Author Topic: Microstock Monitor will no longer be available :-( (Read 23009 times)

Daneel · « **on:** February 26, 2007, 15:21 »

Hi all,

I just went through 40 of the more troublesome minutes in my life (actually the worst, except when I did the exams for my master).

First my account at one of the big 6 was suspended. 5 minutes later I got an e-mail from the founder of this agency telling me that he did not want his agency to appear in Microstock Monitor (because of trademark issues) and that I will hear from his lawyers soon.

I took immediate action by removing the Microstock Monitor website, apologized through e-mail and begged for my account to be re-opened. Fortunately he was very understanding after my swift reaction and my account is re-activated. He also pointed out that I may continue to re-distribute the software, if I remove their agency from it.

However, I decided to not take this risk. Another agency might not be as understanding as this one and I might get into big trouble ... and it's definitely not worth that.

I'm very sorry for this, but I decided that I won't continue distributing Microstock Monitor.

I do hope that you understand.

All the best,
Michael (...who is still quite unsettled about this - so excuse any typos)

CJPhoto · « **Reply #1 on:** February 26, 2007, 15:30 »

Sorry to hear.

Of all the sites, I wouldn't have picked that one.

At least you can keep going with the microstock hobby - you will just have to find a new outlet for your programing hobby.

Daneel · « **Reply #2 on:** February 26, 2007, 15:37 »

Quote from: CJPhoto on February 26, 2007, 15:30

Sorry to hear. Of all the sites, I wouldn't have picked that one.

At least you can keep going with the microstock hobby - you will just have to find a new outlet for your programing hobby.

That's no problem, I'm working on my PhD in computer science, so I've enough outlets for my programming "hobby"
:-D.

He told me that they will also go after all the other similiar softwares ... .

Said that, I can understand him. If I would own a big and succesful company, I would also be worried about my customers and their safeness.

All the best,
Michael

Kngkyle · « **Reply #3 on:** February 26, 2007, 16:20 »

Hmm thats a shame. But I can understand their concern.

madelaide · « **Reply #4 on:** February 26, 2007, 16:53 »

Michael,

Sorry to hear that, it must have been quite scary to have all this happening. And the site should have been more comprehensive emailing you first.

I don't quite understand though, what is the legal issue? Is it illegal also to have the features we have here, like the site status at right?

Regards,
Adelaide

Daneel · « **Reply #5 on:** February 26, 2007, 16:56 »

Hi!

They said that they can't have their trademark or their user's passwords in it.

All the best,
Michael

leaf · « **Reply #6 on:** February 26, 2007, 17:10 »

boy, i never thought that that would be a problem

Daneel · « **Reply #7 on:** February 26, 2007, 17:13 »

Hi!

Yes...I was quite astonished/unsettled/shocked as well - as you can imagine :-(

All the best,
Michael

leaf · « **Reply #8 on:** February 26, 2007, 17:23 »

I am guessing that their REAL problem with it, is that shutterstock users could download the problem then see all these other sites they could submit to. Then they used a 'legal' use to make it stick and give a more persuasive reason.

They seem to be tramping down a bit on that recently - as you noticed when we were trying to post a link to this forum so people could discuss the software - they have blocked all such links to places that tell about other sites.

Daneel · « **Reply #9 on:** February 26, 2007, 17:31 »

Hi,

yeah, you are most probably right. It's a pitty.

All the best,
Michael

Bateleur · « **Reply #10 on:** February 26, 2007, 17:37 »

That's scary, Michael ... coming after you with the threat of lawyers. Pretty heavy-handed in fact. They could have e-mailed you first and politely asked you to 'cease and desist' (or whatever the term is).

Quote from: leaf on February 26, 2007, 17:23

They seem to be tramping down a bit on that recently - as you noticed when we were trying to post a link to this forum so people could discuss the software - they have blocked all such links to places that tell about other sites.

Hmmmm ... could a battle of the biggies be brewing?

Hope not. As an old African proverb says ... "When elephants fight the ants get trampled."

StockManiac · « **Reply #11 on:** February 26, 2007, 18:11 »

I find it very interesting that they are quick to sue someone that is trying to help others, but they wouldn't help a photographer the other day who had an image used illegally by a newspaper (see here for more details http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php?topic=961.0).

What's this world coming to?

SS is my favorite stock site, but this just left a very sour taste in my mouth.

Kngkyle · « **Reply #12 on:** February 26, 2007, 18:17 »

The reason why they are prohibiting this is because the creator could potentially take the users passwords and take the accounts funds. Of course we know Daneel wouldn't do that. But I'm sure others would. They are only doing it for yours and my own safety. It would be cool if Shutterstock could create their own little program that monitors income and downloads off of their site. Just a little something that minimizes to tray where you can hover your mouse over it and it would show you the information. Hmm. Maybe I'll suggest this on their forums.

berryspun · « **Reply #13 on:** February 26, 2007, 18:29 »

Sorry to hear that Michael.

Another photographer has made available a free Firefox extension only valid for SS. It was posted on the SS forum.
I have been using it for several months, very convenient. It automatically refreshes every 15 minutes, SS does refresh its downloads every 15 min too.

http://webtech.lv/firefox/extensions/shutterstockbar/

I hope that this photographer doesn't get in trouble because of it, that wouldn't sound right.

Kngkyle · « **Reply #14 on:** February 26, 2007, 18:40 »

Quote from: berryspun on February 26, 2007, 18:29

Sorry to hear that Michael.

Another photographer has made available a free Firefox extension only valid for SS. It was posted on the SS forum.
I have been using it for several months, very convenient. It automatically refreshes every 15 minutes, SS does refresh its downloads every 15 min too.

http://webtech.lv/firefox/extensions/shutterstockbar/

I hope that this photographer doesn't get in trouble because of it, that wouldn't sound right.

