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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: SpaceStockFootage on May 24, 2019, 06:45

Title: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: SpaceStockFootage on May 24, 2019, 06:45
Just found somebody on Pond5 selling a whole bunch of my video content. Exact same files I have on Pond5 myself, with much later ID numbers, so hopefully shouldn't be a problem getting them removed/banned... but just thought I'd share so you can check for your own content.

https://www.pond5.com/artist/jennibillys (https://www.pond5.com/artist/jennibillys)

There's also accounts on BigStock and DepositPhotos using the same username... just images on those though. Have contacted Pond5 support.
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: Stockmaan on May 24, 2019, 07:44
Wow! Thanks for sharing. I check and didn't find any of mine in this portfolio. How you find this? I would like to check for my  videos.

Thank you and good luck!
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: increasingdifficulty on May 24, 2019, 07:55
...and they have had 13 sales they owe you (or someone else).

None of my clips in there thankfully.
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: SuperPhoto on May 24, 2019, 08:12
...and they have had 13 sales they owe you (or someone else).

None of my clips in there thankfully.

How do you know they've had 13 sales?
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: SuperPhoto on May 24, 2019, 08:24
I'm guessing he/she found your content on an unlimited site like motionarray where you uploaded your content, and thought wouldn't it be great to make their own portfolio based of yours & others content... I'm assuming he is probably not the only one... (looks like he was also into ripping off the social media lower 3rds animations...) (I don't think you uploaded to envato elements as well, did you?)

How did you manage to find this portfolio?
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: SpaceStockFootage on May 24, 2019, 08:32
Been a few posts recently about Pond5 content on Vimeo, so I went to Vimeo, put 'space, sci-fi' in the search bar and found one of my items on the first page. The second item I found was being sold by BlackBox, but that's fine as it was one of the clips I submitted there to test the waters. The third item I found (which I thought was mine), was being sold by this jennibillys via Pond5. 
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: cathyslife on May 24, 2019, 08:36
I looked through about 20 pages of photos, and didn’t see any of mine. As far as I got, they were all food/drink related (the way of scrolling through photos sux). These thieves MUST have a way to tap into a database and siphon huge amounts of content at once. It’s ridiculous.
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: increasingdifficulty on May 24, 2019, 08:44
I looked through about 20 pages of photos, and didn’t see any of mine. As far as I got, they were all food/drink related (the way of scrolling through photos sux). These thieves MUST have a way to tap into a database and siphon huge amounts of content at once. It’s ridiculous.

Search artist:jennibillys in Photos and it's much faster. 120 items per page and only 5 pages.

https://www.pond5.com/photos/1/artist%3Ajennibillys.html (https://www.pond5.com/photos/1/artist%3Ajennibillys.html)
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: increasingdifficulty on May 24, 2019, 08:46
...and they have had 13 sales they owe you (or someone else).

None of my clips in there thankfully.

How do you know they've had 13 sales?

artist:jennibillys salegt:0

shows 12 clips = at least 12 sales.

artist:jennibillys salegt:1

shows 1 clip = at least 13 sales.

artist:jennibillys salegt:2

shows 0 clips = exactly 13 sales.

:)

Those were footage sales by the way.
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: SuperPhoto on May 24, 2019, 08:53
...and they have had 13 sales they owe you (or someone else).

None of my clips in there thankfully.

How do you know they've had 13 sales?

artist:jennibillys salegt:0

shows 12 clips = at least 12 sales.

artist:jennibillys salegt:1

shows 1 clip = at least 13 sales.

artist:jennibillys salegt:2

shows 0 clips = exactly 13 sales.

:)

Those were footage sales by the way.

oh cool, I didn't know you could do that!
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: SuperPhoto on May 24, 2019, 08:58
taking a look at one random photo from that portfolio,

pps - based on the photos, it looks like content is under other names (or perhaps these are the original artists)
https://stock.adobe.com/79214414 (https://stock.adobe.com/79214414) - artist 'jc_studio'
https://stock.adobe.com/231641337 (https://stock.adobe.com/231641337) - artist 'jennybillings'
https://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-272618050/stock-photo-image-of-mexican-beef-tacos-on-wooden-table (https://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-272618050/stock-photo-image-of-mexican-beef-tacos-on-wooden-table)

https://www.123rf.com/photo_37393317_mexican-beef-tacos-on-wooden-table.html (https://www.123rf.com/photo_37393317_mexican-beef-tacos-on-wooden-table.html)
(copyright: "junghee choi")


(original from may 2015)
https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/photo/mexican-beef-tacos-royalty-free-image/184351401 (https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/photo/mexican-beef-tacos-royalty-free-image/184351401)
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: trucic on May 24, 2019, 09:33
... that`s why I`am scared of footage subscription model... thanks God, nothing mine...
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: Noedelhap on May 24, 2019, 10:51
Why multimillion dollar agencies don't have a method to check for duplicate content upon upload (like file size check, or image/frame data) is beyond ridiculous.

Hope you're also trying to get paid your due royalties for the sales this thief had.
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: SpaceStockFootage on May 24, 2019, 13:27
Why multimillion dollar agencies don't have a method to check for duplicate content upon upload (like file size check, or image/frame data) is beyond ridiculous.

Hope you're also trying to get paid your due royalties for the sales this thief had.

I asked for removal of my files as a bare minimum, banning as a minimum, and preferably transferring all of their sales from this month (hard to recoup previous months sales) to my account.
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: cathyslife on May 24, 2019, 15:33
I looked through about 20 pages of photos, and didn’t see any of mine. As far as I got, they were all food/drink related (the way of scrolling through photos sux). These thieves MUST have a way to tap into a database and siphon huge amounts of content at once. It’s ridiculous.

Search artist:jennibillys in Photos and it's much faster. 120 items per page and only 5 pages.

https://www.pond5.com/photos/1/artist%3Ajennibillys.html (https://www.pond5.com/photos/1/artist%3Ajennibillys.html)


Thanks for that tip! I will go look again.
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: SpaceStockFootage on May 31, 2019, 03:53
FYI... got a reply from P5 support yesterday saying they had removed the account. Only got around to checking it today, and it's still there. Can get to their profile page with all my items still listed and they're still showing up in searches. Have emailed them to double check... although it could be a caching issue. Time will tell.
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: increasingdifficulty on May 31, 2019, 03:56
FYI... got a reply from P5 support yesterday saying they had removed the account. Only got around to checking it today, and it's still there. Can get to their profile page with all my items still listed and they're still showing up in searches. Have emailed them to double check... although it could be a caching issue. Time will tell.

"My search returned no results", so probably just a caching issue.

That was for photos. Videos still there, probably just a question of time.
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: marthamarks on May 31, 2019, 23:13
FYI... got a reply from P5 support yesterday saying they had removed the account.

That is very good to know!
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: SpaceStockFootage on June 02, 2019, 02:10
They got back to me saying they had initiated a 'second scrub' to get rid of their content and account... which sounds like a fancy way of saying they didn't do it properly the first time... but all seems to be good now!
Title: Re: Check this Pond5 Account, see if they're selling your content...
Post by: marthamarks on June 02, 2019, 02:12
They got back to me saying they had initiated a 'second scrub' to get rid of their content and account... which sounds like a fancy way of saying they didn't do it properly the first time... but all seems to be good now!

"Second scrub" sounds serious! I do hope they've successfully scrubbed the offender out of their system.