MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Dreamstime.com => Topic started by: horrorshow on July 27, 2012, 13:56
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Hey everybody,
I want to tell my short story about how DT has banned me. What happened seems not very fair to me, so i want to share it.
I was beginning selling vectors at stocks about year ago and uploading my first 100 images to DT, shutterstock and others. DT was selling rare, but selling some and i got about $70-80 by some time. But one day i have received an e-mail, saying that my account is banned permanently for copyright issue.
And DT showed me 2-3 of my images that i made using reference photos from internet. I admitted that it's true, though funny enough - one picture that they claimed to be original from shutterstock, in fact was same as mine - traced from photograph. Other two accusations were correct - those photos i used to trace my vectors. Well, one of them was simplified graphics and hardly resembled photo, the other one was just as photo, very detailed. This work took me several days to complete and i would call it rather my personal work based on image, than tracing. And those pictures are still selling elsewhere but DT and did not get any complains.
Anyway, let's agree that i used photos that i should not have used. My guilt, i admit it. But interesting thing is also how banning was performed - account blocked permanently and all money taken from me without any questions. Money that i got from selling not only those pictures, but all of my content.
And this looks quite like crookery to me, sorry to say that. Writing to DT official who has banned me returned silence.
That was my story, thanks for reading.
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Doubt you'll get much sympathy here. Why haven't you taken down those images from other sites? And what are you uploading to DT now? http://www.microstockgroup.com/dreamstime-com/dt-down-16475/msg0/?topicseen#new (http://www.microstockgroup.com/dreamstime-com/dt-down-16475/msg0/?topicseen#new)
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Nice to hear that your account is closed.
You sold pictures and didn't own the copyright.
Clear situation and clear statement and reaction from dreamstime.
I hope the other agencies will do the same!
I found too many of people like you, selling my pictures in many variations. :-[
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I agree with the others. You stole from a fellow contributor and are now looking for sympathy about not being paid for your thievery? Good luck with that. Your forum name is appropriate in my opinion.
Mat
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A common thief trying to justify his/her work hoping to get sympathy from those here for what they have done! HA! :o >:(Pfftt~~~~~~~~~~~~
Get a life no one here is going to sympathize with you in any way and we should let other agencies know about you and what you doing and inform them of what you have done and tell them they need to take down your port and ban you as DT did.
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Got what you deservd. Don't try making money from other people's work.
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Mistakes do happen. But 3 showed you'd din't care. Agree 100 percent with the rest
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Wont be long before the other sites ban you and keep your earnings, if you don't remove the images that got you banned from DT.
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>>>>>> This work took me several days to complete and i would call it rather my personal work based on image, than tracing. And those pictures are still selling elsewhere but DT and did not get any complains.
most people wouldnt know it was a copyright violation, so why would u expect complaints? it's still wrong.
call it whatever you like, but theft is theft
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This work took me several days to complete and i would call it rather my personal work based on image, than tracing.
How about the work that the original contributers put into THEIR work - only to have it ripped off and resold
DT did the absolute right thing - any one of us if we were to find our work in the same situation, we would want the wrong to be made right
and this is the way DT did it
I am pretty sure that if this gets spotted on other sites you will be banned from those sites as well, and rightly so...
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Anyway, let's agree that i used photos that i should not have used. My guilt, i admit it. But interesting thing is also how banning was performed - account blocked permanently and all money taken from me without any questions. Money that i got from selling not only those pictures, but all of my content.
Yes, under the described circumstances, any account will be terminated and all earnings forfeited.
And I guess this applies the same way at any agency.
edited: wrong quote.
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Now I understand what it means when I read "Your sins shall find you out."
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I suspect the OP is trying to stir things up to get a reaction from us. (horrorshow?) The story doesn't pass the smell test.
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I suspect the OP is trying to stir things up to get a reaction from us. (horrorshow?) The story doesn't pass the smell test.
The response from Rolmat (DT admin) seems to verify the OP claim. It is, however, hard to believe that anyone would be so bold as to rat themselves out as being a real sleaze ball.
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I suspect the OP is trying to stir things up to get a reaction from us. (horrorshow?) The story doesn't pass the smell test.
The response from Rolmat (DT admin) seems to verify the OP claim. It is, however, hard to believe that anyone would be so bold as to rat themselves out as being a real sleaze ball.
My post was just intended to confirm that under such circumstances an account may be terminated and all earnings forfeited.
