I got a rejection because one of the parent's of the minor model was  the witness of the release while the other signed the release on behalf of the kid. I am not so sure  if they have a legal  base  to implement such a rule

I can understand why they are being strict about the image quality but I don't see much use why they (most microstock agencies in general) being too fussy about  the paperwork. I like the way alamy works best. they don't even ask you to upload a  model release knowing that it will be  the photographer that is responsible of all the info they provide.

I'd like to hear your opinion too.

thanks

The witness thing in general is crap so this is just bullshit² . All my macro agencies (including one of the big two) don't  ask for witness at all. This is just one of many reasons i don't put people-pictures in Microstock besides many others. (I know this doesn't help you;-))

That doesn't sound right to me.  I have never heard that rule at any of the sites.  Try contacting support.

I have four photos online with Dreamstime that have one parent as the "parent signature" and the other parent as the witness.  Three of those photos were uploaded 2 weeks ago, and everything went through fine.  Contact support; somebody missed the ball here.

If the parent is signing on behalf of a minor their signature will have to be witnessed by a third party. 

If you mean that one parent signed and another witnessed, I don't think that a legitimate reason for the MR to be refused.  Just because the last name is the same does not even mean the witness is a parent.

Quote from: stokfoto on December 17, 2008, 13:20
...
I can understand why they are being strict about the image quality but I don't see much use why they (most microstock agencies in general) being too fussy about  the paperwork.
...

I sometimes get MR rejections from IS because the MR contains typed-in information (e.g. names, addresses, dates).

thank you very much everyone for your input.

When I had an MR issue about a month ago I called them directly. I explained the problem and they said they would look into it. A few hours later I received an email stating that all images that were rejected because of that MR were approved. I think I just got the new guy but they won't admit it.

Either way a quick, polite phone call was all it took to sort it out.

I recently had a rejection on IS because the witness signature did not match the printed name. I resubmitted the image with explanation in the description that the signature is not in Roman alphabet so it cannot match the printed name. The image was rejected again with the same reason. After a couple of phone calls, emails, and repeated MR submissions due to their server faults, my image got back to pending state for a while, and then they approved it after a couple of days. Luckily it ended well, but it was quite a hassle. It amazes me in what details they go when looking at the paperwork.

Quote from: Pixart on December 17, 2008, 16:37
If the parent is signing on behalf of a minor their signature will have to be witnessed by a third party. 

If you mean that one parent signed and another witnessed, I don't think that a legitimate reason for the MR to be refused.  Just because the last name is the same does not even mean the witness is a parent.

And just because the last names are different does not mean they both are'nt the parents ...

Quote from: hoi ha on December 18, 2008, 06:38
And just because the last names are different does not mean they both are'nt the parents ...

true,but what is wrong with it even if they both were  parents.

You can't witness your own signature. Technically you need three people to sign the release. Photographer, model (or guardian) and witness. Some sites will let you be the photographer and the guardian of a minor but the witness must always be a different person.

Because micro attracts so many new photographers they want to make sure that they don't get a reputation for supplying unusable images. So they require proof that you did get permission from the model to use their work. Alamy is used mostly be people who already understand that a MR is needed to cover their butts. Alamy also distances itself from the photographers more than the micros. It's still ultimately your responsibility but the micros don't want to be caught in the middle.

Quote from: azurelaroux on December 18, 2008, 14:35
You can't witness your own signature. Technically you need three people to sign the release. Photographer, model (or guardian) and witness. Some sites will let you be the photographer and the guardian of a minor but the witness must always be a different person.

thank you azurelaroux  for your response and suggestions.I appreciate it.may be my first post wasn't so clear as English is not my mother tongue  to be more precise yes the MR into question was signed by three persons,the photographer,one of the parents   and the other parent as the witness and the rejection reason I was given was that the parents can't be the witness.

but the point I am actually try to make here is that there is not much use dealing with so much paper work here like you mentioned above it is the photographer who should be worried about having a valid MR. this kind of rejections only cause delay of approval process (and it affected  my approval rate negatively which has certain impact on DT search engine)I can re-upload the files with a new MR but that is not the point here I just don't want to get ambiguous rejections because of  model releases. 

Quote from: sharply_done on December 17, 2008, 18:11
I sometimes get MR rejections from IS because the MR contains typed-in information (e.g. names, addresses, dates).

,ironically once I had a file rejected because the  MR was hand written and they didn't find it formal enough.....

Can anyone list what sites need three people to sign a under 18 years MR form
1, photographer
2, guardian
3, witness

and what sites only require two people to sign a under 18 years MR form

1, photographer/guardian
2, witness

I think all the micros require the photographer/guardian at a minimum. I know that IS, SS, FT, DT, CC, 123 and BigStock have all accepted my releases that were done this way. Alamy doesn't look at the MR so it doesn't matter how you do it. That said I think most prefer that it's 3 different people.

Quote from: azurelaroux on December 20, 2008, 12:58
I think all the micros require the photographer/guardian at a minimum. I know that IS, SS, FT, DT, CC, 123 and BigStock have all accepted my releases that were done this way. Alamy doesn't look at the MR so it doesn't matter how you do it. That said I think most prefer that it's 3 different people.

I have never had a problem being the photographer and guardian on the MR at any of the micro sites.

 I have also had a mother sign as guardian with a different last name as the minor an it was never questioned by any site.
  I would contact support at the site and ask why it would be rejected.

 Hi All,

I had to deal with this on a shoot we did with a child as the model who was from recently divorced parents. The mother found out through the son about the shoot and refused to sign almost a week after the shoot, long after we had done the shoot with the father preset and his fathers signature. We scrapped it. We scrap anything that might throw up a red flag, pay now or pay later is our motto. Crazy stuff!

Best,
AVAVA

I got my kids MRs through, with me signing as both photographer and guardian, and my husband signing as witness. They have a different last name than me, maybe the reviewers got confused.

I had all my MRs rejected after they were accepted AND multiple images were accepted for this reason (along with the fact that I had completed them electronically) and my account was frozen until fixed. The bottom line is that is DT's rule (as it was explained to me) even if we don't agree with it. I am the photog for my kids, my hubby is the parent and a 3rd person is the witness. You may have your MR's approved right now with some discrepancies but ... don't think that you won't wake up one day to a frozen account and have to replace every single release!