Thanks for that link. Seems convenient. I just wish you could manually refresh it.

StockManiac · « **Reply #15 on:** February 26, 2007, 18:43 »

Quote from: Kngkyle on February 26, 2007, 18:17

The reason why they are prohibiting this is because the creator could potentially take the users passwords and take the accounts funds. Of course we know Daneel wouldn't do that.

My understanding is that the program only stored passwords locally and it never transmitted information to any "home base". And if he were planning to do that in the future, then why would he use his real name and give links to all of his stock accounts?

The fact of the matter is that they don't have any legal right to stop him from creating a program that can access their site. The only thing that they can do is stop him from using their logo.

But they can bully him, since they know who he is, and threaten to remove his account from their site. If only he had done his program anonymously, then they would have had no recourse, especially since he lives half way around the world from them...

berryspun · « **Reply #16 on:** February 26, 2007, 18:53 »

Kyle, I thought the same at first, but it's nice to have it automatically refreshed and visible without being too intrusive when you are working on other windows or tabs.

maunger · « **Reply #17 on:** February 26, 2007, 20:39 »

Quote from: StockManiac on February 26, 2007, 18:43

Quote from: Kngkyle on February 26, 2007, 18:17
The reason why they are prohibiting this is because the creator could potentially take the users passwords and take the accounts funds. Of course we know Daneel wouldn't do that.

My understanding is that the program only stored passwords locally and it never transmitted information to any "home base". And if he were planning to do that in the future, then why would he use his real name and give links to all of his stock accounts?

The fact of the matter is that they don't have any legal right to stop him from creating a program that can access their site. The only thing that they can do is stop him from using their logo.

But they can bully him, since they know who he is, and threaten to remove his account from their site. If only he had done his program anonymously, then they would have had no recourse, especially since he lives half way around the world from them...

Boy this is all very disconcerting... i was thinking of writing something very similar with a different technology.

I don't understand how they can really legally keep you from writing something like this like StockManiac says. They obviously don't want people stealing other people's passwords and i can understand their concern... however, i've just checked just about all of the sites i am a member of and low and behold, if they're so concerned about user passwords, then they shouldn't be using "http:" login pages they should be using "https:"

LuckyOliver in fact is the only one i tried that is using encryption (https:// as their login page) meaning all of the others are possibly sending their user's passwords via "clear-text" (meaning unencrypted) and therefore endangering their users. I'm not totally versed on the inner workings of the web, but my basic understanding is that if you're to be sending data around that you don't want others to see, you'd use https (or SSL - more at this page on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Https )

So, if the company you're talking about isn't LO, and is one of the others that i checked, then they should be using https and coming down on you seems a bit heavy handed.

I'm open to be taught something new if i'm not correct.

Daneel · « **Reply #18 on:** February 27, 2007, 02:31 »

Hi all,

well - legal or not - it came down to the simple question: "If you want to keep you want us to reactivate your account then remove us from your program." This was a "no brainer" for me, since Microstock Monitor was "just for fun" and "because I could" (there isn't much to earn from the referals I got).

The additional threat w.r.t the lawyers did the rest ... .

All the best,
Michael

Daneel · « **Reply #19 on:** February 27, 2007, 02:42 »

Quote from: StockManiac on February 26, 2007, 18:43

My understanding is that the program only stored passwords locally and it never transmitted information to any "home base". And if he were planning to do that in the future, then why would he use his real name and give links to all of his stock accounts?

That's correct.

And yes, all other software will also be affected by this, including the Firefox plugin. He made it very clear that they do not want to have their user's passwords placed in applications other than their website or software which they wrote themself.

They also just posted a general warning w.r.t. this in their forums.

All the best,
Michael

leaf · « **Reply #20 on:** February 27, 2007, 03:06 »

i don't believe the firfox plug in uses the username and password. They use the open log in that is allready on your computer to check the stats... not sure if shutterstock feels this is different but seems a little different to me.

Daneel · « **Reply #21 on:** February 27, 2007, 04:05 »

Hi!

Quote from: leaf on February 27, 2007, 03:06

i don't believe the firfox plug in uses the username and password. They use the open log in that is allready on your computer to check the stats... not sure if shutterstock feels this is different but seems a little different to me.

Ah, ok! That's indeed different then. However, this mechanism only works with a few agencies which use cookies properly (only a few unfortunately).

All the best,
Michael

CJPhoto · « **Reply #22 on:** February 27, 2007, 05:31 »

Quote from: Daneel on February 27, 2007, 02:42

And yes, all other software will also be affected by this, including the Firefox plugin. He made it very clear that they do not want to have their user's passwords placed in applications other than their website or software which they wrote themself.

I have used 2 different FTP programs, both of which I loaded my login and passwords into. I dont see the difference. Are they stopping FTP upload?? (maybe I shouldn't say this out loud in case they do?)

Daneel · « **Reply #23 on:** February 27, 2007, 05:34 »

Hi!

LOL! That's a good point. Someone should point this out to them on their "warning" thread in the forums...

What about Internet Explorer, Firefox ... is this software written by them? I sure input my user and password into this software all the time ;-)

I do think that leaf pointed out the real reason above ...

All the best,
Michael

maunger · « **Reply #24 on:** February 27, 2007, 07:03 »

unfortunately, their 'warning' thread is locked - otherwise i would post.

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Microstock Monitor will no longer be available :-( (Read 23009 times)

Daneel

CJPhoto

Daneel

Kngkyle

madelaide

Daneel

leaf

Daneel

leaf

Daneel

Bateleur

StockManiac

Kngkyle

berryspun

Kngkyle

StockManiac

berryspun

maunger

Daneel

Daneel

leaf

Daneel

CJPhoto

Daneel

maunger

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors