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Author Topic: Biggest Rip Off in microstock history! Shocking finds..  (Read 54986 times)

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« Reply #50 on: January 07, 2013, 15:28 »
0
I wonder how that account was run.  If it was a group or a hired bunch of illustrators working together?  It would be very depressing if one bad apple illustrator ruined it for a group or team of illustrators.

I don't know why people assume that HLS must be a team. Yes, it is a big portfolio, but you get to save a lot of time if you are assembling images using elements created by others.


« Reply #51 on: January 07, 2013, 15:28 »
0
If they consider that a coincident then they are a disgrace

seriously, I urge anyone to stay away from signelements.. it's unbelievable..

do you really want to be represented by this kind of mentality?

I believe they will have other attitude after knowing that SS took his portfolio away...

they shouldn't have to rely on others to have the right attitude..

« Reply #52 on: January 07, 2013, 15:32 »
+1
If they consider that a coincident then they are a disgrace

seriously, I urge anyone to stay away from signelements.. it's unbelievable..

do you really want to be represented by this kind of mentality?

I believe they will have other attitude after knowing that SS took his portfolio away...

they shouldn't have to rely on others to have the right attitude..

indeed but we are talking about stock agencies, they change quite fast without any notice! ;D

« Reply #53 on: January 07, 2013, 20:22 »
0
I wonder how that account was run.  If it was a group or a hired bunch of illustrators working together?  It would be very depressing if one bad apple illustrator ruined it for a group or team of illustrators.

I don't know why people assume that HLS must be a team. Yes, it is a big portfolio, but you get to save a lot of time if you are assembling images using elements created by others.

He didn't make that "assumption". Leaf said "IF".

Microbius

« Reply #54 on: January 08, 2013, 04:00 »
0
I wonder how that account was run.  If it was a group or a hired bunch of illustrators working together?  It would be very depressing if one bad apple illustrator ruined it for a group or team of illustrators.


I don't know why people assume that HLS must be a team. Yes, it is a big portfolio, but you get to save a lot of time if you are assembling images using elements created by others.

Believe me it is a team, there are many different styles and skill levels represented that are clearly from different artists.
In fact I would bet that this is the team (broken link so replace the "dot"):
http://www.inkydeals dot com/about/

ETA, sorry I reread your post, I had misunderstood, of course it could have been one person taking lots of other people's work!

« Reply #55 on: January 08, 2013, 04:53 »
0
The portfolio is still at SS.

http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-146584p3.html

LE: ...but the images are not available when clicked.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2013, 04:56 by Tabimura »

Poncke

« Reply #56 on: January 08, 2013, 12:26 »
0
40k images gone... wow.

aspp

« Reply #57 on: January 08, 2013, 13:54 »
0
Have Shutterstock started contacted the customers yet ?

« Reply #58 on: January 08, 2013, 16:39 »
0
Have Shutterstock started contacted the customers yet ?

SS telling their customers would be like finding a needle in haystack, imagine how many sales a 40k portfolio generates...

aspp

« Reply #59 on: January 08, 2013, 16:44 »
0
Surely they have to tell the customers who have downloaded these images since they cannot legally be used.

« Reply #60 on: January 08, 2013, 16:55 »
0
Surely they have to tell the customers who have downloaded these images since they cannot legally be used.

I believe you aren't contributing to SS, his/her/whatever portfolio must sell 2-5k files per day... now imagine that since 2007 ;D

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #61 on: January 08, 2013, 17:08 »
0
Have Shutterstock started contacted the customers yet ?
They could make amends to some extent by compensating the artists whose work was ripped off, i.e. paying them the royalties they would have got had they sold directly.

aspp

« Reply #62 on: January 08, 2013, 17:36 »
0
They could make amends to some extent by compensating the artists whose work was ripped off, i.e. paying them the royalties they would have got had they sold directly.

AFAIK the original artists should expect to receive the total value of all sales - ie 100% of the sale with no commission deducted.

The agency will probably hope to also negotiate a signing off on the downloads - ie effectively making the sales legitimate such that their clients are not exposed.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #63 on: January 08, 2013, 17:50 »
0
They could make amends to some extent by compensating the artists whose work was ripped off, i.e. paying them the royalties they would have got had they sold directly.

