...It must seem comically ridiculous to citizens of the US where the highest title is 'Mr' __ as in 'Mister' President.

Quote from: jsnover on March 15, 2011, 14:37

So let's try to get the English aristocracy straight please The venerable Debrett's can assist.

Lord Humphemhumph is a peer - a Baron (life or hereditary). Sir Floppyears Humphemhumph is a knight - awarded a knighthood lifetime only

Peerages use last name, not first - Lord Locke - knighthoods first name - Sir Sean. The peer is "of Someplace" - as in Lord Locke of St. Louis (which sounds rather odd)

And as a US citizen (I presume) the esteemed Mr. Locke isn't elgible for anything but the honorary form

It must seem comically ridiculous to citizens of the US where the highest title is 'Mr' __ as in 'Mister' President.

Quote from: jamirae on March 15, 2011, 12:16

Quote from: lisafx on March 15, 2011, 11:56

Quote from: traveler1116 on March 15, 2011, 11:41

I hope this is more than a distraction.  IS already knows all the problems with the site, issues with security, anger by nonexclusives, etc... they are written in the forums and sitemails.  I hope we learn something from this call and IS will keep the contributors in mind before making changes in the future. Maybe they have realized they need to change and that's why all this is going on now?

I think this is no more or less than trying to distract us from calling for an audit or organizing a class action lawsuit. 

iStock have an idea, execute it , and it works???!!!


That's a first :-)

that's what I am thinking.

Yup, yup. They think we're f'idiots.

Lawyer RBFried weighs in:

"Confidential Information includes, but is not limited to, all information received by the Recipient during the discussion of fraudulent activity on www.istockphoto.com, whether received orally or in writing."


As a background, I've been a technology law attorney for 20 years and have negotiated thousands of NDAs.   I do find this description is very broad ("ALL information received" during the call).  I don't know how useful the call is going to be if absolutely nothing at all can be disclosed about it.  Additionally, if the NDA is going to say "not limited" there should be some requirement on the disclosing party to declare/label the specific piece of information as "confidential" (how else is the recipient going to know that the info disclosed is supposed to be proprietary?  You can't read iStock's mind and know that it considers a specific piece of information to be "either information not known by actual or potential competitors of the Disclosing Party or is proprietary information of the Disclosing Party."  This is not necessarily easy to determine if you're the recipient.)   [that being said, the language in the NDA is mostly standard stuff...and, in fairness, I have occasionally drafted NDAs this broad before.  Just not sure it serves the current purpose of supplying the contributors with some degree of explanation of the situation.] 


On the flip side, if it's an open investigation, I have to think that iStock should be cautious about what gets out there, and that it certainly does not want any financial details or details around its fraud detection technology or anything else like that to be made public.  That's totally understandable.  So, I do get why there needs to be an NDA, and why a lot of stuff should be held confidential.


Is there a list of things that the representatives ARE allowed to gather from this conference call and disclose to contributors?   Can that be agreed upon and carved out during the call?   Otherwise, if the NDA is treated at face value, this conference call could be like a tree falling in the forest with no one around.  After the call, maybe the parties can at least agree on some sanitized description that gives us a little more information??


Personally, my concern is: As our agent, iStock should have at least some fiduciary duty to us to let us know why our images got stolen, what it will do to make things right, and why is it putting the onus on us for its mistakes?   As many have said: our images have been stolen and are floating around thanks to its (likely negligent) actions, causing their value to be greatly reduced/diluted...and, to top it off, we are also out any compensation for those images (I'm not losing as much as some, but I'm certainly out at least hundreds of dollars...approaching $1000). 


I do firmly believe that we are entitled to a more detailed explanation...and, I believe, some compensation from iStock for its role in this...at a bare minimum. 

http://www1.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=313542&page=38

Quote from: lagereek on March 15, 2011, 15:23

Quote from: jsnover on March 15, 2011, 14:37

So let's try to get the English aristocracy straight please The venerable Debrett's can assist.

Lord Humphemhumph is a peer - a Baron (life or hereditary). Sir Floppyears Humphemhumph is a knight - awarded a knighthood lifetime only

Peerages use last name, not first - Lord Locke - knighthoods first name - Sir Sean. The peer is "of Someplace" - as in Lord Locke of St. Louis (which sounds rather odd)

And as a US citizen (I presume) the esteemed Mr. Locke isn't elgible for anything but the honorary form

Well I dont want to brag or boast but I actually originate from the 13th centuary Clan of MacLomond, which in later years became known as Montrose and an arch enemy of Rob-Roy.
There of my half British/Scotish ancestry.

didnt know that, did you.

I most certainly didn't  I'm a mongrel - Yorkshire ex-Vikings, gypsy, French & German - not a drop of anything noble in sight!

The NDA is up: http://www1.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=313542&page=38

Confidential Information includes, but is not limited to, all information received by the Recipient during the discussion of fraudulent activity on www.istockphoto.com, whether received orally or in writing.

So, in summary, the NDA contains the same vague legalese that the ASA contains. It should also be noted that no one in any official capacity has said whether or not the Fab 5 can even give their opinion. And, if one wants to go on the NDA, well, that could potentially be confidential information as well, since the NDA doesn't specify what *is* confidential or even what isn't.

How typical of iStock.

I expected the NDA to be very vague, and I expect the conference call will be as well.