OK, here is a stretch...

Going with the "papa" (aka father) theme, maybe they are relating clouds to heaven and God the father!  So they think of a synonym for father, and they come up with "papa" and they misspell the plural of the word as "pappas".

I know that it is unlikely, but weirder things have happened.

I'm not sure if I should report this typo to the sites, since if someone was searching for my images they would end up seeing these instead.

I don't know if it helps, but in spanish, "papa" is potato  and "papá" is father 

LOL.  The REAL Dale Hogan has something to say:

http://dalehogan.ca/blog/2007/12/20/the-dale-hogan-worm/

What I find amusing about this whole thing is that the "this is a worm/virus" whistle-blower steadfastly claims he didn't copy and paste keywords, "dale hogan" isn't in his metadata, and that he has been unjustly singled out for using inappropriate keywords. Yeah, right. Sure thing.

Take a look at the accounts that they suspended on Dreamtime. They are still up on some sites; the accounts they suspended contain a large proportion of images that closely resemble the photos and keywords of many of microstocks most successful photographers.

I guess it does not pay to plagiarized the hard work and artistic content of others.

Dale Hogan did a good job of outlining the situation in detail.  I am sure he and many others are tired of blatant copycats.

http://dalehogan.ca/blog/2007/12/20/the-dale-hogan-worm/

Quote from: HughStoneIan on December 20, 2007, 11:06
SS seems to be downplaying this, but it appears DT thought it was serious enough to disable all its files that have both Dale and Hogan in them.  Several bamboo texture files are affected (attention, Scrappinstacy!!).  This is really weird!

PS- here's the thread at SS, http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30113

they've locked it!

Late addition:  Wow!  DT didn't just disable those files, they suspended those contributors' accounts !!!

Quote from: sharply_done on December 21, 2007, 17:19
What I find amusing about this whole thing is that the "this is a worm/virus" whistle-blower steadfastly claims he didn't copy and paste keywords, ...

PB never copies anything, and he has made this very clear in the past. Every concept, every picture and probably every keyword is originally his. Never forget this when you are talking to or about PB!

Copying keywords!!    LOL...  Thanks guys, I would have never thought of that one on my own..  What laugh... "I didn't copy your keywords, but might have copies someone who did"

There's a great joke in there... but I'll keep it clean.   cheers, JC

http://dalehogan.ca/blog/2007/12/20/the-dale-hogan-worm/

Coming from my area of interest, here's a few for you. Interesting thread, maybe I should add my name to the keywords on my photos, but I don't think anyone would care to steal them anyway. 

Max Papis = race car driver, who's name is often spelled wrong as Pappas, now driving Grand-Am, was in Formula One and Champ Car, and others.
William Pappas = engineer for Gil de Ferran (retired)
Carl Hogan = owner of the car that Helio Castro-Neves drove in Champ Car

There you go, a Pappas and a Hogan, all in Champ Car racing in 1999. Dale isn't an uncommon name, and if you think Nascar, there are the well known, Senior and Jr.