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Author Topic: DT - Timelineimages.com for facebook  (Read 16878 times)

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« Reply #25 on: June 02, 2012, 09:19 »
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...  However, you have to have a way to monitor for correct usage - that people aren't taking them and using them against the terms.
Seriously? In a non-exclusive world (I know foreign to you...) this is impossible.

Our images are licensed daily the wrong way but there is no way to verify.

I wasn't saying the solution to this existed today, though...


grafix04

« Reply #26 on: June 02, 2012, 09:36 »
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I tend to agree with you and your idea is a good one, too.

I do see Sean's and others' point about trying to educate people, but I believe it is as you said...people want stuff for free, period. Once they use the freebies, back to stealing. I suppose there could be some small percent who realize they should pay, but how many more images get stolen in the meantime? Hundreds of thousands is my guess. That's a lot of pennies being given away (for us contributors) and a lot of dollars for the agencies.

I see Sean's point too but I just don't see it happening on Facebook.  If I really had to go the Facebook Route, I'd be Targeting Facebook Pages only, not personal pages.  But I'd only do this if Facebook got rid of the 'share' button for cover photos and made it so people couldn't right-click on it, or if they did, some message popped up saying that it's copyrighted material.

lisafx

« Reply #27 on: June 02, 2012, 09:57 »
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For this to work, we need some basic universal image tracking system that all Micros use.  For instance when they sell an image, the agents add some metadata on the image with the name of the agent, the name of the photographer and a unique transaction number that appears on our sales data.  When we find our image somewhere, we can right-click on it and can cross reference it to see if it's legit.  Any image without this information should be considered an infringement.

I'm all for that.  I really think RF stock agencies should get together and collaborate on some sort of tracking ability, and then aggressively pursue infringements.  You won't get an argument from me there. 

I also like your suggestion about a pop up saying it is copyrighted material. 

I do not support the wanton distribution of our images for free.  But I do theoretically understand the desire of the agencies to find a way to monetize all this social media sharing.  They aren't quite there yet, but hopefully they are moving in that direction. 

digitalexpressionimages

« Reply #28 on: June 04, 2012, 07:47 »
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Quote
I do not support the wanton distribution of our images for free.  But I do theoretically understand the desire of the agencies to find a way to monetize all this social media sharing.  They aren't quite there yet, but hopefully they are moving in that direction.

I don't think there is a way to monetize it, unless you first educate people on the legality and ethics of sharing. There's a TV show on in the afternoon all about smart phones and apps for smart phones and they did a segment on the apps available for pinterest this last Saturday. They went on about how pinterest was a great place to share beautiful images you find on the web blah blah blah but not one word about copyright. Not one mention about how people might own the beautiful things you want to share. It brought it home that sharing and pinterest seem to now be part of the public vernacular but the word copyright has become some half-forgotten obsolete notion.

Microbius

« Reply #29 on: June 04, 2012, 08:00 »
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The markets are starting to realize that monetizing traffic isn't as easy it first appeared. Facebook is just now coming to terms with what Napster found out when it tried to get legit. Giving people stuff for free may attract them to a site but it makes them less willing to pay for anything at all, so you shoot yourself in the foot. What's the point in advertising to people that don't want to pay for anything? all you do by giving them things for free is make them even harder to upsell to. They'll take the 3 free DT photos and move on to the next agency giving them 3 more free photos, or just steal the images, because they must be worthless if you are giving them away right?

grafix04

« Reply #30 on: June 04, 2012, 11:17 »
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I can't understand why an agency would go there at all.  If there was a market for it there, they wouldn't need to give the three images away for free.  Even if they do sell the odd image, there's likely to be hundreds of that same image stolen via Facebook over time.  I can't make any sense of it. 

The image libraries have grown so huge that they can shaft us without much consequence but what annoys me is - us - the majority of contributors will accept any decision they make.  The number of amateurs/hobbyists outweigh professional photographers and they don't appear to care too much about their images and copyright.  The DT forum is full of these types.  It's bad enough that they don't stand up and voice their concerns (if they have any) but they brown-nose and actually thank the agents who shaft them.  "Oh, you're giving away three of our images for free and allowing people to distribute our images on Facebook as well as Pinterest, thank you DT.  You know what's best for me!"  It makes my stomach churn!  The more amateurs/hobbyists there are, the more power the agencies have.  They probably hardly look into this forum anymore and if they do, they probably laugh at us.  We don't have a voice anymore.

Ed

« Reply #31 on: June 04, 2012, 11:43 »
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I'm not 100% sold on the idea....but I'm not 100% against it either.

The thing that worries me is, if I remember correctly, these cropped images are also the same size required by Wordpress for their (free) blogging templates.  First thought is we all know blogs are a source of revenue from the microstock agencies so I hope this doesn't have a negative effect on that business.  Second thought is, if a person uses a free Wordpress template, should they be expected to pay for an image?

