Posted by nico_blue:

Who is getting fired? The standard of response of "we are working on it/we will look into it/we will fix it" isn't going to cut it on this one.

+1

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=312142&page=26

And +1 to your comment too, Sue. RE: Yuri sharing his legal team for a class action.

If I was one of the exclusive BDs losing $3k, $5k, etc., I would probably be on the phone with my attorney right now. 

+1

From what I've seen in the forums, most people including me are near double of last time. I think istock is lying to us again... its not like its the first time either. Seems like for all their 'hard work' (which no one knows a single detail about) in december to address the problem they are either grossly incompetent or don't care.

I think they're all of the above: Liars, incompetent, and don't care.

If an audit takes place, count me in, I will support.

Absolutely! Some of us have been asking for this for some time now. Before I had my forum privileges revoked, I remember participating in a discussion of that nature on the IS forums.

Audit, and - perhaps - class-action lawsuit. Because something ain't right (so many things, really), in a major way.

Was it this thread where we were discussing a lack of criticism from Black Diamonds?

As I said, Sean is the most willing to speak up and out, but others absolutely do chime in from time to time.

Like now:

Wow, I have to look forward to a $786.64 deduction next week... [sarcasm] Thanks istock! [/sarcasm]

What type of proof do we have that these are fradulent downloads that occurred other than istock's word which really doesn't mean much these days...

That was nico_blue here:

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=312142&page=18

And here's sodafish on page 17:

Seriously iStock. You are the one that should protect out work, that's why we pay you more than 60%. You failed and now WE have to pay for it? This will not be forgotten very soon.

And duncan1890 on page 19:

Could not even total it up for us pathetic

Looks like I will get hit for $1851.70 (if I added it up correctly) thats miles more than last time.

Currently have no trust or confidence in istock

And sdominick on page 22:

Wow.  $1259.98.  This...is...just...wrong.

And 4x6 on page 24:

I too have been here since 2002 and also briefly worked for istock. I too like this place better back in the old days when Bruce was around.

And jhorrocks on page 27:

RE: $3,008.36 clawback. Could be worse.  I could be Sean. Yes, very serious indeed.  This has got to stop.  Every passing week gives me less and less motivation to shoot and upload.  Alpaca farming sounds pretty good right about now.

A friend just wrote that they're taking over $800 from their IS account. Gah!

Creating layers of preferred contributors through Vetta, where status is determined by a small cell of insiders is an open invitation to corruption.

The interesting question is whether those who benefit are the same people who invented the scheme in the first place.

+1 and great question

Just found out that user Stalman is now "unbadged" for whatever reason.

And so another wheel comes off the bus. Very interesting.

no worries, I wouldn't expect you to divulge a source. I just wondered if he had made a public statement like Goldmund clearly has on his profile. I was just being nosy. ;-)

I didn't think you were asking me to divulge a source (you may be bi-winning, but I know you'd know better than to ask that in your right mind ). I thought you were digging for details. But as to his profile or elsewhere in IS, I'm not aware of any public post. There may be one. I just don't know (I don't frequent the forums nearly enough to have that sort of 411 these days), but I doubt it.

I didn't know about Goldmund either.  Interesting to see people taking a stand.

Sensor Spot is the only one I was aware of. Who are the other (now) ex-Inspectors (taking a stand)?

http://www.istockphoto.com/sensorspot

I'm finding particularly entertaining at least one contributor who, during the first round, claimed they felt wrong about keeping the money and that they didn't mind giving it back because it wasn't theirs to begin with. And now ...

sh*tty. I hope you're indeed able to prevent this kind of thing en masse. I understand it's probably a fine balance between protecting our images while not making customers jump through hoops to buy from iStock. I'm glad you're looking at changing the policy for situations involving fraud that contributors end up paying for in lost work and lost income already received. let's hope the measures you put in place make royalty refunds unnecessary in future.

What a flip-flop!  

ETA: My bad. It's back to the status quo in record time - with some impressive inner-post acrobatics, to boot!

I think this fraudulent activity has been dealt with relatively fairly. though I believe contributors should receive some compensation for the inconvenience. I discussed this with a friend tonight. in hashing it out, I used an analogy that the gallery where my work is sold gave thieves my work because they paid with bad cards. in addition to losing my work, which is now out there on the black market...I am told by the gallery owner that I need to pay them back royalties on the bad purchase of my work.

I hope TPTB understand that many contributors won't accept this again. we want to feel our work is safe above all else. and we're already paying you as our agent to ensure that is the case.

I certainly don't want to keep fraudulent royalties. I don't believe fraud should be positively reinforced in any way. and at least from my POV, it's not the money that bothers me. it's the insecurity I now feel whenever I get sales, and the insecurity I feel about my work being stolen. I don't want to keep paying for mismanagement of my work. and I think it's fair to say that the second wave of royalties refunds is a big red flag, as if the first one wasn't. anyways, I'm sure it's no picnic on the HQ end either. guess it is what it is.

BI-WINNING!

"We do not plan to do another mass pull of royalties like this again."

Again as in [never] ever? Or again as in because they don't anticipate any additional fraud? Or because they realize what a load of crap it is to do it at all, again. Or ever.

That statement leaves more questions than reassurance or answers.

There was a British TV series called Manor House which was a high-end reality show - people from today taken back to the ways of living of another era. The video diaries some of the participants kept noted how easily they fell into the roles assigned to them - the "upstairs" folks lording it over those playing servants even though that wasn't part of their real lives.

Where you stand depends on where you sit (I think a Don K. Price aphorism, but fits here).

I've seen that show! And you are so right. Also comes to mind that little experiment at Stanford that had to be shut down, because folks got a tad too carried away with their roles ...

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=stanford+prison+experiment

Quote from: Risamay on March 09, 2011, 13:35

Quote from: jsnover on March 09, 2011, 13:08

Once again, I'm happy to have a place here to continue discussions truncated over there.

I don't miss trying to have a discussion over there, at all. It's pretty well pointless, if you ask me.

I haven't quite given up hope that things might improve, but you probably guessed that as I still have the crown And in particular, there's only a small percentage of exclusives who hang out over here, so if I want to make a point and try to rouse other exclusives to take notice of something, there's still the place to try and do that.

I don't socialize there at all; it's strictly about trying to hold IS's toes to the fire about doing what they're supposed to and raising contributor-related issues. If I want to get an admin's attention, again, IS's forums is where I have to do that. While they're getting exceedingly good at ignoring us, we have managed to keep harping on things like missing subscription royalties and get our money (eventually).

Do you notice how sparse the Woo Yay thread in the off-topic forum is (and we're near the end of Winter; in the past it'd have been huge by now)? Winter 2006/7 257 posts; Winter 2010/11 30 posts... Guess no one feels much like celebrating

You are right. For the purposes you outline, IS is still the place to [attempt to, anyway] raise those conversations, points, issues. And if you make any headway, good on you. Seriously! That is something to WooYay, when it happens.

The death of the social aspect is too bad. I was looking forward to attending a 'lypse one day and meeting more people, but I just don't see that desire returning before such events are ancient history. It's just so [cl]ickish now. The folks I want to meet I'll do so one-on-one, but not in a group with too many other characters I'd likely get in a fight with (most of whom have badges).

No, I hadn't noticed that about the WooYay thread ... as I never look anymore! When I do pop over, I peek in the Main Discussion Forum and the Help Forum, and that's it. I *never* go to the Off-Topic area anymore. What's the point? On the rare occasion when I have peeked in, it couldn't be more boring. What did I say to Lobo it was turning into, per all the rules? The most boring corner of the Internet? Yeah. I think that's what I said. And that it is.