I recently discovered that Michelin has used a picture of mine in 10 different travel books.  (Chicago, NY, etc).  The picture is being used as an icon, on each of the pages where they list places to stay.  In some books, the picture has been used as many as 15 times, and as little as 9.

I have no EL sales from this picture.

When I contacted Istock to look into this, they wrote me a generic reply that they had been in contact with their "RESPECTED" client, and that no EL was necessary.

I've written back trying to find out at least how many times they downloaded the picture, and have yet to hear back.

Istock's agreement says the "content" can't be reproduced more than 500K times without an EL. It doesn't  specifically say the book has to published that many times.   If the book that has my picture in it 15 times is published just 33,334 times, that passes the 500K mark of reproducing the content.  

Istock is clearly backing their RESPECTED client, and the compliance inspector says the matter is closed.

I have no idea how many times my picture was bought, (Istock hasn't responded)  so who knows if they bought one copy and keep using the same download in all their books, which is obviously using it more than 500K times.

Any suggestions on where to go from here? Or am I just tilting at windmills because I'm not a RESPECTED photographer?

This is a very interesting case. But since respected customers can buy credits at no minimum price, I guess they can reproduce them no maximum of times.
To be honest, all credit to those buying ELs.
If you went to buy credits at iStock, and went to the "how to buy stock" page, you get this message:
Use iStock files in all kinds of creative materials like brochures, websites, presentations and more. Your license is for one computer/one user. We also offer Extended Licenses for even more usage options.
    * Read the Content License Agreement
    * Compare Standard and Extended Licenses

Why would you even think you had to buy an EL (hence look at the page) for 500,000 impressions of a book?

I've been a graphic designer for 24 years. When buying print (these days it's increasingly common for clients to buy their own print) I've never had a print run exceed 50,000, yet alone 500,000.

Think about the terms for the requirement of iStock's extended licenses (they clearly didn't):

A start-up cottage industry printing 200 greetings cards requires an 'items for resale' license while the world's largest firm of accountants can print 499,999 (they're more likely to print 2,000-10,000) annual reports using an image that costs a few dollars.

I've bought extended licenses though I very much doubt that I've ever actually needed to. (The clients buy the print and we don't know the print runs. We know they're likely to be high but doubt they'd ever stretch to 500,000.)

If we didn't buy those licenses, you'd spot your work in print and contact iStock who would then contact us. All we'd have to say is the print run is below 500,000. What are they going to do? Count them? We're giving them several thousand pounds worth of business every year (at least we were until they started playing silly buggers with the royalties). Are they going to call us liars? No.

Extended license = 500,000 impressions = the biggest oversight in the history of microstock. Knock a zero (or two) off that one, Kelly, and you can have your Christmas bonus and pay everyone 45% royalties.

Okay, I'll just add a bit more. (We all want Mr. T to read this and get his bonus, don't we.  .) As you know a lot of print work has now moved to the web, so to make sure all those who can afford it pay for it, the extended license also needs to cover 'for use on web sites with more than XXX,000 visitors per month'. That'd make a difference in the right direction to everyone's bottom line, wouldn't it?

Oh and the multi-seat license that CC mentioned. I've always thought that one was an impossible thing to police. We'd just say yes we do have XX workstations but we all use the same chair! Seriously, I doubt that one gets sold very often. Perhaps, a multi-use license would work better?

Hi Iroberg.

iStock now uses the phrase 500,000 impressions. My interpretation of that is: image is featured on XX pages x XX copies = XX impressions.

Even so, very few books are going to reach 500,000 impressions (even if an image is used multiple times in the same book).

I've been a graphic designer for 24 years. When buying print (these days it's increasingly common for clients to buy their own print) I've never had a print run exceed 50,000, yet alone 500,000.

Think about the terms for the requirement of iStock's extended licenses (they clearly didn't):

A start-up cottage industry printing 200 greetings cards requires an 'items for resale' license while the world's largest firm of accountants can print 499,999 (they're more likely to print 2,000-10,000) annual reports using an image that costs a few dollars.

I've bought extended licenses though I very much doubt that I've ever actually needed to. (The clients buy the print and we don't know the print runs. We know they're likely to be high but doubt they'd ever stretch to 500,000.)

If we didn't buy those licenses, you'd spot your work in print and contact iStock who would then contact us. All we'd have to say is the print run is below 500,000. What are they going to do? Count them? We're giving them several thousand pounds worth of business every year (at least we were until they started playing silly buggers with the royalties). Are they going to call us liars? No.

Extended license = 500,000 impressions = the biggest oversight in the history of microstock. Knock a zero (or two) off that one, Kelly, and you can have your Christmas bonus and pay everyone 45% royalties.

Okay, I'll just add a bit more. (We all want Mr. T to read this and get his bonus, don't we.  .) As you know a lot of print work has now moved to the web, so to make sure all those who can afford it pay for it, the extended license also needs to cover 'for use on web sites with more than XXX,000 visitors per month'. That'd make a difference in the right direction to everyone's bottom line, wouldn't it?

Oh and the multi-seat license that CC mentioned. I've always thought that one was an impossible thing to police. We'd just say yes we do have XX workstations but we all use the same chair! Seriously, I doubt that one gets sold very often. Perhaps, a multi-use license would work better?

All very valid points about how they check on my claim.  But it's the number of impressions that's at question.  Nowhere in any agreement does it say they have to have a run of 500K books.  If they would bother to read my emails, they should check on two things:

1) how many times did they buy my image?
2) how many times was each book reproduced?

I see your point about a muti-use license....perhaps I'll write another ticket and ask about THAT

Hi Iroberg.

iStock now uses the phrase 500,000 impressions. My interpretation of that is: image is featured on XX pages x XX copies = XX impressions.

Even so, very few books are going to reach 500,000 impressions (even if an image is used multiple times in the same book).

Not hard at all if they use my picture 15 times in a book -which they have.   They would only need a run of 33,334 books to reach 500K impressions.  And that's if they bothered to purchase my picture 10 times (once for each book).  If they just downloaded one picture and put in ten different books (the average number of times the picture appears is 11/per book), they would only have to have a total of 4,546 books to reach 500K.  Of course, Istock won't tell me how many times Michelin downloaded the picture.

The most frustrating thing is the lack of any answers.  Just a blanket "You're wrong. Case closed"

Quote from: sjlocke on November 04, 2010, 12:50

Sorry.  I'm going to go with the intent of the EL is to cover 500,000 individual books, not individual representations within those books.  So, they gave you a curt reply, but are correct that no EL is needed.

Sean, we can beg to differ on our interpretations of the word 'impressions', but do you agree that a print run of 500,000 is far too high a number before an extended license is required? Would you be happier to see it reduced to somewhere between 5,000 and 50,000?  

Sorry.  I'm going to go with the intent of the EL is to cover 500,000 individual books, not individual representations within those books.  So, they gave you a curt reply, but are correct that no EL is needed.

Their intent is to leave it as vague as possible. They have a hoard of lawyers that can make sure it says what they want it to say.  If they wanted it to say 500K books, they would have.

A smaller client who doesn't spend much money gets the interpretation that it's 500k images.  A larger client who spends more money gets the 500K books interpretation.

Quote from: lroberg on November 04, 2010, 13:12

Not hard at all if they use my picture 15 times in a book -which they have.   They would only need a run of 33,334 books to reach 500K impressions.  And that's if they bothered to purchase my picture 10 times (once for each book).  If they just downloaded one picture and put in ten different books (the average number of times the picture appears is 11/per book), they would only have to have a total of 4,546 books to reach 500K.  Of course, Istock won't tell me how many times Michelin downloaded the picture.

The most frustrating thing is the lack of any answers.  Just a blanket "You're wrong. Case closed"

You can't know for sure that the total print run has exceeded 33,334. You wouldn't be willing to bet on it and neither would iStock. That's the problem and that's why they're blanking you because there's a reasonable probability that the buyer has printed fewer than 500,000 impressions (even if the image is printed fifteen times in each book across the ten different variants in the series).

What you can't know but would be willing to bet on is that they've printed more than 5,000 or more than 10,000 copies. Reduce the requirement for an extended license to around these numbers and you can be fairly confident every time you confront a buyer that you believe should have purchased an EL, that they did actually need one.

Most times they turn around and say we haven't printed 500,000 copies, they're probably telling the truth because if it ain't something like the Dorling Kindersley encyclopaedia of Star Wars it ain't going to be anywhere near that many.

Books, magazines, videotapes, annual reports, promotional cards, cd covers, ...

You need a general term to cover ... everything.

I've never heard anyone state they thought it meant what you think it means, or had IS interpret it that way.

As I mentioned in a previous post, they have tons of lawyers on hand who can make sure it says exactly what they want it to say.  It's intentionally left vague.  

It takes no more effort to say 500K books must be printed to qualify for an EL.  What it DOES say is that you can't print more than 500K impressions.  

Quote from: sjlocke on November 04, 2010, 13:43

Books, magazines, videotapes, annual reports, promotional cards, cd covers, ...

You need a general term to cover ... everything.

I've never heard anyone state they thought it meant what you think it means, or had IS interpret it that way.

As I mentioned in a previous post, they have tons of lawyers on hand who can make sure it says exactly what they want it to say.  It's intentionally left vague.  

It takes no more effort to say 500K books must be printed to qualify for an EL.  What it DOES say is that you can't print more than 500K impressions.  

You are correct. Smoke and mirrors comes to mind. Look how they've diluted the whole credits/royalties scheme so that it's near impossible for contributors (or buyers for that matter) to figure out exactly what they should be getting.

Would a second purchase of a regular license cover extra 500k prints?

Their intent is to leave it as vague as possible. They have a hoard of lawyers that can make sure it says what they want it to say.  If they wanted it to say 500K books, they would have.

A smaller client who doesn't spend much money gets the interpretation that it's 500k images.  A larger client who spends more money gets the 500K books interpretation.

Exactly. All the big corporate clients are the "respected" clients, while all the small buyers can go to hell. It's an old boys corporate club.