Quote from: tickstock on December 19, 2014, 11:05

Quote from: roberto lusso on December 19, 2014, 11:03

Is it the power of the microstockgroup forum?

Unlikely, most of the people that have any say on the sites have been run out of here a long time ago.  Very few admins and influential contributors come onto this forum compared to a few years ago.

Also many of these have been run out of iStock or have less influence or stake there compred to a few years ago.

I wasn't just talking about iStock, important people from lots of sites used to come here and now very few do and very rarely at that. 

If it was from thinkstock it won't show up until a month after it was sold.

Quote from: tickstock on December 18, 2014, 14:59

Quote from: Monty-m-gue on December 18, 2014, 14:48

Quote from: tickstock on December 18, 2014, 14:45

Quote from: Monty-m-gue on December 18, 2014, 14:43

OFFSET is 30% royalty

Ok so that is worse for contributors than Getty RM.

But at least prices are fixed at OFFSET. I removed everything from Getty because many sales to high value clients were comparable to Microstock.

I guess that's because of the difference between RM and RF.   I know on Alamy I've had some RM sales that recurred whereas if they were sold as RF I would only have had one sale.

I don't follow. Why would they only make one sale as RF..??

Because RM sales have limits.  I've had a few one time use sales for $50-100 that were then licensed again a few months later by the same company.  $100 isn't too much but if it happens a few times it adds up.  If those same sales were of an RF image (like at Offset licensing RF images to compete with RM sales) they would only need to licensed once and then they could use them over and over.  A lot of RM sales are lower priced because of limited usage.

OFFSET is 30% royalty

Ok so that is worse for contributors than Getty RM.

More agencies will emerge to challenge Stocksy and OFFSET providing higher-end RF imagery at Macro(ish) prices. More and more high end shooters will abandon the Micros as royalties become increasingly unsustainable - clients will follow them.

Please let this come to fruition....

Stocksy and Offset are not microstock sites pricing at macrostock levels, they are macrostock sites pricing at microstock (midstock) levels.  They are trying to take customers away from more expensive agencies (going after the RM market with cheaper RF images) not trying to convert lower paying customers into higher paying ones.

Quote

Unfortunately I'm currently an exclusive at IS ( with the emphasis on 'currently'

I would put emphasis on "Unfortunately"

There's nothing unfortunate about it, they decided to be exclusive and they have all the power to change their situation.  Take some responsibility for yourself.  This thread and the one about Peter Lik show a lot about some people's character, I don't see how it's a bad thing when other people are doing well.  Call me crazy but I like to see others succeed at photography.

I think what is getting lost is that it is not the nature of the shot that is at issue. The model is not UNHAPPY with the photos. She was actively using them to represent her, though she does not, in my professional view, have any great potential in the field. It seems quite likely that the images were stolen/pirated from a free-stock site or used outside of SS TOS. I have had both happen to me (pirated and SS download exceeding TOS). Neither of which are the photographer's fault. If her suit succeeds it would have a profound chilling effect on model shots/microstock.

Has the photographer set up a defense fund? How can we help?

First she's claiming the release is not valid.  If I understand it correctly she's saying that the photographer promised that there was no way someone could get the photos to be used at adult sites and by uploading them to Shutterstock he knew someone could take them and use them at adult sites. 

Quote from: rene on December 10, 2014, 09:29

Loose a friend or being sued for for 0.28-0.38 is not worth for me.

I agree. I do shoot 90% of the time People, including underwear shots. If the photographer will be held liable despite having done nothing wrong I may consider changing my strategy for microstock. His promise to the model that the photos won`t appear on such sites (porn and alike) was based on the TOS of Shutterstock which indeed forbid such usage (please see the original post of the photographer. I assume he told the truth and did not opt in sensitive use as an option to his benefit).

The question now is:

1. Does the court recognize the "verbal agreement" despite not being written down in the release and how will it be interpreted since his promise is based on the TOS of SS .
2. If so, if the photographer can be held liable for the breach of the TOS of a client of SS despite not being personally involved in any transaction.
3. If SS finds or wants to find a way to pass all responsibility through to the photographer.

