Author Topic: Fotolia D-Day (Deactivation Day) - May,1 (Read 308897 times)

Shelma1 · « **Reply #1075 on:** May 15, 2014, 14:52 »

A big success is the ability to opt out. Before you had to delete all your files. Now you can remove them with one hard-to-find click.

Ron · « **Reply #1076 on:** May 15, 2014, 14:54 »

I have just sent two more emails, one to another EU office on copyright and one to the Netherlands permanent representative for the EU located at our Foreign Affairs ministry.

Cesar · « **Reply #1077 on:** May 15, 2014, 15:08 »

Thank you Ron!

fotoramka · « **Reply #1078 on:** May 15, 2014, 15:15 »

Quote from: EmberMike on May 15, 2014, 14:50

Why is that a success? DPC isn't intended to be an add-on for Fotolia. DPC can't exist without taking customers away from other places, including Fotolia itself. Or, worse yet, from places that pay better than Fotolia. Fotolia was even advertising DPC on it's own website recently. The increase in royalties at FT is negated by the loss of buyers.

You're buying in to what they're trying to sell you on, that some aspects of this are good for you. Please know this: None of what Fotolia has been doing lately is done for your best interests in any way. The royalty increase is an empty gesture intended to make you think you've achieved something. Obviously it's working.

Oh, c'mon, Mike

You're a bit pessimistic

Yes, this steps are very small - but even these steps would not have been if not for all of you activity
That's no reason to give up. Fighting with the DPC, of course, continues.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #1079 on:** May 15, 2014, 15:23 »

I just did a spot check on the work of someone who I had notified about opting out - to make sure they were still opted out. It occurred to me that fotolia might have a software "oops" that opted people back in. The files were still gone from DPC, but I noticed something interesting.

In the search that I did, 12 of the first 20 images in the search results (by downloads) on fotolia were missing from DPC.

60% gone.

I know overall numbers are important too, but it's about buyers giving up on DPC because they can't find what they want. Even if there are large chunks of images for a given search, there's a reason the ones up front are there and when a large chunk of those are missing, it matters.

Another interesting observation about this search. I did the same search on fotolia, DPC and Shutterstock. It made it clear how much more (and to a large extent how much better) Shutterstock's selection was than what fotolia had.

fotolia - 470
DPC - 343
SS - 3,216

Shutterstock has nearly 10 times what DPC has. And on the first page of SS results (by popularity; can't do downloads there) - 100 - very few of the images there were on DPC's first page of results.

I think the goal is to make DPC look as unattractive to buyers as possible and it will just go away or become irrelevant. Numbers don't tell the full story, although it's definitely part of it, in the impact that has been had so far.

EmberMike · « **Reply #1080 on:** May 15, 2014, 15:26 »

Quote from: fotoramka on May 15, 2014, 15:15

Oh, c'mon, Mike You're a bit pessimistic
Yes, this steps are very small - but even these steps would not have been if not for all of you activity
That's no reason to give up. Fighting with the DPC, of course, continues.

Realistic, not pessimistic. If there's still a fight to be had, I'm all for it. I'm just saying that this isn't working. We never even got the image count at DPC below 21 million and it's already on it's way back up. We can't reach the vast majority of contributors who are basically anonymous, who don't even know about this forum, and many of whom don't even know they're on DPC. I'm sure that to some extent Fotolia was counting on that.

If you still want to do something, figure out how to reach those people. Otherwise this is pretty much already over.

Ron · « **Reply #1081 on:** May 15, 2014, 15:33 »

Quote from: EmberMike on May 15, 2014, 15:26

Quote from: fotoramka on May 15, 2014, 15:15
Oh, c'mon, Mike You're a bit pessimistic
Yes, this steps are very small - but even these steps would not have been if not for all of you activity
That's no reason to give up. Fighting with the DPC, of course, continues.

Realistic, not pessimistic. If there's still a fight to be had, I'm all for it. I'm just saying that this isn't working. We never even got the image count at DPC below 21 million and it's already on it's way back up. We can't reach the vast majority of contributors who are basically anonymous, who don't even know about this forum, and many of whom don't even know they're on DPC. I'm sure that to some extent Fotolia was counting on that.

If you still want to do something, figure out how to reach those people. Otherwise this is pretty much already over.

Well, what can we do? What magazines, websites, newspapers do typical contributors read? Maybe we need to get a paid ad on/in those media. Maybe a journalist wants to pick up the story? Many people here have a day job as well, maybe they can help. Maybe they know people. Unfortunately I dont. One problem is that not everyone reads the same media as we are spread over many countries. But I think we need to target the USA, France, Germany, the UK and Russia and that is probably the majority of the contributors. I just have no idea how to do that. Lets hope the emails I have sent will have an affect. How does one get the EU to investigate if Fotolia broke the EU law? They investigated Microsoft, Google and Facebook, how did that happen?

