As it's a human process, different inspectors are stricter than others. I had one image rejected for 'copyright' recently when I'd already had a few others accepted from the series. I've Scouted it (which I very seldom do) to see if the rejection is valid, and if so should I deactivate the others in the series, and pointing out the hundreds of similars already on the site. (I guess they could all have PRs,  , but I've given up writing to ask for PRs, as I never once got a reply, not even a refusal, either by email or by snail when I tried.)
It seems to me that as soon as they decide something is unacceptable, they should 'search and delete' immediately - at least 90% of images would be easily found by keywords.
And as for keywords -again, differences between inspectors. I recently had 'traditional festival' removed from a photo of Easter eggs (I guess they want to see people celebrating the festival), yet I've wikied several images accepted in the last month with over 20 'factual' words which were totally wrong in the apples and chairs model (I never wiki concepts, emotions etc as they're far too subjective). (Of course, the words may have been added after inspection, but you can often tell if so.)

Quote from: sjlocke on February 28, 2010, 00:28
The sock monkey thing doesn't surprise me.

http://www.sockmonkey.com/

Now there's and idea. I wonder what their Return per SM is and how many they sell. It can't be hard to do. I've got a WHOLE drawer full of socks just sitting there when I could be making $1000's of dollars. I'll start a blog "How I made money in my sleep with Sock Monkeys".

*, Monkeys are already being done. I need to be more original,diverse, maybe Sock Meerkats or something. I'm in the wrong business. I'll let you know how it goes and link to my blog.

Quote from: FD-amateur on February 28, 2010, 12:02

Quote from: elvinstar on February 27, 2010, 23:22I love getting the "areas that are too feathered or too rough" rejection when my isolation is done 100% in camera.

I'm always checking at 300% around the edges. It can happen that edges are bleached out (especially hair) when your background is more than 1.5 stop overexposed. It's not because it's done in cam that it is good per se (I plead guilty).

That all makes sense.  However, since the inspectors aren't providing any specifics to go on...  

Let's face it, if we're really checking and tweaking details at 300%, we're not doing stock photography, we're just playing somebody's senseless game.  This last eperience was a wake-up call  - I realized how far I'd been sucked into a nonsensical pursuit of 19 cent sales.  It's going to be a long time before I submit to IS again.  

Quote from: Brandon Seidel on February 28, 2010, 01:24
I just do not know what to expect.

That's it exactly.  

I actually don't have problems with IS rejections lately. My acceptance ratio moves up every month. The only thing that I can't understand sometimes is artifacting. Sometimes I simply can't find what the reviewer saw as artifact. I'm starting to think it's a halo that appears sometimes around very bright objects...
Otherwise, I'm fine with IS rejections....which I can't tell for Fotolia...

Quote from: elvinstar on February 27, 2010, 23:22
I love getting the "areas that are too feathered or too rough" rejection when my isolation is done 100% in camera. I would laugh if it didn't make me so mad!

They just hate it when a white edge fades naturally into a white background. I think they want everything to be lit so the background has to be cut off by some photoshop guru and then they can decide whether the artificial edge looks natural (if it is too natural, it will get a "feathered or rough" of course)

Ok, so now cityscapes are copyrighted also?  I have submitted a few Houston Cityscape images to Shutterstock.  All logos removed, and this is not about the quality or technical aspects of the image.  I have received this each time I have tried to submit them (I figured someone reviewing these maybe did not understand that "Modern buildings are TM" response).

Do all cityscapes have to be editorial now?  I sure hope not.


Trademark--Contains potential trademark or copyright infringement--not editorial.
Modern buildings are TM

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on March 04, 2010, 10:15
They just hate it when a white edge fades naturally into a white background. I think they want everything to be lit so the background has to be cut off by some photoshop guru and then they can decide whether the artificial edge looks natural (if it is too natural, it will get a "feathered or rough" of course)

That's exactly what I concluded. I've given up - I feel like if I tried to rework these images to make them acceptable to IS, I'd actually be making them worse and would hurt their chances elsewhere in the future.  I'll try submitting them to IS again in the future, maybe different people will review them. 

