Quote from Achilles from the Dreamstime Forums

"There are many contributors who knowingly or unknowingly have submitted duplicates of their images. Duplicate=100% identical content.
There are thousands of files cluttering our searches, affecting the customers experience and decreasing the sales potential for that content (dilluting sales required for higher levels). Sometimes we found 4-5 versions of the same file.

Starting tomorrow we'll begin to remove the duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates etc. Only one version will stay, the oldest one. Or the one with most downloads, if there is one.

The bad news: they are not just removed but will count towards the approval ratio as refused files. If the file was keymastered, no refund is given. If the file received the upload bonus for full exclusives, the bonus will be removed from your earnings.

The good news: we will transfer the sales towards the file that is kept online. Comments, collection and lightbox placement will be transferred too.

If you don't want your AR to be affected, you can search for the files and disable the duplicates yourself. You will lose the sales transfer though and the file that is kept will sell at a lower price.

This is just a first step to clean the database. We can say that we're a mature agency now so we should act accordingly."

This is a good.  Some sites spot duplicates, if I accidentally upload them.  I hope DT can do this in the future.

Thank God...  I mentioned before in some post that this is the first thing that all sites should do.

this seems like good news. 

Yep GREAT NEWS!

Seems you guys are on right track!

I love Dreamstime!

;-)

P.S. Last Year I was uploading some series of over 60 watercolors (all different) but got rejections due to similarity... That is something I didn't liked... So, now I don't upload series. No big deal anyway because that series are widely spread.

I agree it's a good move, but I wouldn't want to be the 'lucky' person who got the job of searching through millions of images looking for duplicates.

Quote from: RT on May 08, 2009, 12:02
I agree it's a good move, but I wouldn't want to be the 'lucky' person who got the job of searching through millions of images looking for duplicates.

I don't think people are doing it. It's probably some software, like TinEye, or even something simplier like any software for this purpose.

Perhaps this is what happened to my pending files... Though they are not duplicates of anything I have online. On Tuesday, they just vanished. The weren't accepted and they weren't refused (properly). I think that the Dreamstime graph shows them as being refused...

I emailed support, and they are looking into it.

I guess if they can detect duplicates they should not allow them to be submitted in first place.

Yes, this is a really intelligent move.  I like how they are implementing it too.  Nice that they are transferring any comments or sales to the file that is staying online.  More work for them, but very nice to the contributor.

As far as I know I don't have any duplicates.  Similars from a series, yes.  I better go take a look and make sure there are no duplicates...

I'm also really glad they're doing this, I've always been amazed by the number of dupes I find on there.  Next to correct keyword spam.

BTW, I've seen duplicates in Alamy, one as RF and another as RM, but as the contributors name is different (sometimes it seems to be an agency), they say it's ok. 

It's not that the images are similar, they are the same.

Quote from: lisafx on May 08, 2009, 15:38
Yes, this is a really intelligent move.  I like how they are implementing it too.  Nice that they are transferring any comments or sales to the file that is staying online.  More work for them, but very nice to the contributor.

As far as I know I don't have any duplicates.  Similars from a series, yes.  I better go take a look and make sure there are no duplicates...

Well - I strongly suspect they are going to reject even the similars!

Quote from: peep on May 08, 2009, 16:54
Well - I strongly suspect they are going to reject even the similars!

I seriously doubt it.  Finding identical images is enough of a challenge, at least if you're going beyond  bit-for-bit identical files.  Think of the problems of parsing identical images that were saved at different levels of compression or by different applications.  But similar files?  Writing an algorithm for that invites a high percentage of false positives.  This presupposes that they aren't about to try manual comparisons, which would be too slow and expensive to be worth it.

What is with monochrome, sepia and BW version of the same image?

This is wonderful news. We appreciate the communication.

Quote from: borg on May 08, 2009, 17:11
What is with monochrome, sepia and BW version of the same image?

I would say thats duplicates. If you have a color version than that is more than enough and they normally sell better anyway, although your Bulldozer looks pretty cool in Sepia  But maybe Achilles can clarify.

Good idea but it makes me wonder how that are going to find the duplicates. Do you suppose they have similar technology to Tin-Eye?

NB: For those not aware Tin-Eye scans the internet to find images in use.

Seems things are starting to happen in this business.  More sweeping will come. And not only for duplicates I hope...

This is good news! Obviously duplicates are bad for business! As far as the similars, Dreamstime has been pretty strict for them, at least for me. I have had one out of three rejected from the same series for similarity even though the composition was different in my opinion.

It's a good start!

I'm EXACTLY at 80% at DT - I guess I'd better go push another 100 before I get dropped to 20 again tomorrow. lol

Quote from: Freezingpictures on May 08, 2009, 17:27

Quote from: borg on May 08, 2009, 17:11
What is with monochrome, sepia and BW version of the same image?

I would say thats duplicates. If you have a color version than that is more than enough and they normally sell better anyway, although your Bulldozer looks pretty cool in Sepia  But maybe Achilles can clarify.

Thanks!