Ron · « **Reply #1082 on:** May 15, 2014, 15:46 »

I have just fired off an email to Neelie Kroes, she is famous for handing out massive fines to companies in violation of EU Laws. She really made Microsoft and Google pay through the nose.

I have always admired her, I am hoping maybe she has some insights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neelie_Kroes#Commissioner_for_Competition

Ron · « **Reply #1083 on:** May 15, 2014, 15:50 »

Fotolia has offices in France, maybe someone from France can email their government representatives.

Desintegrator · « **Reply #1084 on:** May 15, 2014, 15:51 »

Quote from: Ron on May 15, 2014, 15:33

Quote from: EmberMike on May 15, 2014, 15:26
Quote from: fotoramka on May 15, 2014, 15:15
Oh, c'mon, Mike You're a bit pessimistic
Yes, this steps are very small - but even these steps would not have been if not for all of you activity
That's no reason to give up. Fighting with the DPC, of course, continues.

Realistic, not pessimistic. If there's still a fight to be had, I'm all for it. I'm just saying that this isn't working. We never even got the image count at DPC below 21 million and it's already on it's way back up. We can't reach the vast majority of contributors who are basically anonymous, who don't even know about this forum, and many of whom don't even know they're on DPC. I'm sure that to some extent Fotolia was counting on that.

If you still want to do something, figure out how to reach those people. Otherwise this is pretty much already over.

Well, what can we do? What magazines, websites, newspapers do typical contributors read? Maybe we need to get a paid ad on/in those media. Maybe a journalist wants to pick up the story? Many people here have a day job as well, maybe they can help. Maybe they know people. Unfortunately I dont. One problem is that not everyone reads the same media as we are spread over many countries. But I think we need to target the USA, France, Germany, the UK and Russia and that is probably the majority of the contributors. I just have no idea how to do that. Lets hope the emails I have sent will have an affect. How does one get the EU to investigate if Fotolia broke the EU law? They investigated Microsoft, Google and Facebook, how did that happen?

It may not be the nicest thing to do, but Photodune has a list of contributors sorted by number of sales and lets you send them an email. So we could start with the biggest contributors, and move all the way down. We don't know who of them is still on DPC, but maybe the ones opted out could just ignore the message and move.

If some could sum up the situation in a convincing and good way in a not too long message to be sent to everyone?
My English and communication skill may not be good enough for it.

Monty-m-gue · « **Reply #1085 on:** May 15, 2014, 15:54 »

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on May 15, 2014, 15:23

I just did a spot check on the work of someone who I had notified about opting out - to make sure they were still opted out. It occurred to me that fotolia might have a software "oops" that opted people back in. The files were still gone from DPC, but I noticed something interesting.

In the search that I did, 12 of the first 20 images in the search results (by downloads) on fotolia were missing from DPC.

60% gone.

I know overall numbers are important too, but it's about buyers giving up on DPC because they can't find what they want. Even if there are large chunks of images for a given search, there's a reason the ones up front are there and when a large chunk of those are missing, it matters.

Another interesting observation about this search. I did the same search on fotolia, DPC and Shutterstock. It made it clear how much more (and to a large extent how much better) Shutterstock's selection was than what fotolia had.

fotolia - 470
DPC - 343
SS - 3,216

Shutterstock has nearly 10 times what DPC has. And on the first page of SS results (by popularity; can't do downloads there) - 100 - very few of the images there were on DPC's first page of results.

I think the goal is to make DPC look as unattractive to buyers as possible and it will just go away or become irrelevant. Numbers don't tell the full story, although it's definitely part of it, in the impact that has been had so far.

That's really interesting, Jo Ann - and supports the thesis that current, active contributors are the ones opting out. If that's the case then DPC will be starved of fresh, new content moving forward. DPC will hopefully be left with an out of date offering and become known as the poor man's stock library..

Ron · « **Reply #1086 on:** May 15, 2014, 15:54 »

Here is the message from Jo Ann, it just needs to be shortened. I am not native English either.

http://semmickphoto.com/2014/05/02/microstock-agency-fotolia-leads-race-bottom/

Desintegrator · « **Reply #1087 on:** May 15, 2014, 16:00 »

Here is the page if your logged in http://photodune.net/author/top_authors
Does Envato's vector site have something similar? I'm not familiar with that.

If we agree upon the message to send, we could divide the task like someone doing page one, other one doing page 2, etc..

