This is not just a legal/copyright question, but also a more ethical one. 
I would like your opinion about this.

I am asked to be the dog photographer on a "Dog Adoption" event in April.  It's a whole day, and I am supposed to open a "mini studio" (kind of enclosed corner area in a big hall) where visitors with dogs can have photos taken (just the dog, or boss/dog).  After the event, I will put all images on a website page, to be ordered in several sizes, or downloaded for a fixed price.  The organizers of the event will not be paying me anything, so it's just for the photo sales.

I don't expect to earn much of this, but it will (I think) be fun, and after the event I will certainly be able to say that I know how to take dog pics!

Now here's the question :  suppose I take one or more really cute photos of beautiful or funny dogs, and I think these could be stock worthy.  Can I submit them to microstock agencies?

I'm not talking about photos with people on it, and not about "show dogs".  Just "posing dogs" of visitors to an event.
There won't be time to explain any details about stock photography to the owners, or ask any (written) permissions, because I think I'll only have 10 minutes per dog or so.

What do you think ?  Both legally, and "morally" ?

This September and October, I have been cleaning up my portfolio on all sites. 
I just finished Shutterstock, Istockphoto, Dreamstime, Fotolia and 123rf and I'm working on Canstockphoto now.  Alamy is next.

However, I can't find a way to delete images on Bigstockphoto, Cutcaster and Graphic Leftovers
... and probably also on Rodeo (not sure, it's all Finnish ).

Before I send e-mails to these three sites with a list of the image numbers I want to remove, I'm just checking here :  Did I miss anything?  Does any one know a way to do this delete job by myself on BS/CC/GLO ?   (though I know from another time that GLO is very fast and helpful with requests like that).

And to the managers of these sites :  why can't we delete or disable our images on your sites? 
In most cases, "spring cleaning" is a very welcome thing, and microstock sites should be happy with contributors willing to do some cleaning ...

Just a question about logos :  should I remove the red cross logo from my photos?   It's on the sleeve of a jacket, and not easy to remove.  And in case the answer is yes, what can I leave on the sleeve?  For instance : a white square with a green cross, and the text around it removed?
This is a crop of the sleeve :   
Removing the entire logo would be a terrible job.

Quote :

We are very excited to announce the launch of "GL Personalities", our newest image collection of hand selected model-released people images.

Now this is a new problem for me :  I shot a few photos of a young woman holding a baby.  Only, the baby is a doll, a REALLY beautiful one, and it looks like a real baby.  It is so real, that any one would believe it is a real mother and baby portrait.

Knowing I would be in trouble with Model Releases, I wrote a "note to editor" while submitting the first image, explaining why I am only adding 1 model release.  
The result ?   6 out of 7 agencies already rejected it for missing MR.  Fotolia accepted it without a problem, so they apparently are the only ones that read my note.

Of course I can resubmit, but if I have to submit and resubmit every picture of that photo-shoot, I'll be quite irritated in the end.  So I thought :  what if I made a fake Model Release, pretending I'm the mother?  Who's going to sue me?   Would I be doing anything illegal that would get me into trouble with the agencies?

After three months without sales at Alamy, I was very surprised to see 4 images sold in one day ... until I saw at what price they were sold :  17 dollars for the 4 images together.  They were sold under the new "novel use" license, with means I get 50% of it = 8,5 dollars for 4 photos.

I almost forgot what "novel use" meant, so I checked my Alamy e-mail announcements and this is a quote :
The scheme is optional and shouldn�t be confused with Micropayment.

OK, I'll do my best and NOT confuse this with Microstock ... 

Does any one know about music copyright ? 

I made a composite photo of a musical instrument against a grungy background.  This background is a mixture of texture and an old page of sheet music.

I removed all text, so it's just the notes.  The music book I took the page from has a copyright mark dated 1913.  So both the publication and the music must be at least 96 years old.
Shutterstock refused the photo because of copyright reasons - so I expect other agencies to follow.

Did I make a mistake here?    Would mentioning the age of the music help?   

Like most of you, I work with a model release that suits every microstock site.  After a few adjustments, it seems it is good enough for every site and I have used it for 1,5 years without problems, including Istockphoto.
This week however, I had 16 images inspected, and 5 contained people.  Istock rejected all 5 because of "MR not compatible with Istock policy".   No reason given, so I don't know what would be missing suddenly.  (and FYI : each MR was for a different model, of a different shoot).
Among those 5 were 3 model releases they had already accepted several times before.
I am not going to contact the models to sign the Istock model release, so what should I do?

Does any one know what detail in a standard MR they are looking for at the moment? 
At least I 'd know what's wrong with it all of a sudden!

I got this strange e-mail from Fotolia (or from some one claiming to be Fotolia) :

"We regret to inform you that content 2422629 easter duckling looking up in a grass field was not accepted. An error appeared while uploading to the website and only a part of the file has been received. As a result, we can not review the file. This problem sometimes occurs when the upload server is busy or if the connection between your computer and our server has been interrupted.
We are sorry for this inconvenience and we encourage you to submit your file again.

This email has been sent to you by Fotolia. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please modify your profile by clicking here"

The strange thing is, that this image was successfully uploaded a week ago, got approved the day after, and is immediately found when I do a search.

I am definitely not going to click on "here" and will change my password.

Any one else got mails like this? 

This week I learned something interesting about copyright, that I thought I 'd share with you.

We all see photography as art, and it definitely is art, just like painting, sculpture and architecture.  We also know there are severe restrictions when we take photos of art.  However, there are forms of art that are less obvious, like flower arranging, ice sculptures or ... food art. 
 
This is what happened : I had been playing with food on a rainy day with my little nephews, and the results were quite fun.  So afterwards I took a few photos of fruit and vegetables with faces carved in them.  The pictures were really fun and probably saleable. 
Meanwhile I came across a book "Food Play" by Saxton Freymann, who made food carving a true art form and published lots of books about it.  The second page talked about copyright, not only for the pictures in the book, but also for the food designs itself. 
To avoid copyright problems, I wrote an e-mail to Freymann's company, and the answer was loud and clear (but very friendly) : I can create food art as much as I want, but whenever I try to sell something that resembles his designs (even slightly) I will meet his lawyers in court.
Well, I can hardly buy all of his books to check if my radish-guy or pepper-face resembles one or more in his books!
That's bad luck of course, so the microstock sites will have to do without my funny fruit & vegs, but it makes you think, doesn't it?

What if I make a nice flower arrangement, take photos of it and sell them on Shutterstock.  Couldn't there be somewhere in the world a person who specializes in the exact style I used for the flower arrangement, published twenty books about it (unknown to me), who challenges me in court for copying his style?

Suppose I find a "niche" subject of my own, like "flowers with carved faces" - who says there isn't someone who has been doing that for years and is truly famous for it? 
In short :  even if we create artwork ourselves as photography subjects, we are not 100% safe and can still be accused of copyright infringement ? 
Wow, scary idea!

I have this great dilemma : in july, I will be going on holidays for a week or max 10 days.  I usually know right away which country I like to go to.  The last three years I went to Wales, Scotland and France (Aquitaine). 
This year I haven't a clue.  So my question is :  with regard to stock photography, what would the best place, country or city be for a visit? 
Just to limit things : it should be in Europe (read : affordable for me), and please don't say Belgium, as I live there.
I'm not asking for the nicest places in Europe.  I'm just curious what would be the best selling subject / city / region, as I love photography where ever I go.  And what would be wiser : country side, coastal regions or cities?