"I�m sorry if some of you microstock photographers are pissed off at us photographers that have the talent and business sense to make a successful living at photography, but that�s just the way it is. If you want to be a serious photographer you need to step up to the plate and prove yourself. It takes a hell of a lot more than just a few pretty pictures to make you a pro photographer."

"Now I don�t usually participate in these forums because I honestly don�t have the time to sit around chatting about this crap. But I was searching around for some info on Micro..... "

So here we have a photographer that has "the talent and business sense to make a successful living at photography" searching for some info on micro.

Obviously their existing talent and business sense isn't working out to be as successful as they'd like.

Quote from: RT on January 24, 2009, 06:20

...just to correct you the "one pressing the charges" is known as the 'claimant' not a plaintiff, and the ones facing the charges is known as a 'defendant'.

But my point I was making was not in regards to who has to press the charge, it was regarding his comment "prove that the defendant knew it was illegal and intentionally try to defraud" which is different for criminal and civil cases, and over here any IP legal issues would be covered under civil jurisdiction.

Sorry for the confusion, your answer appeared to me to imply that the burden was on the defendant. Here, across the pond,it is plaintiff or 'claimant'. But "thank you for the lecture" and there's no reason to be condescending.

No appologies neccesary, I'm just a grumpy brit, one thing I'm sure we'll both agree on is that generally speaking these things are settled long before they ever reach a court.

RT you're British right? All common law countries have the burden of proof on the "one pressing charge", aka the plaintiff. The difference between civil and criminal is not who has the burden of proof, but the level. In civil case the burden of proof is by a preponderance of the evidence, whereas criminal requires beyond a reasonable doubt.
necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit

yingyang0

Yes I'm British and thank you for the lecture but I'm well aware of the law in my country, just to correct you the "one pressing the charges" is known as the 'claimant' not a plaintiff, and the ones facing the charges is known as a 'defendant'.

But my point I was making was not in regards to who has to press the charge, it was regarding his comment "prove that the defendant knew it was illegal and intentionally try to defraud"
which is different for criminal and civil cases, and over here any IP legal issues would be covered under civil jurisdiction.

You are correct about the level of proof.

Incidentally - "to defraud" is a criminal matter and carries a prison sentence, this would not be tried in a civil court, but I presume he just chose the wrong terminology.

If someone pressed charges on the contributor. It is the onus of the one pressing charge to prove that the defendant knew it was illegal and intentionally try to defraud.

That's criminal law - 'Innocent until proven guilty' , IP is civil law and doesn't work that way, over here anyway.

When you ticked off all the editorials limitations for Alamy, for example, you show that you knew it was not meant for commercial usage, and insisted upon Editorials Only.
That more or less covers your indemnity. The fact that the buyer did not understand this, does not make you liable. You set it up accordingly , as Alamy intended, and you intended. If the buyer so misunderstand the application, the buyer should clarify this with Alamy or the site that represents you.
But you have done all to show to the court, in the event of a suit, that you knew it should only be Editorial and you set the options as such. So the contributor is not going to be liable. BECAUSE he did NOT intentionally defraud the system.
The court does not penalize someone who FOLLOWS the rule.

I don't understand your argument that's what I said isn't it !!

But this applies to Alamy, not any mictostock site that I'm aware of.

I want to thank everbody who have posted helpful hints for newcomers. They have been most helpful to me. THANK YOU! As for being competition -unless "yu-all" fly airplanes and take photos from them - I am no competition to anybody.
Smiling Jack

There's a stock agency in the UK that specialises in shots from flying taxis, if you haven't already you should take a look, I believe they're quite successful, if you have trouble finding them PM me and I'll look it up.

As a sidenote, shouldn't you be concentrating on flying the thing instead of taking photos.

Okay okay, let's rewind a little. What is the legal consequence of this? Is there an expert here? Who is liable? The photographer? we'll say who is not well-informed about the copyright restriction;
 the buyer who uses the images , we assume since they are in the business they know about  Intellectual Property Infringement,
or the agency, who obviously know the rules and regulations of the need for MR, PR,etc.

Can someone stand up and confirm who is liable?

Well there is no definitive answer because the laws are different in each country, and it's dependant of who registered what and where.

But say for instance a major car manufacturer saw one of it's products being represented and they thought it was in breach of their IP (there's four types of IP) then you can be pretty sure they would have registered it worldwide.

As for who's liable again it's dependant on where and how, but in general terms the brown stuff runs downhill if you get my meaning, and speaking from experience in the UK if it does ever go to court ( most don't they settle out of court )the photographer will in most cases be there gripping the rails ! Because at the end of the day it is us the photographers that are selling our work, agencies will face the music but in terms of the big one's like Getty, Corbis, Alamy etc they pretty much have themselves covered in their t&c's , the only microsite that I'm aware of that is wise to this fact is iStock.

My best advice to anybody re IP is that if you're going to sell a photo of something and it's blatently obvious who made it don't bother, not as RF anyway.

And no I wouldn't call myself an expert and I don't think anybody would claim to be, because it's a legal battlefield.

One final point in regards your comment about the photographer not being well informed about copyright law, certainly here in the UK ignorance of the law is not a defence.

If you're not anonymous then it's fairly easy to work out someone's approximate income anyway.

Really, hope the tax man doesn't find out 

Outside the  US rules which usually mess with general worldwide rules its obvious copyright problem. Any car design, postal stamp, coin, map etc. HAS ITS CERTAIN author who is the copyright holder regardless if he/she paid some bureau for it or not. That means even shooting small part of a car (eg. front light) is a copyright violation, because it was designed and it can be recognized, logo or not. Same with all those pics of cars with typical porsche or BMW design - cloning out the logo isnt the solution. Whole car including every little detail is copyrighted. Post stamps, coins and maps has also author/designer.
Copying one page from the book is bad example. Copying part (20% mentioned on example above) of a book and selling it is ok then? In every book is written "no copies in any form under any circumstancies", isnt it? Same is usually on maps. Even small portion of map is still copyrighted.

Not on Dreamstime, I've just had an exchange on Dreamstime about (another) blatent infringement on their site, their response - Achilles edited the thread removing my post and sent me a personal message asking me to watch my attitude!
I gave him a clear explanation of the infringement and even gave him an example of where BMW had taken another company to court over a lesser example of IP infringement, and yet rather than act or do what I suggested and contact an IP lawyer or BMW themselves he chooses to ignore it.
It saddens me to see an agency such as Dreamstime being ignorant to the law and not protecting it's contributors for whom some don't know any better.

Not one agency asked me to upload model release for this image.

Doesn't surprise me, you should put in the keywords Barack Obama now! or thinking about it maybe not 

dudebun

Personally you haven't ruffled my feathers but I can see why you think you may have upset some.

For what its worth I think you may have come here thinking this is just a forum for some wannabe microstockers who dream of the lights and glamour of the big stock world, many here ( 2 others that I know of who have answered this thread ) have been and are successful on sites like Getty, Corbis, Alamy etc and submit to microstock sites as another revenue source, so the 'ten sets of eyes reviewing team' and 'niche style' just ain't gonna wash because we know the industry and can spot a bit of corporate BS a mile of.

Your comment "Do not come to Photocase.com, you will only waste your time and ours" is I'm sorry to say not what I would expect of a representative from a stock site, and as I mentioned earlier saying that saleability is not priority one is IMO quite possibly the worst thing you could say, what would possess anybody to upload to a stock agency that isn't concerned with selling their work.

I had a look at your site and I don't see anything that would encourage me to upload there, but good luck for the future.

It's an extremely easy one to answer, can the work be identified as belonging to a certain copyright holder from the image, and depending on what country you're in depends on by whom it can be identified, so for instance in some countries the copyright holder may know it's his but unless an independant third party could identify the difference betweeen his and a very similar one then it wouldn't matter a jot.

In the case of the image in question I'd say not, but not being a map nerd the pink square thingy maybe should have been removed.

Whitechild - Re your eye, an eye is like a fingerprint and if someone really wanted to they could identify you by it. Out of interest did you supply a model release, if not they should have asked for one.
I must say though I'm hardly surprised nobody knew it was your eye.

Just like cooking. You can give all your friends your recipes, but make sure you leave out at least one key "secret" ingredient, or how you process the food.  

I agree but a lot of people can't help themselves, I guess it's an ego thing wanting others to think they're the best or something. By the way can I have your recipe for lemon ice cream.

I'm more of the opinion (note that!) that telling people what sells, or how to shoot, doesn't do much. Most don't follow up, many don't listen, some don't have the experience to use what they are told, and most of the time, lighting is key to making a great photo. It's expensive to control the light and have the equipment necessary to manipulate lighting on a professional level. 1) Lighting is more important than the camera in many cases.

Totally agree

2) Editing what you have is a whole different venture. Not that I can turn a silk purse into a sows ear (or is it supposed to be the other way around?   ) But learning how to use the photo editing software correctly, is often just as important for making a good photo as the source equipment that took the picture.

3) An eye for composition. This you can't give away, sell or tip off as a secret, because it's either learned through exposure to art, or in some very rare cases, have some natural ability to see things in a wonderful and creative way, in their minds eye, before they shoot the picture.

I agree with both these points to an extent, but a lot of stock on microstock sites "ain't no art" and a blind monkey could do it if they were shown the way, I'm just saying don't take bubbles by the hand and lead him down the path.


I'm not saying don't share information and Pete you of all people know I quite often share info albeit not generally in a public forum, but my point is, this thing we call the micrstock community is fast turning into a marketplace for the lazy f*****rs who aren't interested in learning the 'art' but just want the quick way to screw those of us that do, and I see far too many people who are willing to help them do it.

And on that note watch out for threads like this and many others:

http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54659

It will be interesting to see how many responses it gets, am I right in thinking the OP's hidden message is clear?

Now it appears I've taken the Mr Nasty mantle away from Sean, sorry Sean.

You may have hit on something here Richard.  Perhaps they are sharing false tips in an attempt to mislead the unsuspecting newbs astray...? 

I think you're giving them more credit than they're due, some of the 'tip sharers' on SS aren't that clever.