DonLand · « **Reply #1088 on:** May 15, 2014, 16:09 »

Another reason to not be in DollarPhotoClub is the using of the credit as seen here where it is simply credited to DollarPhotoClub! I'm not sure if this is a rogue instance, or if all of the images are credited to DPC only.

http://careertipperblog.com/2014/03/07/dress-and-speak-success/

I then downloaded the image. It is HUGE. 6317x5062 pixels!
Why would a site have the original hi-res file available for download is beyond me.
The image number on both FT and DPC is 61312360.
Finally the Copyright Credit in the file reads: FotolEdhar - Fotolia

On another note I'm wondering if Oleg is setting Fotolia up for sale.
This site looks like a bad language conversion to English but its still readable.

http://newsduet.net/dollarphotoclub-expands-into-more-markets-hits-11000-users/

stokfoto · « **Reply #1089 on:** May 15, 2014, 16:22 »

are they actually giving option to opt out, I sent an email to request it, the reply was just advertising how good that dollar club thing was, I am running out of patince with them, I am not away from that magical click and remove my work!!!!!

Ron · « **Reply #1090 on:** May 15, 2014, 16:22 »

Quote from: Desintegrator on May 15, 2014, 16:00

Here is the page if your logged in http://photodune.net/author/top_authors
Does Envato's vector site have something similar? I'm not familiar with that.

If we agree upon the message to send, we could divide the task like someone doing page one, other one doing page 2, etc..

Be careful with that, PD might consider that to be spamming. And I think the top 40 of that list has been informed already.

Desintegrator · « **Reply #1091 on:** May 15, 2014, 16:24 »

Quote from: stokfoto on May 15, 2014, 16:22

are they actually giving option to opt out, I sent an email to request it, the reply was just advertising how good that dollar club thing was, I am running out of patince with them, I am not away from that magical click and remove my work!!!!!

My Account / My Profile / Contributor Parameters.. below "Sell my files on DPC", click "Modify" next to it. Make the text change to "don't sell my files on DPC", save settings

Ron · « **Reply #1092 on:** May 15, 2014, 16:25 »

Quote from: DonLand on May 15, 2014, 16:09

http://newsduet.net/dollarphotoclub-expands-into-more-markets-hits-11000-users/

I think Scott Braut from SS said they have millions of buyers. 11,000 is a drop in the ocean compared to that. So far DPC doesnt seem to be a threat to SS.

ShadySue · « **Reply #1093 on:** May 15, 2014, 17:07 »

Quote from: Ron on May 15, 2014, 16:25

Quote from: DonLand on May 15, 2014, 16:09

http://newsduet.net/dollarphotoclub-expands-into-more-markets-hits-11000-users/

I think Scott Braut from SS said they have millions of buyers. 11,000 is a drop in the ocean compared to that. So far DPC doesnt seem to be a threat to SS.

How long has the DPC been promoting so heavily? Buyers at the other sites, even Ft itself, will be using up existing subs/credit packs first, even if they are thinking of trying out DPC.

Ron · « **Reply #1094 on:** May 15, 2014, 17:13 »

Quote from: ShadySue on May 15, 2014, 17:07

Quote from: Ron on May 15, 2014, 16:25
Quote from: DonLand on May 15, 2014, 16:09

http://newsduet.net/dollarphotoclub-expands-into-more-markets-hits-11000-users/

I think Scott Braut from SS said they have millions of buyers. 11,000 is a drop in the ocean compared to that. So far DPC doesnt seem to be a threat to SS.

How long has the DPC been promoting so heavily? Buyers at the other sites, even Ft itself, will be using up existing subs/credit packs first, even if they are thinking of trying out DPC.

Still, its going to take marketing of gigantuoes proportions to shift millions of buyers. It aint gonna happen. FT already to take out a loan. They are not as cash heavy as SS. Like many people have said, SS is providing an experience and a service that is unmatched in stock world. FT with their cheap offerings and incompetent customer service will never be able to touch SS. They cant even properly remove thumbnails from images that have been opted out on DPC. Customer are already having a bad experience, and once they walk they wont come back. Its all about first impression, and DPC sucks. The only thing they have going at the moment is being cheap. That doesnt keep buyers for long if the rest svcks donkeys. We will prevail. Fotolia and Oleg can sod off

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #1095 on:** May 15, 2014, 17:32 »

Quote from: Ron on May 15, 2014, 15:54

Here is the message from Jo Ann, it just needs to be shortened. I am not native English either.

http://semmickphoto.com/2014/05/02/microstock-agency-fotolia-leads-race-bottom/

Do you need something done? If so, if you want me to do it I can, but someone needs to tell me what needs to happen - as in shortened to what length and who's the intended audience.

