MicrostockGroup

Hi Stock Folks,

I am some what confused on what you can take and what you cannot take when it comes to currency, coins and credit cards. I see a lot of Visa Credit card shots on the news or magazines thus I submitted a few last night only showing the Visa part of my card and they were rejected big time! Plus a lot of my Chinese or U.S. Paper money shots are rejected due to trade mark issues. Any tips on these areas?


Thanks.


Tom

It all depends on the context in which you saw the shots. If the shots were on the "high end" for a national campaign then clearance would/should have been obtained by the advertiser to use.

The first 6 (left) digits of the credit card are at issue because they are affiliated with financial institutions who issue the card. Unfortunately at GL, I am going to have to start removals of images accepted long ago. For credit card illustrations, using 0000 00 as the leading digits would be acceptable. You cannot use the mastercard circles logo and change the colors. You should not use the visa logo, change the color of the stripes, and change the word using italic uppercase text. Anything that breathes such similarity will be rejected.

We cannot accept "Full flat depictions" of any US paper currency. This is not a micro thing, it is a US Secret Service thing. If full face of currency is angled so that it could not reasonably be "printed as a bill", we will take it depending on the image. Full flat held by hand and partially obscured by a thumb "or object" ok. Horribly wrinkled up bills sometimes ok. Bills with big hole burned in, ok. Bills ripped in half are at the reviewer's discretion. We extend "full flat depictions" to currency of other countries as well.

Canadian currency - on new Canada currency the artwork is copyrighted. For the old stuff, we can no longer take any currency with depictions of The Queen. The Queen depictions extend to stamps too (of either Britain or Canada). Brit coins with the Queen must now be excluded. And just as a bonus for you, the new Canada passports also enjoy rights protection today, both inside and outside.

US Coins - cannot take any coins depicting art of the Native American series. There were a few Native coins issued a few years ago - those are off limits as well as the newly minted series.

US - cannot take backs of the 50 US States quarters. It is third party artwork. Other US coins - even pennies from the new Lincoln series, are ok as the art was issued by US Engraving Dept, not independent artists.

Canada - Cannot take the Looneys or "Twoneys".

Chinese money - that's one I did not know about so will have to look into that one.

We will also not accept partial scans of foreign currency simply to "grab a headshot" of the person on the currency because rights to publicity or estate rights may be an issue. It's really reaching for stock anyway, and if you have to resort to that to provide an image, you need to find other things to do.

There, now aren't you sorry you asked? You should be very afraid to get me started on stamps - that would be a much longer post ;-)

Wow! I was going to do some stamp shots this weekend but now have changed my shooting plans! I did notice that when I did a full shot of the new U.S. $5 bill CS5 would not allow me to open it up thus telling me that I am not allowed to take a full shot of the paper money.   I usually send my first rounds submissions to Can Stock Photo and they are very harsh on Trademark things thus keeping me out of trouble. It is very difficult to do financial shots based on all these laws. Makes good sense that if an individual artist did the work for the paper money or coin that you cannot use it. I just need to make sure the US Treasury (Philadelphia, Denver, West point or San Francisco Mints) did the art work.


Thanks.


Tom

GL, thank you very much for popping in with your wealth of information. It is really appreciated!

Unless they changed again, FT and DT stopped taking stamps Jan. 2009. "too many like this, they don't sell well." SS and IS they are editorial (newsworthy caption required) US stamp designs since 1978 are copyrighted, none should be accepted. Canceled only and famous dead people are likely to get rejected because of possible liability from the estate claiming rights, even though the stamp is PD! Agencies make their own rules and they seem to change with the wind.

Anything after the big four, aren't worth the time it takes to upload, if they would be accepted at all.

After trying some very specific topical subjects, I'd say No Market, but to be honest, a very slim to none market. 

All very true. People have tried to submit the Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, and John Wayne stamps - in addition to being post 78, there are estate rights in play.

The laws differ for each country, For US, it must be post 78 as Race said. For old Czech and new Czech Republic, I can take nothing.  For France, the engraver's name is on every stamp, and he must have been dead for 70 years before I can take it. So even if the French stamp is very old, I have to ensure that the actual engraver is deceased. A time s_cking  black hole for a reviewer, and just not worth it. For Poland, the copyright law is even murkier. It says that all "modern" stamps are subject to copyright. So what defines "Modern"? I nix all Poland.

About the only ones I will take these days is maybe Cuba, maybe some very old Russia, some of the very old US 1,2,3,4,5 cents if canceled. For the GL site, the old US are more desirable (because our buyers are largely US based) if they are on an old yellowed postcard with the writing taken out. Not hard to do if you have a skilled hand.

As mentioned before, if you resort to shooting or scanning stamps for stock, you really need to rethink your game plan. It's just too low value and really a waste of your (and our) time. Same as the people shooting their camera bodies, flashes, lenses, filters, tripods, snoots, etc - I only on a very rare occasion take any of them any more. A Canon is still a Canon even with the name taken off. That red thing on your Nikon? That's part of their design and is distinctive to their cameras.

And a funny story. Someone once shot their camera bag, and I saw this little orange tag in the preview. I said - Gee I wonder if that's a Lowepro? Didn't even have to download the image - he had Lowepro in the keywords. So don't shoot the camera bags either.

You have dfinately done your homework!  Is there any place in particular to check stamps?

Thank ya sir!