Just a general information, if that's ok with you.And Warren, I don't have a clue about who the OP is. :)
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I suspect the OP is trying to stir things up to get a reaction from us. (horrorshow?) The story doesn't pass the smell test.
The response from Rolmat (DT admin) seems to verify the OP claim. It is, however, hard to believe that anyone would be so bold as to rat themselves out as being a real sleaze ball.
unfortunately in the 'data wants to be free' ethos of the web, many people wouldn't think this was wrong, so i'm not too surprised at OP's surprise
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Doubt you'll get much sympathy here. Why haven't you taken down those images from other sites? And what are you uploading to DT now? [url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/dreamstime-com/dt-down-16475/msg0/?topicseen#new[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/dreamstime-com/dt-down-16475/msg0/?topicseen#new[/url])
how are you showing remorse if you've made a new ID and started uploading again?
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Looking for support at MSG with this story sounds to me like coming to police station saying: "I raped my neighbour's wife a few times and - believe it or not - my neighbour slapped my face and he doesn't want to give me my lawn mower back."
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Looking for support at MSG with this story sounds to me like coming to police station saying: "I raped my neighbour's wife a few times and - believe it or not - my neighbour slapped my face and he doesn't want to give me my lawn mower back."
Thank you, that's what i was talking about. The fact that neighbour's wife was raped doesn't mean that neighbour becomes the owner of rapist's lawn mower.
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That is actually correct.
Your earnings belong to you.
The guy who had his photos copied by you can make a claim against you for copyright violation. Which you admit to have done. He could sue your for that violation with a MUCH higher amount than your earnings, and he would have a good case, since now you admit guilt already.
The agency can claim that you have broken the contract you signed with them, and determinate the contract immediately. That could also sue you for various things, such as destrying their brand and reputation. Can you imagine the amounts we talk about here? and that is just the contract breach, now, since you posted, slander could also be a possibility.
However, the agency should, as a courtesy, move your earnings to the violated part, and also issue, to you, a letter of determination of contract, + a list of paragraphs you have violated.
You should be happy, as things are, and not be stupid enough to even talk about it, obviously not knowing the laws, and completely disregarding the possible consequences.
Read the law, try to imagine the feelings of the violated part who might see your texts here. Learn the lesson! You were lucky. Maybe you pushed your luck.
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Looking for support at MSG with this story sounds to me like coming to police station saying: "I raped my neighbour's wife a few times and - believe it or not - my neighbour slapped my face and he doesn't want to give me my lawn mower back."
Thank you, that's what i was talking about. The fact that neighbour's wife was raped doesn't mean that neighbour becomes the owner of rapist's lawn mower.
I wouldn't push this analogy, if I were you. Rape incurs a far higher penalty than holding on to a lawn mower, which would be considered pretty mild in the 'crime passionel' scale.
Similarly, you might feel you've got off lightly if you don't get sued in your circumstance.
Added: I hope DT forwarded the forfeited fees to the infringed party and didn't just keep it for themselves.
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Looking for support at MSG with this story sounds to me like coming to police station saying: "I raped my neighbour's wife a few times and - believe it or not - my neighbour slapped my face and he doesn't want to give me my lawn mower back."
Thank you, that's what i was talking about. The fact that neighbour's wife was raped doesn't mean that neighbour becomes the owner of rapist's lawn mower.
Hilarious thread, I would guess it was a joke if DT admin hadn't seemed to verify it. I think the point of the post wasn't that the neighbor would legally own the lawnmower, but that the rapist would have to be a f****** r***** to think he had right to complain about the stolen lawnmower. So yes, a good analogy.
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Took a while, but I think I got the grit of it now:
NEVER BORROW HORRORSHOW'S LAWN MOWER!
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Took a while, but I think I got the grit of it now:
NEVER BORROW HORRORSHOW'S LAWN MOWER!
;D
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The time will come when violators won't get away anymore with just their accounts being closed.
I can see that violators who happen to live in the same country as the agency's HQ will receive a letter from their lawyer as well.
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The time will come when violators won't get away anymore with just their accounts being closed.
I can see that violators who happen to live in the same country as the agency's HQ will receive a letter from their lawyer as well.
That would be scary for them cause you could get a paper cut from something like that. ;D
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Don't even try taking my lawnmower he-he-he.. :-*
Thanks for advice, i have deleted those files from other stocks and certainly agree that other people's work should not be copied, but better used as reference and inspiration. Copying is boring and creating new is cool. Wish good sales to everyone!