Quote from: Brandon Seidel on March 09, 2010, 15:32
Do all cityscapes have to be editorial now?  I sure hope not.

Maybe they don't want real cities anymore, just vectors.    That's the future - everything will be synthetic, no more releases, no more legal issues.

QuoteTrademark--Contains potential trademark or copyright infringement--not editorial.
Modern buildings are TM

I know that certain buildings are off limits...like the Hancock Building in Boston. I was under the impression, though, that buildings that were part of a cityscape were ok. For instance, if you just took a shot of the Hancock Building and submitted...not. If the Hancock Building were part of the Boston cityscape...ok.

But I'm not surprised...it's getting pretty ridiculous. I agree...everything will have to be synthetic. And don't you worry...the man will find a way to control that, too. 

Quote from: stockastic on March 09, 2010, 16:12

Quote from: Brandon Seidel on March 09, 2010, 15:32
Do all cityscapes have to be editorial now?  I sure hope not.

Maybe they don't want real cities anymore, just vectors.    That's the future - everything will be synthetic, no more releases, no more legal issues.

There could be an upside for RM/Editorial.   

I am honestly thinking to just start listing everything editorial that is even close to any issue.  After taking the shot, removing the logos, then getting them rejected for silly reasons like this; I will just shot and submit editorial to save time.

With the natural flood of images that will just increase with this stock model, I am sure the reviewers are being told to error on the side of caution.

As all the emails and interviews have been saying lately, "Stock is dead..."   

FYI, one of my appeals for bad isolation and "feathering" was just answered with "the inspector selected the wrong rejection notice. "  The real issue was a black border that I'd added - they don't want it.   I thought the border made sense in this case, but never mind that, I'm fine with the clarification.  

But this makes me wonder if my other recent "isolation" rejections were mistakes too.  

This was removed from SS because it is the same color as a John Deere. Logos aren'e enough, I have to change its color?

Quote from: dbvirago on March 10, 2010, 19:43
This was removed from SS because it is the same color as a John Deere. Logos aren'e enough, I have to change its color?

According to their legal notice http://www.deere.com/en_US/deerecom/privacy_legal/legalnotice.html:
"John Deere's green and yellow color scheme, the leaping deer symbol, and John Deere are trademarks of Deere & Company. "

Oh yeah, lawyers now control who can use which colors. Hadn't you heard?  John Deere owns green and yellow.  They invented those colors.

I hope that on some future date we start to get court rulings on intellectual property, copyright etc. that make rational sense. It's totally nuts at this point.

Quote from: dbvirago on March 10, 2010, 19:43
This was removed from SS because it is the same color as a John Deere. Logos aren'e enough, I have to change its color?

Same here. No logos, just the colour. It was a good seller, so I try to slightly change the green and yellow in PS and submit again.

Quote from: stockastic on March 10, 2010, 20:17
Oh yeah, lawyers now control who can use which colors. Hadn't you heard?  John Deere owns green and yellow.  They invented those colors.

I hope that on some future date we start to get court rulings on intellectual property, copyright etc. that make rational sense. It's totally nuts at this point.

I'm not sure what's nuts about being able to protect the use of your branding or intellectual property.  Should it be allowed for another tractor company to ride the reputation of JD by making green and yellow tractors?

Quote from: sjlocke on March 10, 2010, 20:26

Quote from: stockastic on March 10, 2010, 20:17
Oh yeah, lawyers now control who can use which colors. Hadn't you heard?  John Deere owns green and yellow.  They invented those colors.

I hope that on some future date we start to get court rulings on intellectual property, copyright etc. that make rational sense. It's totally nuts at this point.

I'm not sure what's nuts about being able to protect the use of your branding or intellectual property.  Should it be allowed for another tractor company to ride the reputation of JD by making green and yellow tractors?

Yebbut there's a huge gap between a rival company making a tractor of the same colour scheme (and presumably it's two very, very precise shades) and using a photo with a tiny JD tractor in the background.
It's just that no-one knows where the line is.

