Author Topic: Has Alexandre Rotenberg sold his soul to the devil of free stock again? (Read 7017 times)

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #25 on:** April 20, 2023, 13:04 »

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on April 19, 2023, 11:45

Quote from: stoker2014 on April 19, 2023, 07:08
Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on January 17, 2023, 09:15
I currently earn nothing from Shutterstock as they closed my account when I protested their 2020 royalty cuts, but the same was true for them before I became an outcast.
Were you banned just because you wrote to them that you are against lowering payments?

I had been posting a lot on twitter about the reduction in royalty rates and they closed my account twice. The first time ostensibly because I'd changed my profile picture in violation of their rules (which I hadn't - my profile picture was the same boring headshot it had been for ages) and the second time because of my public comments:

"We disabled your account in consideration of your public comments regarding Shutterstock. While we respect your opinion, it may not be a good fit for Shutterstock to represent your content. In section 4 of the TOS, Shutterstock reserves the right to terminate an account in Shutterstock's discretion."

Account closed for Twitter Posts? I'll assume they also blocked you from Twitter access to their pages and removed your posts?

https://submit.shutterstock.com/legal/terms?language=en#:~:text=The%20following%20Terms%20of%20Service%20%28%22TOS%22%29%20is%20a,carefully%20and%20be%20sure%20you%20understand%20it%20fully.

Nothing about Shutterstock's Discretion in section 4.

Big Toe · « **Reply #26 on:** April 20, 2023, 13:32 »

Quote from: Uncle Pete on April 20, 2023, 13:04

Account closed for Twitter Posts? I'll assume they also blocked you from Twitter access to their pages and removed your posts?

https://submit.shutterstock.com/legal/terms?language=en#:~:text=The%20following%20Terms%20of%20Service%20%28%22TOS%22%29%20is%20a,carefully%20and%20be%20sure%20you%20understand%20it%20fully.

Nothing about Shutterstock's Discretion in section 4.

See the last words in 4 c:

"Shutterstock has the right to refuse to establish an account or to close any existing account, for fraud, intellectual property infringement, violation of a third party's rights including those of privacy or publicity, artificially inflating downloads, submission of material that is obscene in nature, violent or that might be construed as defamatory, failure to comply with Shutterstock's guidelines as may be amended from time to time, for any breach of the terms of this or any other agreement that you have with shutterstock, or for convenience."

So they reserve the right to close accounts whenever they find it inconvenient to keep the account open.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #27 on:** April 20, 2023, 13:55 »

Quote from: Uncle Pete on April 20, 2023, 13:04

...Account closed for Twitter Posts? I'll assume they also blocked you from Twitter access to their pages and removed your posts?...

They had blocked me from their contributor and main accounts on Twitter, but you can see and read (though not respond) if you are not logged in (in an incognito window). Same with LinkedIn.

They couldn't remove my posts because they weren't made as replies to their posts (after they blocked me) but the hashtags made sure they were found and lots of unhappy contributors were amplifying the noise in the middle of 2020 when this all blew up.

Stuff like this:

https://twitter.com/joannsnover/status/1296943168185700352

Evaristo tenscadisto · « **Reply #28 on:** April 20, 2023, 18:38 »

I think your adventure through these websites can be of some entertainment for you brasilnuts. Right? ;-)

Although sites like Pexels gives "unlimited access to over 3 million free, high-resolution photos and videos". This is very useful for some Research companies that i have in mind... and i do know that companies go to this sites first before buying anything in others.

Good luck for your experimentation! (Boa Sorte!)

Maybe i learn "something" unexpected but you got me thinking in an little Machiavellian way: Perhaps doing a website like Pexels and sell trained models for machine learning directly to companies. They could easily donate 1000 dollars for 25K sale work.

Brasilnut · « **Reply #29 on:** April 21, 2023, 05:57 »

DCMA updates

Adobe Stock:

Spotted two thieves at AS who were trying to re-sell the red lighthouse. Their legal team acted quickly and took down the images but left their accounts intact. Here's one of them:

https://stock.adobe.com/ca/contributor/211377677/abdul?load_type=author&prev_url=detail

SS:

No update. Very slow to act and they will also most likely just remove the lighthouse images and keep the thieving account active.

----

Overall, super disappointing if they're not shutting down whole accounts. One theft/infringement should be enough to constitute a material breach of the contributor agreement. I'll try to reach out to AS on Twitter about this...can't on SS as they blocked me on there.

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #30 on:** April 21, 2023, 11:00 »

Quote from: Big Toe on April 20, 2023, 13:32

Quote from: Uncle Pete on April 20, 2023, 13:04
Account closed for Twitter Posts? I'll assume they also blocked you from Twitter access to their pages and removed your posts?

https://submit.shutterstock.com/legal/terms?language=en#:~:text=The%20following%20Terms%20of%20Service%20%28%22TOS%22%29%20is%20a,carefully%20and%20be%20sure%20you%20understand%20it%20fully.

Nothing about Shutterstock's Discretion in section 4.

See the last words in 4 c:

"Shutterstock has the right to refuse to establish an account or to close any existing account, for fraud, intellectual property infringement, violation of a third party's rights including those of privacy or publicity, artificially inflating downloads, submission of material that is obscene in nature, violent or that might be construed as defamatory, failure to comply with Shutterstock's guidelines as may be amended from time to time, for any breach of the terms of this or any other agreement that you have with shutterstock, or for convenience."

So they reserve the right to close accounts whenever they find it inconvenient to keep the account open.

Good points. I was looking for the specific words that SS used, but you are correct. Shutterstock's Discretion is covered as, they can do anything they want, if they want.

Lina · « **Reply #31 on:** April 22, 2023, 05:32 »

Quote from: Brasilnut on April 21, 2023, 05:57

Overall, super disappointing if they're not shutting down whole accounts. One theft/infringement should be enough to constitute a material breach of the contributor agreement. I'll try to reach out to AS on Twitter about this...can't on SS as they blocked me on there.

Yeah, probably all images are stolen. I was too lazy to search for all images, just found bicycle on Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/vectors/bike-bicycle-motorcycle-cycling-7342379/
and butterfly: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/moth-butterfly-insect-wings-7725211/

Brasilnut · « **Reply #32 on:** April 24, 2023, 06:26 »

Quote from: Lina on April 22, 2023, 05:32

Quote from: Brasilnut on April 21, 2023, 05:57
Overall, super disappointing if they're not shutting down whole accounts. One theft/infringement should be enough to constitute a material breach of the contributor agreement. I'll try to reach out to AS on Twitter about this...can't on SS as they blocked me on there.

Yeah, probably all images are stolen. I was too lazy to search for all images, just found bicycle on Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/vectors/bike-bicycle-motorcycle-cycling-7342379/
and butterfly: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/moth-butterfly-insect-wings-7725211/

Indeed, all stolen.

So, small update is that both AS and SS have removed the stolen images from four different accounts, but have unfortunately/frustratingly left the accounts intact with the remaining images (all stolen presumably). Some of these accounts have 200+ images.

I've requested for the fraudulent accounts to be shut down on the DCMA email thread but have not received a reply. Also radio-silence on my tweet to AS. Dead end it seems and wasting my time.

@Mat Hayward: If you're reading this, could you please clarify what is AS's official policy on finding an account with stolen images, in particular whether a full account can be closed upon discovery of at least one stolen image via a DCMA complaint of a copyright holder.

Roscoe · « **Reply #33 on:** April 24, 2023, 09:21 »

Quote from: Brasilnut on April 24, 2023, 06:26

Quote from: Lina on April 22, 2023, 05:32
Quote from: Brasilnut on April 21, 2023, 05:57
Overall, super disappointing if they're not shutting down whole accounts. One theft/infringement should be enough to constitute a material breach of the contributor agreement. I'll try to reach out to AS on Twitter about this...can't on SS as they blocked me on there.

Yeah, probably all images are stolen. I was too lazy to search for all images, just found bicycle on Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/vectors/bike-bicycle-motorcycle-cycling-7342379/
and butterfly: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/moth-butterfly-insect-wings-7725211/

Indeed, all stolen.

So, small update is that both AS and SS have removed the stolen images from four different accounts, but have unfortunately/frustratingly left the accounts intact with the remaining images (all stolen presumably). Some of these accounts have 200+ images.

I've requested for the fraudulent accounts to be shut down on the DCMA email thread but have not received a reply. Also radio-silence on my tweet to AS. Dead end it seems and wasting my time.

@Mat Hayward: If you're reading this, could you please clarify what is AS's official policy on finding an account with stolen images, in particular whether a full account can be closed upon discovery of at least one stolen image via a DCMA complaint of a copyright holder.

Sad indeed that they just remove the image and don't do further investigation on the account, and shut it down when it turns out that one DCMA request was only the tip of the iceberg. Uploading a stolen image is not an accident nor a coincidence.

I guess it's a matter of time and money. Stolen images sell as well as others (which is income), and removing images or shutting down accounts is resourceful (which is a cost)
So it's not "their problem" and it's up to the owner of the image to complain.

fotorob · « **Reply #34 on:** April 25, 2023, 02:17 »

[redated]

cobalt · « **Reply #35 on:** April 25, 2023, 06:41 »

Quote from: stoker2014 on April 19, 2023, 07:08

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on January 17, 2023, 09:15
I currently earn nothing from Shutterstock as they closed my account when I protested their 2020 royalty cuts, but the same was true for them before I became an outcast.
Were you banned just because you wrote to them that you are against lowering payments?

They banned me as well. Together with several other people.

I learned from someone that I was considered an „influencer“ in the stock community.

Don‘t know if that really was the reason, but I turned my port back on after 2 week protest and also explicitly wrote that in public. I signed the petition like many others and of course was not happy with the changes.

But as soon as the two weeks where over and I turned my port back on, I got kicked out.

No explanation, just a 2 liner that their legal stuff allows them to do this.

I loved the Shutterstock team, the people I met over the years were just fantastic.

Even held Shutterstock shares for quite a while.

The company seemed to have a great corporate culture, very modern, very thriving on critique.

But it looks like everyone I met is no longer there.

And since they closed their forums, it is sadly a new company under the same name.

Don‘t know if the new CEO is better.

When they reopen a forum to talk directly with their producers, we will know they are moving back to being innovative.

If you don‘t talk to the people you work with, it is difficult to grow.

Especially when Adobe does such a great job with their producer liason and also Getty here in Germany appointed Luis Alvarez as brand ambassador.

Jo Ann is an extremely well respected lady and always has well researched and intelligent comments.

I suppose she was too logical in her public writing.

Pacesetter · « **Reply #36 on:** April 25, 2023, 16:00 »

Reviews (at least for video) can be very fast on Shutterstock. Like in a matter of minutes sometimes. But makes me think if significant numbers of contributors have reduced their uploads or stopped uploading altogether.

alijaber · « **Reply #37 on:** April 25, 2023, 17:17 »

I removed around 750 clips the last few days and put them exclusive at P5, I get bored from these 1$ dollar sales per clip

microstocktruth · « **Reply #38 on:** May 17, 2023, 08:02 »

The rise of free stock image agencies has brought about significant changes in the photography industry and the market for stock images. While these platforms offer benefits such as cost-free access to images, convenience, and opportunities for aspiring photographers, it is crucial to consider the broader implications and challenges they present.

The devaluation of photography and reduced earnings for professional photographers are among the primary concerns stemming from the widespread availability of free images. This shift in the market has impacted the ability of photographers to sustain their businesses, invest in equipment, and deliver innovative and high-quality work. The compromised quality, limited variety, and lack of customization options in free stock image agencies also raise concerns for designers and content creators seeking unique and authentic visuals.

The negative impact extends beyond photographers to stock image providers who have faced increased competition and declining revenues. Additionally, the potential for copyright infringements and unauthorized use of images poses legal risks for users of free stock image agencies. While user donations can provide a form of appreciation and supplementary income for photographers, they do not address the underlying issues of fair compensation and devaluation within the industry. User donations may be unevenly distributed, perpetuating inequalities and creating dependency on fluctuating financial support.

Moving forward, it is crucial for the industry to find a balance between accessibility and fair compensation for photographers. Education on copyright laws, implementing stricter guidelines, and promoting ethical practices can help protect photographers' rights and maintain the integrity of the industry. Additionally, supporting and valuing the work of professional photographers while exploring sustainable business models can contribute to a thriving and diverse photography ecosystem.

By understanding the multifaceted nature of free stock image agencies and their impact, stakeholders can navigate the challenges and work towards a more sustainable and equitable industry where both creators and users can benefit. It is important to foster an environment that values the creative work of photographers and ensures fair compensation, rather than relying solely on user donations, which may not address the underlying issues of devaluation and reduced earnings. Through collaborative efforts, we can strive for a photography industry that recognizes the importance of creativity, innovation, and fair compensation for all stakeholders involved.

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Has Alexandre Rotenberg sold his soul to the devil of free stock again? (Read 7017 times)

Uncle Pete

Big Toe

Jo Ann Snover

Evaristo tenscadisto

Brasilnut

Uncle Pete

Lina

Brasilnut

Roscoe

fotorob

cobalt

Pacesetter

alijaber

microstocktruth

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors