I'm not someone who submits much in the way of similars. However, this morning on DT, I was surprised to find that my latest image was rejected for supposedly being identical or close to identical to another image that was already in my portfolio. I do admit that I did photograph the same subject from the same angle but with the second image, I walked back a fair few steps which revealed a number of additional elements in the background which were not included in the first image, allowing the viewer to see more of the environment.
Which begs the question - does DT have much of an image spamming problem? SS clearly does. There are pages and pages of nearly identical images on SS. Despite SS having anti-spam rules, I don't know how such contributors succeed in submitting hundreds of images like that.
As I mentioned before, I don't submit a lot of similars. I try and make sure most of my images are unique. Though just recently on SS, I discovered that having some similar images in my port can be a good thing. I admit I have two very similar images of a particular subject that were take some time apart. A few days ago, one of these images was sold in Brisbane, Australia via SS. Then the next day, the other similar image was also sold in Brisbane, Australia via SS. Most likely from the same buyer.
By the way, over half a year ago, I accidentally submitted an image to DT that was already in my portfolio. I had forgotten it was already in there. It was actually one of my first submissions to DT. And surprisingly, it was accepted. When I realised my mistake, I removed the second copy.
From this morning's discovery, I guess DT are implementing a more strict policy on similars and perhaps even a program that automatically detects similars?