I was just about to sign up for photobucket until I read the terms of use. Unless I'm really misunderstanding the legal jargon, it sounds like while you still retain the copyright, you give them license to use your image however they see fit. You also give them the right to alter your image.
If this is infact the case, I'm very surprised photographers (amateur and professional) use them. Maybe no one is reading the fine print.
Are all the sites (smugmug, pbase etc.) like this?
Here is the paragraph in question:
3. Your License to Photobucket
Photobucket does not claim any ownership rights in any User Content that you choose to post to the Site. After posting User Content to the Site,you continue to retain all ownership or license rights in your User Content and you continue to have the right to use your User Content as you did prior to such posting. However, by posting or making User Content available through the Site or via the Services, you hereby grant to Photobucket a nonexclusive, royalty-free, transferable, worldwide license to use, copy, modify, prepare derivative works from, distribute, publicly display and publicly perform (whether by means of a digital audio transmission or otherwise) and process your User Content, or any part of it, solely on and through the Site and Services, including without limitation (a) adapting the format of your User Content (for example by encoding or transcoding) for suitable display on the Site; and (b) displaying, in Photobucket's sole discretion, your public User Content in search results generated by the Photobucket search engine. In addition, where you have made your User Content public, posted a link to your User Content on another website or otherwise shared a link to your User Content, you grant to Photobucket a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide right to sublicense the right to copy, modify, prepare derivative works from, and distribute your User Content as necessary to perform the Services, including without limitation the printing services offered by Partner Sites. In connection with the above license, you provide your consent for Photobucket personnel, including Photobucket contractors and service providers, to view your User Content at any time for the purpose of providing the Services and filtering content that violates this Agreement. You acknowledge that you are solely responsible for all Content you submit to the Site or provide to the Service. You represent that you either own the User Content or have the rights necessary to grant Photobucket this license.
