? They don't seem to be linked to anything anyways.

[krnboy]

Oh and i used the CGP 1.4x hack and also installed the slideshow mod

[krnboy]

Oh shoot! Sry for posting 3 times in a row, but i jux got an error

"Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 16777216 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 9216 bytes) in /home/krnboy/public_html/gallery2/include/picmgmt.inc.php on line 259"

The remote picture was below the configured max file size and max width and height.  Do i need to change something in micmgmt.inc.php?

[Joachim Müller]

1) This mod goes unsupported by the Coppermine devs
2) Search for your error message first - Fatal error: Allowed memory size of X bytes exhausted. The error message you got is not directly related to this mod, please stop cluttering this thread.

[viperpurple]

Hey Peeps,

Firstly i'd like to congratulate Flux on producing this great Mod 

I have just installed the beta4 mod onto my coppermine install version 1.4.8.  It all works correctly, i have uploaded several photos into the albums and the normal and thumb files have been created locally however they don't appear in the gallery.

see http://www.viperpurple.net/gallery/index.php for the gallery i am refering to.

I hope someone can help and if you need more information then please just ask and i will post it promptly 

TTFN 

Adam

[flux]

are you sure the pictures are actually located where they should be and can be accessed by the web server ? ownership/right problem maybe..

if you have access to the logs check the error log to see what's said there..

anyways what i wanted to say was that i upgraded my demo to 1.4.8 and everything works fine