Hello, Shutterstock rejected this image for possible Intellectual property law.....
I read that cars fall under that but not boats. Can I upload it again but this time as editorial or does the same law apply? I have another image with sailing boats but no houses. Can that be uploaded or also not?

I was going to say there is some serious banding going on

It got rejected because if there are names / numbers on boats, motors,etc it needs property release
You can submit as editorial

what is it I shouldn't write in metadata?

Brands or names.

every name, every number, every address, every logo, every symbol has to come off. If you miss one the image will be rejected. There should be a resubmit on the image. If not look at the image at 200% and see what you missed, take it out, then resubmit.
www,istockphoto.com/jodijacobson

They aren't 100% consistent, but restaurant names definitely need to disappear.

The word STOP on a stop sign is OK, but as soon as there is anything private you need to blur it.

This list is good to review if you ever submit pictures of more famous buildings:

http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/contributor-resources/legal/stock-photo-restrictions/

You can't even submit pictures from national parks in Brazil! Now THAT is something...

The actual legal position is very unclear in the UK for example I believe you can legally sell a picture of ANYTHING if you took it from a public place but try persuading an agency of that.

You can sell images made when you were standing on public ground as editorial only,  mitigated by 'reasonable expectation of privacy', which effectively prevents you from standing on a public Street and taking photos through someone's house window.
Still, it's not always obvious when a street is public  Apparently a lot of streets in central London are privately owned, and I recently discovered that all the streets etc in a particularly well-photographed area of Glasgow are privately owned.

Way back in the day I had a photo of a fishing harbour rejected on iStock, apparently because I hadn't removed the name of the town. The idea that a town name could be copyright was bizarre to me, and that town had existed under that name for centuries, but allegedly that could be the case in the Land of the Free.
I guess we can't blame the agencies  for building a fence around the Law.
Sometimes you have to wonder whether with certain files you're gaining anything by spending a lot of time removing possibly-contentious material from a file whose uses are most likely to be editorial.

Most if not all of Canary Wharf is privately owned and at one time security were extremely strict about any photos being taken. Also certain areas are protected by anti terrorism laws as I discovered when I was security checked near the MoD in Whitehall. While what you say is true about what agencies will sell newspapers and "artists" sell all manner of intrusive images I'm no lawyer but not regarding what agencies sell I'm really not sure what the actual LEGAL position is though its really only of academic interest personally. Just because something is copyrighted I'm not sure it means you cant sell a picture that includes it.

No, not private harbor. It got rejected again for soft focus. However, it was accepted somewhere else. All photos taken in golden hour with lots of light seem to have a problem. But t might be that they were taken before I switched the Steady On off. Are photos like that selling at all or is it just a waste of time?

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk