In light of recent developments regarding image theft, I'm wondering now who is
responsible for catching the thieves? Some people are so arrogant as to say ...."how did it get by the reviewers?"

I have read a few people say that it is the hosting site that should have caught this guy.
This troubles me. I do not see a clear cut way of catching thieves on any scale that would be effective.

Certainly reviewers are there for one purpose, and now some people are suggesting that they act as traffic cops too!
I believe a savant might help. They would remember every image ever submitted back to the stone age.

Lets get REAL people. Reviewers are there to judge whether your image is a salable one. Nothing else!
It's unfortunate that there are such inscrutable  people who would take advantage of the system.
However, in no way can I see any clear understanding why a particular site, who has been struck by the bandit
should take responsibility for policing, catching, and dealing with such matters.

 Sure if he is found out by any means ban him and revoke his earnings.

The MIZ

why it is so hard to develop software that checks the image that is being admitted against the database of images that are already online ? consider each image as a signature ...

If you take the buyer point of view who buys a stolen photo, he may get into trouble if the actual copyright holder sue him.

I think that it is thus very important for all microstock agencies to do whatever necessary to prevent copyright infringement from photo they sell: this is just a smart business practice. It's up to them do decide whether they ask their reviewers to check this point, but you have to remember that it is already the case as a photo will be rejected for copyright infringement if it contains a logo, a copyrighted building or design etc. It seems quite logical to me to check also for stolen photo at review time.

Concerning the case you are talking about here, it was quite obvious that some photo were stolen from very well known microstock contributors (Misha, Kristy Pargeter and the second best all-time earner at SS). Any reviewer who know the microstock business, and I hope they know it, should have noticed that point and should have raised the red flag.

Now, from the contributor point of view, it is in our own interest to inform the agency whenever we see such situation. We do not have any legal responsibility or direct interest, but you have to see the big picture: buyers will no longer purchase photos at agencies which allow stolen photo to be sold for their own interest and it is bad for everybody, including the thief 

The agency is responsible.  Period.  What happens in the real world to vendors who sell stolen property or pirated movies?   Darn hard for them to authenicate everything though.

I'm pretty sure that if a photgrapher scanned Annie Liebowitz (sp?) photographs and started selling them on (example) Dreamstime, that Dreamstime would wind up in court, and would wind up paying a lot of money to Liebovitz. 

"...Why couldn't sites apply this technology "

How long would it take to check 5000 images daily by entering one at a time?

I believe it is everybody's job the agencies, the contributors and the buyers.
We all have a vested interest in the companies that we use, and it would be wise for each of us when doing research on each of the sites to notify the company if we come across a set of images that might be suspicious. 

"...Why couldn't sites apply this technology "

How long would it take to check 5000 images daily by entering one at a time?

Good question. Depends on the technology. It sounds like you're assuming each image would need to be uploaded individually. Chances are good it could be modified to review an entire queue of images regardless if they were FTP'd, uploaded one-by-one, or whatever.

Let's say it adds an extra minute to the review process for each image. Would this hurt?

The agency is responsible.  Period.  What happens in the real world to vendors who sell stolen property or pirated movies?   Darn hard for them to authenicate everything though.

Exactly. And how any reviewer can miss Lumax's golden boy ?
I'm sure that if all artists of stolen images hire a lawyer they can get some money from DT. Maybe it's only solution to make them professional in the future.
BTW stolen portfolio is still there (2 days after contacting DT support).

Thieves like this are slipping between the cracks because the crack is so large.

Individual artists don't have the funds or the clout to pursue the matter.  They would need the cooperation of the photo agency selling the images to prove the fraud and you would probably be surprised at how disinclined the stock sites would be to get involved. 

The solution would be the formation of a professional organization to which professional stock photographer's pay dues that includes a "legal fund." for just such situations.  Until the risk/reward ratio is addressed, this will continue on a routine basis.  Now, even when someone is caught, their files are pulled but the matter ends there.

Credits from thief should be credited to original author, and not kept by agency.

perhaps. in that case, agency should still pay the "damage fee" to original author.

The images still show up in searches, but if you click on the image, you get a blank page, and as you noted, if you go to the portfolio page it says that rights have been suspended.

Glad to see that finally someone got through to the senior admins at DT to take some action, versus the "we'll look into it on Monday" from an admin on the DT forums.

Thieves like this are slipping between the cracks because the crack is so large. ......

The solution would be the formation of a professional organization to which professional stock photographer's pay dues that includes a "legal fund." for just such situations.  Until the risk/reward ratio is addressed, this will continue on a routine basis.  Now, even when someone is caught, their files are pulled but the matter ends there.

The crack is not only large but complex since we are dealing with umpteen legal systems and typically cases where the thief and victim are crisscrossing national (if not continental) boundaries ...

While I think the sites should be the police, clearly it isn't a priority for them.

Someone here recently reported an image to Shutterstock that they thought was a copy of someone else's image. The  image owner got banned from SS. While the image was questionable, it wasn't an exact copy and the guy didn't deserve to get immediately booted off of Shutterstock. The guy who reported it then felt bad and backpeddled.

If you want to play image police, contact the image owner and leave it up to them to report it to the site(s) or not.

Sites like www.tineye.com [nofollow] do not check photos pixel by pixel, rather they use algorithms which will still find 'copied' works.  These works could have been cropped, enhanced, modified or used as as part of another image.  ( I believe the google-image-search tool works in the same way ).

If am not mistaken tineye offer services and other tools specifically for the 'Agencies' needs, and if am not mistaken too they also encourage portfolios/galleries/albums/depositories (call them what you want) to be added to their (ie: tineye's) image-banks.

It might not be the Agencies job to check duplicate/copyright works, however it is in their interest... unless their interests are in making profit from the money from held-back-sales.

CTU.  Jack Bauer.