I'm not a member and before this I'd never heard of them, but the first four letters in their name is enough for me to form my own opinion about the type of site they are and I'm not even going to bother looking any further.

I'm waiting for bloodyexpensivenodiscounttopqualityexclusivephotos.com to start up before I look into joining any more stock sites.

Same here, keeps saying my username and/or password is invalid.

Well no there's a difference between isolated and high key.

What I'm saying is that I think some inspectors see the image for the picture and understand what Bruce said when he told them to find a reason to accept the image when they can, and others maybe don't understand it as much and will reject for any flaws they may find which in some instances can be irrelevant.

Like I pointed out, an image such as the one you described is obviously isolated but has slightly degraded through the jpeg compression which is no fault of yours, it's irrelevant because as I decribed above by simply raising the threshold by one or two will give the isolated result required, an image can be isolated on any colour background, the fact that you've done it on white and at a threshold of 0 it shows some slight jaggies around the edge of the subject is neither here nor there.

Research shows that any serious photo buyer is more concerned about the quality of the subject and how it's lit rather than how 100% perfect the background is, and if you want to be really in depth about the whole isolated issue the majority of macro sites actually advice you to shoot isolated subject on a grey background because it lessers the effect of light spill on the subject.

To remove a well lit subject from a plain background is a piece of cake whether it's white, grey or bright pink.
Some I believe miss this point and would reject a great photo as a result.

The isolated on white paranoa is a microstock thing, in macro it's referred to as a 'cut out' and that's what buyers use to search for.

So basically what I'm saying is that yes it can be annoying but I wouldn't go out of my way to change my workflow just to suit the odd one or two inspectors on iStock.

Oh and isolated is when the subject is uniformly well lit on a plain background so that it can be lifted, high key (although similar to isolated in so much that you want to avoid shadows) is when the subject or whole image deliberately and obviously appears over exposed.

"the world's best selling stock photographer, Yuri Arcurs"

That's a very bold statement Crestock have made on his behalf, and in true Crestock tradition they even contradict themselves:

"Andres Rodriguez is officially the best-selling microstock photographer in the world" http://www.crestock.com/blog/photography/top-10-pro-stock-photography-tips-27.aspx

 

   I had another picture of coffee beans rejected for the word Cappuccino.   True there was no Cappuccino there�..but coffee beans make cappuccino�to me that seems relevant. 

In all fairness you're missing the point, yes coffeee beans can be used to make cappuccino but by the sound of your image it doesn't portray that, most people use coffee to help them stay awake but you wouldn't put sleep in as a keyword would you.

It's a bit like putting the word 'sex' into every shot with a person in it, because sex is used to make people 

I agree iStock inspectors sometimes have some wierd habits regarding keywords but in this instance I don't think they're wrong.

Personally I'd wish they sort the best match fiasco out, my sales have taken a nosedive since their latest re-structure 

I would buy from Adorama if the deal was right. Here in the UK, prices are way more expensive than in the US. I have bought lenses from the US in the past, and saved loads of money.
There is a vast customer base just waiting to be tapped!

I'll second that

I recommend you Pixmac (....pixmac.com). It is new microstock agency.

Wow a new microstock agency, just what the industry needs.

It provides interesting pictures from $0.5 and good earnings for photographers.

Are you providing a 200% commission for photographers then? 

I wouldn't rush out and hire any reviewing staff if I were you.

I might have worked around it on my own:  duplicated the layer, reduced the levels so it's black, added a heavy gaussian blur and reduced the opacity. Now I'm working on making it look natural, almost there. 

Yep you're on your way there, and from what you've described I'm not sure drop shadow is what you wanted anyway, distort,warp and skew around until you're happy.

I'd be interested to see your final result.

P.S.  Alamy reviewers aren't photographers - I applied for a job there as QC, it's just down the road from me. 

Yes they are and you need to have a recognised photography qualification, maybe that's why you didn't get in!

http://www.alamy.com/jobs/stock-photography-digital-images-quality-controller.asp

Check the first line of the 'Essential requirement'

Hi Brian,
I've sent you a PM.

are you really making that much with them? I got paid automatically at the end of last year but have only made a few dollars since then

Enough to reach payout each month, even though I've only uploaded a few images due to the stoneage uploading system, I think there's huge potential with the site but for me there's too many problems there at the moment to commit any more time uploading.

I'm not a lawyer, but here in Australia the main issue has nothing to do with copyright. Under our Trade Practices Act using a brand name in a commercial image can imply that that company (brand) endorses the product or service being advertised - I think its called passing off.

A bit off topic but 'pasing off' would actually be what the person above described in relation to the fake goods, for instance someone selling a watch branded Smatch, it would be considered to be similar to the registered trademark and product of Swatch.

What you describe here in the UK would be 'false endorsement' under trademark laws, but then there are lots of laws that cover this sort of thing, either way you're right.

Well I studied law, am admitted to practice, have practiced for a number of years, yet am still not qualified to give specific legal advice on an open slather basis. And I'm sorry but you do have to be qualified in law to get a proper understanding of it. Even with an exceptional knowledge of the law it there is rarely a simple answer that applies in all contexts. The answer to a  given question will be very different if you're talking about a dispute in the US to the same issue Canada or in Australia. Throw in non-English speaking and civil law jurisdictions (where images are also potentially used) that have very different legal foundation and the problem becomes even more difficult.

For someone that studied law you should be well aware of the terms and conditions of the sites you submit to, and you should also be aware of the legal implications of submitting images that contain content subject to property ownership legislation, irrelevant of where you live or sell your images.

Your ipod example isn't a trademark or copyright violation by the photographer. Disputes between company A and the use of their trademarks do not commonly involve photographers - it is the use of an image that violates a trademark, not the existence of an image with a trademark on it.

Actually it's not the use of an image that violates a trademark, it's the use of the trademark that violates trademark legislation. An image is just that an image.

The issue with trademarks isn't related to RM as oposed to RF in any way. If that were the case, presumably Getty wouldn't offer RF images that have trademarks in them in their collection. (try doing a Getty RF search for "Coca-Cola").

I was surprised by your comment so I did a check, there are five search results for coca cola on Getty RF, two don't feature any branding, two are archive street scenes that have a coca cola billboard in them which I suppose could be considered incidental and the last is of some hats in vietnam made from old drinks cans some of which are coca cola.

My personal view is that the sites are actually creating a potential problem for themselves if they provide the impression that images are carefully screened etc. to ensure that there are no trademarks. If some material slips through that does contain such content and becomes a problem, a customer would naturally look to the agency as the first port of call to sue. They have a direct contractual relationship with that agency, and that agency has effectively represented that it has screened the content. They're unlikely to sue a contributor who may well only be known to them by a screen-name, possibly lives in Uzbekistan and most probably doesn't have any assets in the first place. On top of that there are legal barriers to suing such as privity of contract. While there may be scope for an agency to claim indemnity from a contributor by virtue of the representations made in the supply agreements, I can't really see that as being a realistic option for any of them. An agency suing a contributor would be commercial suicide.

Most sites make it clear in their buyers agreements that they make no representations as to content, whether a buyer reads those terms or not is their choice, and most agencies make it very clear that the contributor is responsible for the content they provide.

One thing we do agree on is that cases such as these are very rare and are littered with legal obstacles, whether or not a photographer would ever get sued is something we could all argue about for a long time, and this was not the original point anyway, the original point was whether you can submit images featuring branding as RF and whether it is the buyers responsability to check the image.

I'm quite clear on both these points and I still say that it is the photographer who is responsable for the content of the image they submit and if it is sold as RF branding should be removed.