There's this myth that if you own a RAW you will own the file. Not true, what about all those photographers shooting JPG-only or what about downloading JPG and reselling it? No doubt. $0.42 is a low price, but so is the high price of the credit-based downloads.

You are afraid that someone will do something illegal. This may happen, but it's still illegal and we can still act against it (actually, exclusivity is the only way you can ask for legal protection from an agency).

Above is a quote from Dudau, a DT admin.  Here is a link to the thread.
http://www.dreamstime.com/forumm_32058_pg2

I wonder -- is this common knowledge?  Must we be exclusive to expect our copyright to be protected by the agency?

I work on the assumption that now (versus a while back) none of the agencies will do anything unless there's a ton of their own revenue on the line.

There have been several complaints from iStock exclusives who contacted CE about violations and no action was taken. I don't see exclusivity anywhere as being a guarantee your agency will actively go after violators on your behalf. In some ways it's worse with IS as they specifically asked contributors not to pursue things on their own and then appeared not to be doing anything (or doing it so slowly it appeared to be nothing).

Back at the beginning of my own stint as an IS exclusive, Lobo was very helpful getting some derivative works using my images off DT (where the slimebucket was selling them). SS has never been very sprightly (and when the collection of pirated stuff says it's SS images, the issue isn't where things came from; likewise when someone who had a subscription was offering to get you the image if you gave them the number) - you get something after a few days saying they'll look into it.

In a better climate, it'd be nice to see the agencies have some way to jointly pursue violators - even if only the top agencies did it, it might eliminate the inaction from arguments about where the download came from.

Nobody owns anything nowdays, thieves are free to do whatever they want, its a miracle they havent stolen Getty yet. However, the RAW, file, is your negative, your only proof of ownership but ofcourse, it could very well get stolen.

If I never upload a RAW file to the internet, how can it get stolen?

Also, I have seen Getty images on some of the torrent sites.

Raw is nothing special, and copyright can just as easily be proven with a jpg.

I always take jpgs, and almost never raws, and IF I take raws, its for the fast unimportant shots.
Also many people suffer from the misunderstanding, that their postprocessing is better than  the automated jpg production in the camera.

Better or not, it certainly is time and space consuming.

No, ofcourse not, if you dont uploaded it, its safe but there are many who does upload their RAWs, which is crazy really.

I agree with you there. I would never upload RAW.