# 1 is the least interesting point to me. I never promise any model anything specific. Usually if a newbie Model asks me where the images appear I tell them frankly that nobody can really know.  #2 and #3 may have a high impact on my long term strategy and may change the business and its legal fineprints ultimately.

I'm not a lawyer so I can't say for sure but I think a verbal agreement is just as binding as a written agreement, although in this case there will probably be some argument over what the exact wording was.  I doubt anyone would want to promise that they have any real control over what people do with images once they go on the internet, if that kind of promise is even possible.  If the court finds the document was fraudulent then I doubt Shutterstock would stick up for the photographer at that point.

Perhaps the photographer and the model were both naive for believing that Shutterstock would take action against such blatant violations.

From what I can tell it doesn't look like they are complaining that Shutterstock didn't take any action, the complaint seems to be that Shutterstock licensed images to the companies that violated the TOS in the first place.  It seems impossible for Shutterstock to know which companies are planning to violate the TOS in advance.

Quote from: tickstock on December 07, 2014, 15:19

Quote from: Mantis on December 07, 2014, 14:55

Why should that responsibility be thrown on us?

That's the just the way it is.  You can cry and moan about it or you can work within the system and get your images seen.  I choose to put my work on iStock and since I want my images licensed I do the keywording how they want and if there aren't keywords in the CV that I think should be there I request them to be added.  I don't see much point in whining about it, I'd rather spend my time getting my images sold.

I am not crying and moaning, I am stating a fact. I have adapted because it is necessary that one does. All I am saying is that they didn't have to create this monstrosity of a system called controlled vocabulary. Even you, Ticktock, I am sure would love to have a more user friendly system at IS, specifically the key wording strategy. They have complicated things by now requiring prioritizing words, forcing contributors to go through that time consuming process.  Many people like me who have been in this for, say, more than 8 years, have to keep two sets of keywords, one for IS and one for everyone else. You can defend them all you want (as you always do) but their system SUCKS!!

I actually like the CV, I would rather see the uploading process be even more time consuming if it gave better results.  I like that Alamy makes you break your keywords up into different categories, it's better now that iStock has some keywording order relevance.  If you are going to spend time, money, and effort to make your images it doesn't seem like too much to spend a few minutes keywording your images well if it will help them sell.

The CV for instance has the same results if you search in English for 'USA' and in Spanish for 'estados unidos' whereas on Shutterstock those two searches come up with radically different results.  The search in Spanish on shutterstock comes up with many irrelevant images first and more than 4 times the total number of results.  The point of the CV is to have it translated into many different languages and continue to get good results, in this case it looks to me like the iStock search has done much better.  The English search at SS looks good but the Spanish search looks pretty bad overall.

Does this work for missing CV definitions too? I have a few that would make my life better.

Quote from: tickstock on December 07, 2014, 10:31

ShadySue, just post the keyword you want added in the forum or send a message to ducksandwich.   With all the complaining about keywords not being in the CV you do here you could easily have solved your problems months ago.  You say you don't care about it but by all the posts you make about this it sure seems like you do. 

There is a quick and easy way to fix your problems but you choose not to do it, I don't get it.  Why spend your time shooting, editing, keywording, uploading, complaining, searching, etc.. etc.. for your images if you won't do something so simple that might be necessary for it to be licensed?

It all depends on the case I'm sure but for ShadySue's example I think they would probably add the common and latin names for a bird species that was already accepted into the collection.  Some different definitions aren't different enough to warrant an extra term but it only takes a second to request a keyword to be added so it can't hurt to try.

ShadySue, just post the keyword you want added in the forum or send a message to ducksandwich.   With all the complaining about keywords not being in the CV you do here you could easily have solved your problems months ago.  You say you don't care about it but by all the posts you make about this it sure seems like you do. 

There is a quick and easy way to fix your problems but you choose not to do it, I don't get it.  Why spend your time shooting, editing, keywording, uploading, complaining, searching, etc.. etc.. for your images if you won't do something so simple that might be necessary for it to be licensed?