I also seem to remember there is another agency that currently partners with Wordpress but I can't remember which one.

« Reply #32 on: June 04, 2012, 12:19 »
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I don't know why they don't also offer it on DT itself - I would think it would do better here.  A small business (with limited design skills or software) buying images might think it's a great idea to buy a perfectly sized version for their account.   

antistock

« Reply #33 on: June 04, 2012, 12:23 »
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it's nothing new actually.

years ago there were companies selling templates for MySpace.

and now in the underground there are black hate CEOs selling fake FB friends and likes with ready made "packs" of tens of thousands of fake accounts, all looking real, all automated and even commenting on your posts with automated garbage.

« Reply #34 on: June 04, 2012, 15:24 »
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I think there was much truth said. Ppl want free stuff and Facebook isnt really the market with huge crowd of happy buyers. Stolen images are not tenths of thousands but billions. It is estimated that there are about 300 millions of pictures uploaded to Facebook only every day! You bet there are millions of stolen images, I will not guess how many. Facebook has about 900 millions of users - even if half of those are just fake marketing accounts, it is still huge number. Many times larger then any stock agency customer base.

So to the point. I dont like stealing or misusing pictures but in current state it somehow become socialy accepted. Thats the way we pay for easier exposure to potential buyers. On the other hand, there are hundreds of millions of users just on Facebook alone and if just one promile of them will buy just one licence per year for just one buck it makes 450 thousands $$ per year(I counted only half of FB users as real users). Does developing timeline images website still looks stupid to you? I would definitely give it a try if the development would cost me just few grands and there is potential to earn hundreds of grands every year even if the conversion is extremely small.

Yes it is a bad thing for photographers in some ways and I definitely dont like Pinterest button on DT. On the other hand TimelineImages at least educates users, that there exist ways to legally buy pictures and that they are * cheap. There are still lot of users who would simply buy it.

antistock

« Reply #35 on: June 04, 2012, 19:04 »
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Yes it is a bad thing for photographers in some ways and I definitely dont like Pinterest button on DT. On the other hand TimelineImages at least educates users, that there exist ways to legally buy pictures and that they are * cheap. There are still lot of users who would simply buy it.

yeah everybody is still convinced FB is a goldmine, in the meantime it's stock value is down again to 26.90$ per share, market cap is now just 57 billions, almost HALF of three weeks ago ! nuff said about FB real value ...

but back to timelines : no, nobody will get rich selling timeline images, as nobody makes money selling avatars to forum users, it's a small niche only targeting a bunch of hardcore FB addicts, the ones who spend their whole day online and are ready to waste money on these things for vanity.

antistock

« Reply #36 on: June 04, 2012, 19:05 »
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Yes it is a bad thing for photographers in some ways and I definitely dont like Pinterest button on DT. On the other hand TimelineImages at least educates users, that there exist ways to legally buy pictures and that they are * cheap. There are still lot of users who would simply buy it.

yeah everybody is still convinced FB is a goldmine, in the meantime its stock value is down again to 26.90$ per share, market cap is now just 57 billions, almost HALF of the initial IPO ! nuff said about FB real value ... and yet another class action against FB has been filed yesterday.

but back to timelines : no, nobody will get rich selling timeline images, as nobody makes money selling avatars to forum users, it's a small niche only targeting a bunch of hardcore FB addicts, the ones who spend their whole day online and are ready to waste money on these things for vanity.

« Reply #37 on: June 05, 2012, 04:29 »
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And here's what some of the rest of the world thinks about Time Images

Quote
Who . buys a stock image to put on the top of their Facebook timeline? Would you do it? Would any of you really pay a buck to put the photo of some random model doing some stupid thing?

I guess there's a clientele for this service. And it makes me sad.


Link to article

http://gizmodo.com/5915327/who-the-hell-buys-stock-images-for-their-facebook-timeline

drugal

    This user is banned.
« Reply #38 on: June 05, 2012, 04:51 »
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This is a wasted effort imho. Not because of the price, or something else being given away for free... simply because most people have no taste, sense of, or need for aesthetics at all. The 21st century unthinking majority is perfectly happy with their blurry dark junk shot that makes them and their friends look disfigured on their timeline.

digitalexpressionimages

« Reply #39 on: June 05, 2012, 13:13 »
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www.coverphotobook.com

"Download Free Facebook Timeline Covers!". I wonder where this guy is getting his source material.

« Reply #40 on: June 05, 2012, 14:49 »
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re the PrtScr button - many people aren't aware of it, or know what to do w a captured screen

smugmug has a feature that disables the rightclick [ needed for 'save picture as']and instead displays a owner provided message -- eg

http://www.pix-now.com/Travel/India1/IndiaTemples/   right click on the large picture to see it work

this doesnt solve everything but at least it's a start; also any screen captures are going to be fairly low res anyway.

