Hello All,

One of our biggest goals here at Shutterstock is to foster a safe environment for you to license your content to third parties. We want to make sure that you are equipped with the information you need to protect your content as the digital marketplace expands.

To that end, we have created the Protect Your Content guide so that you can learn more about your rights as an artist, and what you can do to protect these rights.  It's an easy-to-understand, in-depth look at information about legal considerations in creating content — and how to protect your work.

The guide is now available in 8 languages (English, Russian, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Korean and Japanese) here: http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/protecting-your-content-a-guide-now-in-8-languages

While the information contained in this guide is not intended to be legal advice, we hope that this guide helps empower you to make informed decisions regarding your content.

In addition, we'll soon be releasing a Spanish-language version of the Contributor Success Guide (available in 5 languages + Spanish shortly), found here:
http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/contributor-success-guide-available-in-five-languages

And as always, our contributor blog contains a lot of great articles on tips, advice, contributor interviews, and more:

http://www.shutterstock.com/contributor-blog

Best Regards,

Scott
VP of Content
Shutterstock

Thank you so much Scott, I'm looking forward to read! 

I'd like to read more about Registration of Copyright in Italy. I didn't find a Guide in Italian, I took that one in English but the part of copyright registration regards U.S. It would be great if you could make one in Italian. 

Copyright registration should be resisted IMO since it undermines international UN and WTO agreement. Copyright is protected under international law and convention - most specifically by the Berne Convention.

I was a bit puzzled by the need to enter my e-mail address when following Scott's link, so I went back to the submit home page and clicked on that link (thinking that if I were already logged in I wouldn't have to do that).

Still got the e-mail request, so I filled it in and then I get an e-mail with a link to "Confirm & Download" with the following text:

"By clicking "Confirm & Download", you agree to the terms of this promotion and to receive future email updates from Shutterstock.

Add [email protected] to your address book to ensure delivery.

If you download this guide, we may send you promotional or educational materials via email in the future. We will never sell or give your email address to a third party. If you do not want to receive future email from us, you may unsubscribe by using the link provided in email you receive from Shutterstock."

The download failed because I couldn't connect to labs.topspin.net. Tried twice. Assuming this e-mail is legit, I guess it's some marketing company Shutterstock has engaged?

I'm happy to receive e-mails from Shutterstock but I am leery of signing up for some other "promotional" materials. I am certainly not adding anything to my address book when I have no idea who the outfit is.

I google topspin and get this site

http://www.topspinmedia.com/

Logo is the same as in the e-mail - it says "Software for Musicians" on its home page.

Hi Jo Ann,

To clear up any confusion - Topspin only provides the download widget so we can get the guide to you.  Your email is *not* being provided to them for marketing purposes.  We're obtaining your consent so we can provide other educational material (for example, future guides) and to comply with commercial email regulations. Another potential scenario would be an artist who is not yet a contributor - we can invite them to become one.  If you feel that information isn't of interest to you, you can always opt-out or unsubscribe.

The widget has been working on our end, but we can look into whether there are any issues.

In the meanwhile, we hope you find the guide useful and informative!    

Best,

Scott

I just tried on a different computer - clicking on the link in the e-mail I received - and I still get an error.

The e-mail I received says it's from "[email protected] via txmail.topspin.net" and asks me to add [email protected] to my address book. It looks a lot like something coming from another company.

And I am interested in what Shutterstock has to say - not sure why I can't just download the PDF from your web site though.

I don't understand what the change is - I get the newsletter periodically, for example, and I don't have to use a download link to do that.

Even if it worked it would be rather cumbersome with no obvious (to the recipient) advantage.

What commercial email regulations apply to communications with contributors?

I just tried again and it failed again - same error.

I have forwarded the e-mail I received to submit at shutterstock dot com so they can figure out what is wrong - and asked for a link to the document so I can read it.

Chrome, Firefox and Safari on Mac OSX mavericks in case it's OS or Browser specific.

I get the error as well...tried it on my iPad and MacBook Air. I'm redirected to the Shutterstock home page.

Worked OK for me.  At least, it did once I'd enabled NoScript to let it run.  I'm paranoid.

QuoteI am interested in what Shutterstock has to say - not sure why I can't just download the PDF from your web site though.

Exactly! Why do we have to do it the complicated way?

Shutterstock support got in touch with me.

They apparently can't duplicate the problem I was having - it works for them. However they did get me a guide (but asked me not to post it). For others having troubles with accessing it, you'll need to contact support to ask them to get you a copy.

What an odd way to try to generate a mailing list.

I emailed them last night for my copy before I found this thread. I'm still waiting for it more than 14 hours later...
(I just see black boxes in my browser where guess the flash is supposed to be)

Hi Steve,

That team has limited staffing over the weekend, so I went ahead and PM'd you a link.  If anyone has issues with the downloader and wants to PM me over the weekend, please feel free to do so. 

I was able to find an issue where an error would be generated on a mobile device if the device doesn't support Flash.  You can request a guide, but it throws an error at the end of the download process.

We'll get it fixed, message the blog post appropriately, or switch to a different process, but in the meantime, desktop support for downloads appears to be working.  In cases that it's not, it would be greatly appreciated if you can shoot me (or the Support team) a message with any details that will help us troubleshoot, such as your browser version and/or known settings (i.e., Flash installed or not, etc.).   

Thanks!

Scott

No problems here - should be an interesting read.

I already contacted the support team about the failure on my desktop browser. Chrome, Safari and Firefox all failed. Flash (14) is installed, JavaScript enabled. Mac OSX 10.9.3. There are no script blockers or ad blockers installed. Popups are blocked but I don't see the indication that any popups have been blocked trying to access this.

I also tried a PC (Windows 8.1) with IE, Firefox and Chrome. All fail to connect. The only additional information Firefox provided was that it was first connecting to app.topspin.net and then it timed out trying to connect to labs.topsin.net

The behavior is that you see "Connecting..." in the status bar for an exceedingly long time and then an error that it couldn't connect to labs.topspin.net

Comcast broadband is our internet connection - it's fast (in other words I'm not trying this on dialup or on a ropey connection).

The systems in question are connecting all the time with all sorts of other sites without problems. I honestly think the problem is something TopSpin's end

Hi Jo Ann,

Thanks!  That's very helpful.  We've contacted them and we're looking into it.

Best,

Scott

Strange, JoAnn, it downloaded here first time (FF). I haven't noticed anything in the guide (on a quick shuftie) that I didn't already know, but handy to have it all in one place, I guess.