MicrostockGroup

... and to complete the confusion, dreamstime has just accepted several of the very same images that fotolia just rejected...

Guess that the laws of property rights are subject to interpretation ...?   

Thanks....

BUT!
out of 5 rejections, only ONE of them were from the sistine chapel...  The rest is from the vatican museum and fotolia has quite a lot of the "same" views already for sale.. so why does the same rules not apply to every image of "same" motif?

And by the way...  dreamstime had no objections about the ONE image from the sistine chapel... 

Dreamframer had the best reply. But here are some additional comments. I know for a fact that Sistine has restrictions. I am not sure about Vatican City.

Restrictions change from day to day because of the changing landscape of intellectual property law. A whole lot of museums here in the USA has restrictions printed right on the admission ticket. Those with free admission may post a sign at a common point. Some may allow photography for personal use, some may restrict all photography period. It's really your job to know the rules and possible restrictions of each venue you decide to shoot.

Review methods differ at each of the stocks. Dreamstime is certainly in error if accepting Sistine Chapel images. But then they are in arror for tons of other stuff too for sale under a creative RF license. Thousands of images.

For a primer on what is not acceptable, go here

http://www.istockphoto.com/tutorial_copyright_list.php

The list evolves and there are updates as new issues evolve.

Thanks all,

I fully agree about the laws and especially the photography in the sistine chapel.

However, the main issue for me is that all agencies, including fotolia are in fact selling a large variety of images from the Vatican museum. Images that are in fact, showing the exact same ceilings as mine are... Mine were rejected for the same reason - and NOT due to any technical issues...

So my main issue is really that fotolia seems to be very inconsistant, since they have accepted the "same" images from others without property releases... And rejected mine for not having property releases... 

And yes, basically it really doesn't matter with these few rejections - to me it's just a matter of trying to understand the reason for rejection.

When I'm in doubt wether or not to upload "grey area" inages without property releases, I generally do a search to determine if they generally does accept such images..  If there are lots of them present, then I generally just upload, expecting that property release is not necessary... 

But now...  To me, all logic seems to be missing 

You have pretty much summed up microstock.

They can impose rules as to photography but they do it not out of IP considerations but out of concerns for the artwork that surely will fade away after a million flashes of tiny on-cam flashes by mindless snapshooters.
The ultimate responsibility of the usage of a photo is with the buyer.

You could look at this the opposite way around - when one of those other photographers with a Sistine Chapel photo ends up on the wrong end of a lawsuit, you won't have to worry because your images were not for sale.

You're the one who bears the responsibility for the inappropriate sale of protected content - why do you want to push yourself into trouble just because some other people are already in a legally risky situation?