KerinF · « **Reply #1096 on:** May 15, 2014, 21:11 »

Ron, I hate to disappoint you, but writing to the IPO in the UK will get you absolutely nowhere. They are responsible for registering IP rights (e.g. trade marks, patents, designs) and provide some general information on IP, but the IPO does not have any investigative or prosecution powers at all.

IP enforcement is considered a commercial matter and it is up to rights owners to bring private action. Investigating copyright infringement is simply not part of their remit. The only exception is some criminal IP activity (e.g. counterfeit goods) where in some jurisdictions the police have powers to investigate. Not relevant here. In any event, the IPO is only concerned with UK law - correct me if I am wrong, but Fotolia are not UK-based.

Like it or not, this is really a contractual matter and, more specifically, what the t&c between contributors and Fotolia allow, and whether Fotolia has breached those terms. Yes, copyright infringement might be relevant if there is a clear breach of the contractual terms, but the contract is the starting point. And that is a private law matter.

The only other government body with any investigative power might be competition authorities, in Australia the ACCC and in the US it would be the FTC. Can't recall off the top of my head what the UK / EU equivalent is. They may be interested if there are anti-trust or anti-competitive issues, or if Fotolia / DPC have engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct (either in dealings with contributors or customers), but again, don't hold your breath for them to get involved. Again, these sorts of disputes are seen as private matters.

I think Mike is partly right though clearly the action taken to date has had some effect. One reason for this is that DPC has entered into contractual arrangements with customers. So they probably can't just go and up the prices, or substantially change the terms, because they will have irate customers on their hands and, frankly, they probably care more about that.

Just saying...

LesPalenik · « **Reply #1097 on:** May 15, 2014, 21:27 »

Quote

Well, what can we do? What magazines, websites, newspapers do typical contributors read? Maybe we need to get a paid ad on/in those media. Maybe a journalist wants to pick up the story? Many people here have a day job as well, maybe they can help. Maybe they know people. Unfortunately I dont. One problem is that not everyone reads the same media as we are spread over many countries. But I think we need to target the USA, France, Germany, the UK and Russia and that is probably the majority of the contributors. I just have no idea how to do that. Lets hope the emails I have sent will have an affect. How does one get the EU to investigate if Fotolia broke the EU law? They investigated Microsoft, Google and Facebook, how did that happen?

Maybe we should write also an open letter to Scott Kelby's company to review their ways. They recently did a mass mailing how good DPC is for photographers who need some cheap images. After all, this is the same outfit that used to promote heavily IS in its heydays.

KerinF · « **Reply #1098 on:** May 15, 2014, 21:28 »

Oh, I was behind the thread. Ron, same goes with other IP offices in other countries in Europe, or the OHIM or EPO (EU bodies). Simply not part of their role to investigate copyright disputes. You are wasting your time there.

I see you have also mentioned writing to some EU competition body or politician. That might possible be more relevant, but frankly, don't hold your breath for them to get involved. Also, as I said, their concern will be competition or deceptive practices, not copyright law.

Short of having an expensive legal contractual fight, and I bet Fotolia's terms are pretty generous in their favour, then commercial pressure is really the only realistic avenue.

LesPalenik · « **Reply #1099 on:** May 15, 2014, 22:14 »

Quote

I respectfully disagree. I think the amount of images that have been opted out in just a few days is phenomenal, considering the number of years it took to build up that library. More buyers are getting aggravated with disappearing files and tweeting about it. More of us are making those buyers aware of the boycott and other options for images. I see the message getting out there even more.

I'm sure every boycott, protest, and revolution seemed impossible at the beginning. Yet many of them worked. If citizens can overthrow governments, we can shut down one little website.

Very true, Michelle! And to paraphrase Neil Armstrong, it is just one small step as one little agency goes, but a giant leap for the community of creative photographers and illustrators.

Ability to voice our opinions on this board, creation of Symbiostock, establishment of a new type of artist co-op Stocksy agency, and other new agencies emulating their approach, and now a successful joint action to withdraw our images from DPC are all important milestones in reversing the previous trends to devalue images and exploit the authors. All these very concrete accomplishments would have seemed like an impossible dream just a few years ago.

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Author Topic: Fotolia D-Day (Deactivation Day) - May,1 (Read 308897 times)

Shelma1

Ron

Cesar

fotoramka

Jo Ann Snover

EmberMike

Ron

Ron

Ron

Desintegrator

Monty-m-gue

Ron

Desintegrator

DonLand

stokfoto

Ron

Desintegrator

Ron

ShadySue

Ron

Jo Ann Snover

KerinF

LesPalenik

KerinF

LesPalenik

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