« Reply #41 on: June 05, 2012, 15:31 »
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www.coverphotobook.com

"Download Free Facebook Timeline Covers!". I wonder where this guy is getting his source material.


This guy appears to be using other people's copyrighted images. I can't imagine he has rights to those copyrighted images. I haven't found anything of mine, but, for example, found that he's offering a free cover with a shot of a strawberry being shot through with a bullet. See this page for his cover.

But that image is copyrighted by Alan Sailer - see an article about him and the photos here

A lot of the images look like stock, but on a quick glance I didn't see anything I recognized specifically. I'm assuming if someone finds one of their own images and complains (although I don't see a DMCA link on the site) it won't take long to get this shut down

And I found one image that's on SS (not mine) - I'll try contacting SS support to see if they'll go after this loser. The image he lifted is this one and it's offered here on the rip-off site as Four Elements.
« Last Edit: June 05, 2012, 15:47 by jsnover »

digitalexpressionimages

« Reply #42 on: June 05, 2012, 15:51 »
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www.coverphotobook.com

"Download Free Facebook Timeline Covers!". I wonder where this guy is getting his source material.


This guy appears to be using other people's copyrighted images. I can't imagine he has rights to those copyrighted images. I haven't found anything of mine, but, for example, found that he's offering a free cover with a shot of a strawberry being shot through with a bullet. See this page for his cover.

But that image is copyrighted by Alan Sailer - see an article about him and the photos here

A lot of the images look like stock, but on a quick glance I didn't see anything I recognized specifically. I'm assuming if someone finds one of their own images and complains (although I don't see a DMCA link on the site) it won't take long to get this shut down


Those were my thoughts as well. I didn't see anything I recognized but with all of the digital paintings, vector, photos et al he's either one of the most talented and productive guys on the web or he's using other people's work with not even a credit to them.

« Reply #43 on: June 05, 2012, 17:20 »
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There's a DT ad right at the top. Could he be a Partner of DT's? And that's where the images are coming from? Maybe a Partner of SS?

« Reply #44 on: June 05, 2012, 18:34 »
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In the case of the strawberry image, that's not being sold by any of the micros or Alamy , so it's a private deal with the copyright holder (not likely) or lifted from one of the newspaper web sites. We'll see what SS says when they reply to my support ticket.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #45 on: June 05, 2012, 18:45 »
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www.coverphotobook.com

"Download Free Facebook Timeline Covers!". I wonder where this guy is getting his source material.


I ran a GIS on four photos in the nature section. All of them were widely available on 'free desktop wallpaper' sites, but none of them led to any of the known agency sites, as far as I could find. One of them was claimed by three different people as being their stunning photo!

digitalexpressionimages

« Reply #46 on: June 06, 2012, 07:10 »
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www.coverphotobook.com

"Download Free Facebook Timeline Covers!". I wonder where this guy is getting his source material.


I ran a GIS on four photos in the nature section. All of them were widely available on 'free desktop wallpaper' sites, but none of them led to any of the known agency sites, as far as I could find. One of them was claimed by three different people as being their stunning photo!


Orphaned works perhaps, offered up as free by anyone to anyone? Seems like a prophetic peek at things to come.

Quote
There's a DT ad right at the top. Could he be a Partner of DT's? And that's where the images are coming from? Maybe a Partner of SS?


I didn't see any ads for DT (I have adblocker installed) but If you mouse over the green download arrow button it doesn't link to any agency but directly to the jpeg. There's no credit line on any of the images so it's an odd partnership if it is one.

« Reply #47 on: June 13, 2012, 10:59 »
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This morning I received a reply from SS support (seems a bit sluggish to me to take just over a week to reply) saying they'd forward my information to the right department "...they will see what they can do, and take action as soon as they can."

The site is still there, along with the image that's on SS...

grafix04

« Reply #48 on: June 13, 2012, 21:10 »
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I added some possible copyright violations that I found on this thread:

http://www.microstockgroup.com/image-sleuth/coverphotobook-com-probable-copyright-infringements/

gillian vann

  • *Gillian*
« Reply #49 on: June 18, 2012, 19:19 »
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I agree that helping the FB crowd understand that good images should be paid for is a step in the right direction. People aren't necessarily going to share images; surely the point of your own profile is its individuality?  Pinterest is another can of worms altogether.

that guy making those cover images is doing them for $20? surely by the time you've emailed your client, explained what you do, got their pic, added in text and other info, it's been an hour? $20/hour is not good money in my 1st world overpriced nation. He probably can't afford to pay for images too. he's selling a lot of branded stuff too, are there issues with that I wonder?
« Last Edit: June 18, 2012, 19:34 by vannphoto »


 

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