AFAIK the original artists should expect to receive the total value of all sales - ie 100% of the sale with no commission deducted.

The agency will probably hope to also negotiate a signing off on the downloads - ie effectively making the sales legitimate such that their clients are not exposed.

It will be very interesting to see if SS's model is sustainable enough to allow for that.

« Reply #64 on: January 08, 2013, 17:58 »
0
Have Shutterstock started contacted the customers yet ?

SS telling their customers would be like finding a needle in haystack, imagine how many sales a 40k portfolio generates...

I feel confident they would be able to track each and every sale. This IS the age of computers, after all. It's more a question of whether they would actually want to bother. I believe they should be able to run reports using specific data fields of what they are looking for.

« Reply #65 on: January 08, 2013, 18:24 »
0
Have Shutterstock started contacted the customers yet ?

SS telling their customers would be like finding a needle in haystack, imagine how many sales a 40k portfolio generates...

I feel confident they would be able to track each and every sale. This IS the age of computers, after all. It's more a question of whether they would actually want to bother. I believe they should be able to run reports using specific data fields of what they are looking for.

come on... and they will also see which files were copied by who and send the royalties to the real owners? that would take like all 2013 even in the computer age

Microbius

« Reply #66 on: January 09, 2013, 01:58 »
0
No agency, AFAIK, has ever compensated a contributor when they have discovered their work has been stolen and sold on their site, or for that matter notified a buyer.

Maybe because it would be like admitting culpability? or maybe because they can get away with pocketing the cash so they do?

« Reply #67 on: January 09, 2013, 07:44 »
0
No agency, AFAIK, has ever compensated a contributor when they have discovered their work has been stolen and sold on their site, or for that matter notified a buyer.

Maybe because it would be like admitting culpability? or maybe because they can get away with pocketing the cash so they do?

yes, I've also wondered the same many times.  I had some images stolen on Fotolia once.  I sent a DMCA and the images were taken down but I never heard anything about the royalties.  It was just a couple sales so I didn't bother fighting it but sometimes there are a lot of sales.  I can't really understand how anything other than paying the proper owner for the sales is the legally correct thing to do.  Especially when the legal owner of the content is already a member on the site.

In this case with SS, the lines are a little more grey (in my opinion) as the illustrations in questions weren't direct exact copies, more derivative works that closely (too closely) resembled the original.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #68 on: January 09, 2013, 07:53 »
0
No agency, AFAIK, has ever compensated a contributor when they have discovered their work has been stolen and sold on their site, or for that matter notified a buyer.

Maybe because it would be like admitting culpability? or maybe because they can get away with pocketing the cash so they do?
I'd have thought if they compensated the offended-against contributor they wouldn't have to contact buyers, who generally get some sort of assurance from the agencies. That's only my own moral opinion, however, not any sort of legal statement.
Also, by permanently removing offending content, they are admitting not exactly culpability (as it's probably unrealistic to run checking searches on every site on the internet, also content could have been illegally uploaded from non-internet photos) but the fact that this content, once pointed out to them, was doubtful/dodgy at leaast.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2013, 10:51 by ShadySue »

« Reply #69 on: January 09, 2013, 10:02 »
-3
Hi everyone,

My name is Alex Dumitru and I'm one of the partners at Brainik (brainik.com) the company that owns the account "highlegstudio" on Shutterstock along with other web properties mentioned in this thread.

We are a design studio based in Romania and in the last 5 years we had over 25 designers that worked to create the portfolio we have, as you can imagine 40k vector images are not easy to create. All the vectors on Shutterstock are created inhouse by our designers with our own design elements (we create and sell vector elements and more on couple of websites).

We take very serious copyright infringement and we would have never uploaded this image if we knew that it was a copy of someone else's work. We are very sorry and we apologize to the user"cidepix" that one of our designers was over inspired from his design to create the one in our portfolio. Once our account will be reinstated we will remove the image if Shutterstock will not do it.

As designers (or design studio) we understand how is to have your work stolen very well because others have stolen from us, released for free on websites and on torrents and even more.

That being said the title of the thread is a bit harsh and a lot of the things said here were exaggerated. We didn't want to steal anything, it was just a mistake and again we are very sorry for it.

