People from DT look here, so they know that lots of us have almost given up on them, mostly because of the bad implementation of this policy.  It's been going on for a long time now and they haven't changed a thing.  So I think they couldn't care less about our opinion.  They also don't seem to mind losing buyers to other sites that give them a bit more choice.  That's what appears to be happening to me.  As they've joined in with the istock and FT policy of cutting commissions, I'm not so concerned about buyers going to the other sites.

It's a shame that DT has gone like this but I really don't see what we can do about it.  The only bargaining power we have is with our portfolios and there's too many people that will just carry on uploading regardless of the detrimental changes that have happened.

Well said. The similars rejections have simply morphed into something for which it wasn't originally intended.  Serban should read this forum and realize that they are leaving talent on the table.  Remember, a LOT of the similars rejections begin with a technology solution where they first sniff your keywords with software and, regardless of the content of those images, they get AUTOMATICALLY rejected for too similar based SOLELY on keywords.  Those images never see the eyes of an inspector.  They are simply rejected based on keywords to save time and, theoretically, keep their collection "clean".  It's a broken process that may be proving to be a differentiator that isn't working in DT's favor. Remember, this sniffing software is per Serban, it's not something I am speculating on.  He posted it in his own forum.

MS may be moving in the direction of ebay - where their original strength is now considered a weakness - a few years ago, the new CEO of ebay infuriated sellers when he said he wanted to get rid of the impression that ebay was just a gigantic flea market.  despite that uproar, ebay continued to  raise fees and make things harder on small sellers in favor of large corps selling new prodcut -- and he's been rewarded by an article in today's NY times that talks of how ebay has 'come back' and is more profitable than ever [altho in large part to their income from paypal fees]

not quite the same, but in ms, it looks like the enphasis of ms owners is going to be less and less on the health of their contributors