Quote from: sjlocke on March 10, 2010, 20:26

Quote from: stockastic on March 10, 2010, 20:17
Oh yeah, lawyers now control who can use which colors. Hadn't you heard?  John Deere owns green and yellow.  They invented those colors.

I hope that on some future date we start to get court rulings on intellectual property, copyright etc. that make rational sense. It's totally nuts at this point.

I'm not sure what's nuts about being able to protect the use of your branding or intellectual property.  Should it be allowed for another tractor company to ride the reputation of JD by making green and yellow tractors?

Trademarking (it's trademarking not copyright) particular colours is an interesting and money making issue for lawyers. Cadbury's are pretty active trying to prevent other companies selling chocolate from using the "Cadbury purple" on their products (at least in Aus).  They lost their most recent case. They were trying to use the trade paractices act rather than IP legislation, arguing that people would be confused into mistaking other brands of chocolate for Cadbury's. Just shows the lengths that big companies will go to to protect their branding - even if they don't have a legal leg to stand on. You wouldn't want to be caught i teh cross fire of a dispute like that even if the law was on your side in the end.

Quote from: sjlocke on March 10, 2010, 20:26
I'm not sure what's nuts about being able to protect the use of your branding or intellectual property.  Should it be allowed for another tractor company to ride the reputation of JD by making green and yellow tractors?

So today, if I want to market my new toaster, and I flip through the Pantone color chips and pick 2 I like - I'm supposed to find out if they're already claimed?

To me the term "intellectual property" sort of implies something that involves innovation, creativity, invention. Not just some exec saying "yeah, I like green and yellow, let's go with it".   Intellectual property might be - an industrial process, a software algorithm.  Not a color choice.

Quote from: stockastic on March 10, 2010, 21:49
So today, if I want to market my new toaster, and I flip through the Pantone color chips and pick 2 I like - I'm supposed to find out if they're already claimed?

I would assume you would do due diligence to find out if those colors had been trademarked by another appliance company.

Quote from: sjlocke on March 10, 2010, 21:56

Quote from: stockastic on March 10, 2010, 21:49
So today, if I want to market my new toaster, and I flip through the Pantone color chips and pick 2 I like - I'm supposed to find out if they're already claimed?

I would assume you would do due diligence to find out if those colors had been trademarked by another appliance company.

Ok, here's your John Deere Kitchen Accessory Set:
http://www.johndeeregifts.com/product/home+&+garden/kitchen/john+deere+green+kitchen+accessories+set.do

Does this mean  that now I can't sell a green towel?  Or submit a stock photo of a green oven mitt?

Will the court use a colorimeter - following which, my lawyer challenges the certification of the shop that recently calibrated that unit...

Quote from: stockastic on March 10, 2010, 22:15

Quote from: sjlocke on March 10, 2010, 21:56

Quote from: stockastic on March 10, 2010, 21:49
So today, if I want to market my new toaster, and I flip through the Pantone color chips and pick 2 I like - I'm supposed to find out if they're already claimed?

I would assume you would do due diligence to find out if those colors had been trademarked by another appliance company.

Ok, here's your John Deere Kitchen Accessory Set:
http://www.johndeeregifts.com/product/home+&+garden/kitchen/john+deere+green+kitchen+accessories+set.do

Does this mean  that now I can't sell a green towel?  Or submit a stock photo of a green oven mitt

Ooooh, that's cheeky: these are green and white, not green and yellow. Maybe Celtic FC won't like it. 

Quote from: stockastic on March 10, 2010, 20:17
Oh yeah, lawyers now control who can use which colors. Hadn't you heard?  John Deere owns green and yellow.  They invented those colors.

I hope that on some future date we start to get court rulings on intellectual property, copyright etc. that make rational sense. It's totally nuts at this point.

Maybe you should look up what a trademark actually is, John Deere don't own those colours and aren't claiming to, they have trademarked those colours which in basic terms means they have protected the use of those colours against someone else using them on a similar product.

A trademark identifies a 'mark' used in a certain 'trade'. Simple isn't it.

Quote from: RT on March 10, 2010, 22:52

Maybe you should look up what a trademark actually is

Where did I say "trademark"?