« Reply #70 on: January 09, 2013, 10:08 »
0
Hi everyone,

My name is Alex Dumitru and I'm one of the partners at Brainik (brainik.com) the company that owns the account "highlegstudio" on Shutterstock along with other web properties mentioned in this thread.

We are a design studio based in Romania and in the last 5 years we had over 25 designers that worked to create the portfolio we have, as you can imagine 40k vector images are not easy to create. All the vectors on Shutterstock are created inhouse by our designers with our own design elements (we create and sell vector elements and more on couple of websites).

We take very serious copyright infringement and we would have never uploaded this image if we knew that it was a copy of someone else's work. We are very sorry and we apologize to the user"cidepix" that one of our designers was over inspired from his design to create the one in our portfolio. Once our account will be reinstated we will remove the image if Shutterstock will not do it.

As designers (or design studio) we understand how is to have your work stolen very well because others have stolen from us, released for free on websites and on torrents and even more.

That being said the title of the thread is a bit harsh and a lot of the things said here were exaggerated. We didn't want to steal anything, it was just a mistake and again we are very sorry for it.

its not 1 my friend..... shame on you!

« Reply #71 on: January 09, 2013, 10:27 »
+1
... We are very sorry and we apologize to the user"cidepix" that one of our designers was over inspired from his design to create the one in our portfolio. ...

So you actually admit that one of your designers gets "inspiration" from other Shutterstock contributors. Don't you think this would ba a little too close for comfort to copy from a person that also submits their work to the very same stock agency? This is ruthless behavior.

Quote
Once our account will be reinstated we will remove the image if Shutterstock will not do it.
Reinstated? Your portfolio was removed for a reason. I wonder how SS would allow your port to go back online.

I cannot see SS allowing these guys to go back online under the same pseudonym. It's obviously an open secret that these guys will try anything to open new accounts and do the same thing all over again since they believe they didn't do anything wrong.

WOW.

« Reply #72 on: January 09, 2013, 10:31 »
+1
Reinstated? Your portfolio was removed for a reason. I wonder how SS would allow your port to go back online.

I cannot see SS allowing these guys to go back online under the same pseudonym. It's obviously an open secret that these guys will try anything to open new accounts and do the same thing all over again since they believe they didn't do anything wrong.

WOW.

I always thought it was standard SS operating policy to suspend an account while they investigate, so a final verdict may have not been delivered yet.

« Reply #73 on: January 09, 2013, 10:38 »
-1
... We are very sorry and we apologize to the user"cidepix" that one of our designers was over inspired from his design to create the one in our portfolio. ...

So you actually admit that one of your designers gets "inspiration" from other Shutterstock contributors. Don't you think this would ba a little too close for comfort to copy from a person that also submits their work to the very same stock agency? This is ruthless behavior.

Quote
Once our account will be reinstated we will remove the image if Shutterstock will not do it.
Reinstated? Your portfolio was removed for a reason. I wonder how SS would allow your port to go back online.

I cannot see SS allowing these guys to go back online under the same pseudonym. It's obviously an open secret that these guys will try anything to open new accounts and do the same thing all over again since they believe they didn't do anything wrong.

WOW.

What I admit is that one of the designers we employed created an image 4 years ago from someone else's work, I didn't approve that and I surely didn't encourage it.

Our portfolio is suspended, we had one image from 40000, I don't think they would remove our entire portfolio.

Microbius

« Reply #74 on: January 09, 2013, 10:44 »
+6
I also do not like the weasel words, I believe Cidepix's  files weren't just used for inspiration, I believe his files were downloaded, changed and reupoaded as yours (just an opinion), but I will still make a serious suggestion to you.

I predict that your portfolio will probably be reinstated. Before that happens, you need to ensure that you delete all the vectors from the artist/s that produced the Cidepix rip offs and also the Santa sleigh illustration. On all the stock sites and your own, not just SS

Then you need to take down everything that has used a photo from Google as a source to create an illustration of an animal (there are a few that seem familiar to me, as well as that gorilla)

Because believe me, if they catch you on one more infringement you will be getting a permanent ban, and I for one don't want to see all those artists out of a job because of one or two people-- or poor curating by an art editor.


 

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