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... and certainly agree that other people's work should not be copied, but better used as reference and inspiration. Copying is boring and creating new is cool...
Actually, you shouldn't use other people's work as reference material. If you're creating something for stock that is based on another work, such as a reference photo, illustration, or any other visual reference, that reference material must be your own creation as well. In fact, some companies like istock require you to show your reference material when uploading an image that appears to have been derived from another image.
Copying isn't just boring. It's illegal. And in this business, it will get you shut down quickly.
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... and certainly agree that other people's work should not be copied, but better used as reference and inspiration. Copying is boring and creating new is cool...
Actually, you shouldn't use other people's work as reference material. If you're creating something for stock that is based on another work, such as a reference photo, illustration, or any other visual reference, that reference material must be your own creation as well. In fact, some companies like istock require you to show your reference material when uploading an image that appears to have been derived from another image.
Copying isn't just boring. It's illegal. And in this business, it will get you shut down quickly.
EmberMike, whether you meant to or not, you've got me thinking. I'm sure this has been debated and argued before courts many times, but how much referencing is too much? I think most photographers look at the works of others and glean ideas and inspiration from them. When does it become copying? In the realm of stock, is there a difference when the subject is a simple object (eg., the infamous isolated tomato) and when the subject portrays a concept in a particular way (an isolated apple wrapped with measuring tape to illustrate the idea of dieting)?
These questions are currently bothering me quite a bit as I find myself in that exact situation. Awhile back, I saw a photo in a magazine which illustrated a concept in a way that I really liked (for discussion sake, let's pretend it was the apple wrapped in measuring tape -- the actual concept is roughly that simple). At that point, I marked that as an idea I would to try. Several months have passed, and just this week I got around to shooting the image. I've mostly completed the editing, and I've taken a quick look to see how saturated the market is with similar images. There are not a whole lot, but there are definitely a handful of other photographers who have also implemented the concept in the same or very similar way (okay, the apple concept has many more occurrences than the image I have taken). Now, I read your comment, and I pause. I hadn't considered uploading this image to be a violation of anyone else's work, but I am no longer entirely sure. The idea definitely came from the work of someone else. In that since it is copying. However, it most definitely is not unique. I could have come up with the idea on my own, and it would have been fine then. But, I didn't.
Anyway, I am not trying to detract from the OP's topic, but your comment has me thinking. I certainly do not want to be stealing anyone else's creative work, and I definitely want my work to be ethically created. I may hold off on uploading this image until I have thought through where the boundaries are a bit more.
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As we all know a concept cannot be protected.
However, some common sense can be applied when shooting a concept that has inspired you.
For instance, Getty was suing a bunch of other agencies and photographers who blatantly copied one of their images. Other photographers recreated a scene they saw on a Getty image using the exact same shooting locations, same brand cars, same ethnicity of models in the exact same pose and position within the frame. At some point it has to be acknowledged that the copying photographer was basing his "work" on another photo. That's stepping over the line IMO.
The fewer elements you have in your frame the less of a problem you may have stepping on someone's toes e.g. shooting an isolated apple over white.
Now when you add the measuring tape, are you also draping the tape EXACTLY the way you saw it in someone else's image? Are you shooting it from the same angle? Are you using approximately the same depth of field? If you just want to recreate a photo from someone else it's basically copying. Now this might not get you in trouble but it's rather questionable how your creative skills are as a photographer...
If you can live with yourself just copying other photographers works, knock yourself out.
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EmberMike, whether you meant to or not, you've got me thinking...
...I am not trying to detract from the OP's topic, but your comment has me thinking. I certainly do not want to be stealing anyone else's creative work, and I definitely want my work to be ethically created...
My comment was actually more about vector images, since that is the type of work the OP was doing. When I think of "reference material" as it relates to vector images and illustration, it's more to do with using an existing image as the basis for a new image. Creating an illustration from a photo, for example. In that regard, it is 100% not allowed in stock. Even if the resulting image is significantly different, we are not supposed to use any reference material in any way that isn't our own.
As it relates to photography, it seems like more of a gray area. A "reference" in illustration could be something that you literally trace over. Obviously that's a copy. A "reference" in photography can't be traced per se, but it can be the basis for a new photo, setting up a shot similarly, using similar props, models, etc. In a sense, it's a tracing as well. But it's harder to define and harder to identify than a straight tracing.