They both share the opinion at this point that taking action is futile. I do not fully disagree with that either, but I do think the right action is hard to achieve.

We need money and a good lawyer. I still dont understand that non of the agencies have ever been sued for all the malpractice we have seen over the years. I think it takes one good court case to hang one of these agencies to stop the rest from exploiting us once and for all.

I agree that if we create a precedent it will be easier then

I think the necessary funds could be raised through crowdsourcing. If each of us contributed a small amount, the total amount might be more than enough to hire a lawyer.

I think that the first step is to find a lawyer and ask him a quote.
Then decide what it is possible to really do, and how

Not sure why you keep mocking me on MSG today, Beppe, but I guess its because its Sunday and you are bored.

You changed your comment after I posted.

You are so fast to answer to posts that I suspect that you you have nothing more to do than to stay in front of your monitor continually clicking the page refresh button of your browser.

And no, you are far to be the center of my attention, sorry too delude you.

(The edit at at 15:19 was related to Svetlana's post)

You are lying, Ive read your comment, it was about Erin Brockovich and then changed it. I am not deluded, dont worry about my sanity. At least I am not a sneak.

I don't admit that you offend me calling me liar or sneak!!
I am not lying!
I never said or written that I did not change my comment!
I have made two edits:
- the first to change my comment "Ask Erin Brokovitch" in "I agree that if we create a precedent it will be easier then" because after reflection I decided that it was not a good comment. (in the while you wrote your answer, before that I sent my first edit - these are things that happen on forums).
- the second at 15.19 to insert in my post a quote from Svetlana and the answer.

Nothing more.

Mike why the sudden change of opinion? You disagreed with Lisa but now I think youre taking the same opinion as her. I am not saying thats wrong, Maybe Lisa wasnt that wrong either? You seem to have given up, which I find sad to see, as you were always full of fight and I admired you for that. Maybe you have come to the same conclusion as Lisa now.

I haven't changed anything about my opinion of DPC. As mentioned, I'm opted out and deleted half of my portfolio at FT. I contacted other contributors and helped get over 10,000 more images opted out. And I never said the industry was dead. So as far as I can tell, I'm pretty much the complete opposite of Lisa who is of the opinion that microstock is dead and that it's ok to just try and scrape whatever last few pennies we can out of the business by any means necessary, and to hell with the long-term vitality of microstock.

I'm giving up on trying to stop DPC, though. Again, doesn't mean I changed any opinion about it. I just know it's a losing battle, and there is no point wasting time on it anymore. The image count at DPC isn't going down, contrary to what some selective views of the numbers might suggest here. It's at 21.77 million right now. It was under 21.7 earlier this week. And as mentioned several times in this thread already, there is no way that opt-outs can out-pace uploads at FT that are opted in. Eventually you'll run out of people to try and get opted out, but uploads to FT won't stop and there will always be plenty of people still opted in to have those uploads moved over to DPC.

Fighting these companies doesn't work. Fighting them to the extent of putting them out of business (which a disturbing number of people in here have suggested is the end goal) is insanity. It will never happen. We can't even get the number of images at DPC under 20 million, and even if we did, all they really need to stay in business is probably 10 million.

Also as mentioned already, I am all for continuing to fight if the fight makes sense. What is going on right now, just trying to squeeze out a few more opt-outs and maybe get the image count to go down slightly, it isn't working and never will. I was happy to participate and try to make a difference, and I did exactly that along with you and everyone else. But it failed. So it's time to move on.

Maybe I'm just coming to that realization a bit before everyone else. Eventually, everyone will have to acknowledge that this can't win, it's impossible. Looking at the numbers, hearing directly from FT that they are happy with the $10 minimum, this stuff isn't going to change. I don't understand why so many people don't see that yet. There is no fight left to rally everyone around. It's already over.

Quote from: Svetlana on May 18, 2014, 08:53

Changes in the number of images on DPC today (Moscow time):

  Date and time            Images on DPC   Change
18-05-2014 17:09:01    21,775,858    -11,583
18-05-2014 14:09:00    21,787,441    5,016
18-05-2014 11:08:58    21,782,425    -1,795
18-05-2014 08:08:59    21,784,220    -909
18-05-2014 06:08:58    21,785,129    -1,033
18-05-2014 05:08:53    21,786,162    -558
18-05-2014 03:09:00    21,786,720    -1,297
18-05-2014 01:08:56    21,788,017    1,679
18-05-2014 00:09:00    21,786,338    -289

It good to see DPC going down again. Someone here said that we lost the battle cause DPC is going up. Well, that changed now.

It was under 21.7 million a few days ago. Just because today it's down, on a longer timeline, it is in fact, up.

Doesn't matter if it goes down just for a day. Let's see how the next few days go.

I love that I get down votes for stating a fact about the DPC numbers.

Good luck with the revolution, folks. I'm out.

Thanks for helping out Mike. I am sorry to see you go, honestly. I think you are important to us and you have great experience and a lot of knowledge. Thanks again.

+1

Why you need a lawyer? A crime must be pursued in most western countries by the state. It is sufficient a complaint with the police.  It should be examined whether the unsolicited disclosure of material to the DPC is a crime or not.

That depends on if it is a violation of contract which is a civil offence where you claim financial compensation, or a breach of the law which is criminal where you complain to the police and the State takes over the case.