This is my final reply to this topic. Have you even visited the website? (Definitely not) Here is a link to my portfolio with over 2,500 images under public domain http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/browse-author.php?a=1

As I wrote above no more further comments, luckily I have better things to do.

As I already wrote, you apparently don't know the first thing about the terms copyright or public domain.  For instance, on one of your shots, your "license" states:
"This image is public domain. You may use this picture for any purpose, including commercial. If you do use it, please consider linking back to us. If you are going to redistribute this image online, a hyperlink to this particular page is mandatory."

Guess what?  If the content is in the public domain, you don't get to dictate things like "a hyperlink...is mandatory".  What you probably mean to do is offer them under a CC license that requires attribution, but apparently, you think using the term "public domain" is catchier, and will bring you more referral sign ups.

Also, why would someone buy your image at fotolia:
http://www.fotolia.com/id/14450337
when they can get it for "free" on your "promotional" site?
http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=1781&picture=colored-pencils

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Quote from: Black Sheep on June 02, 2011, 02:12

You don't produce any photos on your own and none of the images on your site are either free or public domain.
Fact is, you're a crook, and you do it in the vain hope of monetize someone else's work.

This is my final reply to this topic. Have you even visited the website? (Definitely not) Here is a link to my portfolio with over 2,500 images under public domain http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/browse-author.php?a=1

As I wrote above no more further comments, luckily I have better things to do.

Images cannot be copyrighted and in the public domain at the same time. If they were in the public domain, I could download all of them and resell to my heart's content. You would give up control of the images.

sean, As for selling and giving away the same image, it's not dumb. I'm sure it's much more profitable to give away images as a lure for referrals than to sell them at fotolia.

nothing new.

if you read any webmasters forum there are endless discussions about how to monetize images "found on the web", articles scraped via rss, auto-blogging (by someone else's rss), repackaging open source scripts and templates and reselling them as commercial, and the list goes on .. most of these guys are only after the money and couldn't give a crap about actually producing something on their own.

parasites, leechers, if not plain thieves.

I agree, but this is not one of those sites. They give away their own photos as referral bait. There are quite a few totally legit sites that do this, and a lot of real work goes into them.

jeez he is the referral pro look at his http://www.dreamstime.com/Littlebobek_info

Let me clear some things. I understand that some photographers are furious when they found a website which offers pictures for free. The same thing happened when traditional photographers found out about microstock.

I was surprised that we received an email from cclapper who was �furious� when she found that we advertise her pictures. She is the only entrepreneur I know who hates free advertising. Anyway, we managed to add her to our block list so good for those photographers who fill her positions.

It's true that we are paid by the agency but it's coming from agency's share not yours. There is only one occasion which affects your commission and it's when a customer uses a discount code. (which we don't provide)

I would expect appreciating our work with converting people who search for free images to become paying microstock members but some people simply don't see it.

And you forgot to mention all of the above in your email to me. Instead you told me to talk to Dreamstime:

Dear Cathleen,

thanks for your email. If you would like to remove your picture of Arabian Horse from our website, you will have to contact Dreamstime. Unfortunately we can't control which pictures will show on our website in the section of Professional Photos. Your picture is displayed on our website because Dreamstime advertises their pictures on our website.


Kind regards

Vera Kratochvil
PublicDomainPictures.net team

PublicDomainPictures.net  is part of Bobek Ltd
Bobek Ltd Registered in England and Wales No. 5951382

Which I did. And they reported back to me that they have been removed.

Dreamstime did say that this site is a partner (their words) I appreciate that they handled the matter swiftly.

The same thing happened when traditional photographers found out about microstock.

Not sure what this has to do with anything. I have been opted out of anything to do with my images appearing on any other site for a long time...I am furious because they even found their way to your site at all.

Problem solved, it has been handled.

jeez he is the referral pro look at his http://www.dreamstime.com/Littlebobek_info

And if you look at the list, you will notice that only one of the referrals has uploaded a picture. So I guess the rest of them might be buyers. I can't say it makes me angry that someone makes a lot of effort to recruit new buyers.

The point is that your images are/ were not on that site, just links to them on Dreamstime (in the form of thumbnails).
If you want those links removed that's up to you, I'm just trying to understand why you would want to.

Also check this out, new referral badges that display most popular or newest image thumbnails on any website for referring people to DT:
http://www.dreamstime.com/badges_dynamic.php
http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_25423

Would you also consider this to be a problem? will you be contacting DT to make sure your images aren't appearing on other sites via badges like these too?

So, what would warmpicture.com say if I said this: Look, I have a site that gives away a number of images I've shot myself with a few others - it has 50,000 visitors monthly, and they look at half a million pages monthly. I can show your images on every page they see, and show the images that match the search the visitor has typed in perfectly. I'll do this for free, and all you have to do is give me 10% of of the sale if my visitor buys from you. You do nothing.

Does that sounds like a good deal to you? (I'm not making a judgement, but I'm curious to know your answer, given that you may have investigated ways to promote your site.)

Sorry - call it a hypothetical question to any of the contributors. I'm just pointing out what a value proposition from a site like this would look like.

I completely understand what warmpicture is and is not. I'm trying to illustrate a point by clarifying what a relationship bewteen two sites could be, since some in this thread seem wary of referrals.