Here is what you get if you try to send a DMCA to Google

"IMPORTANT: If you knowingly misrepresent that material or activity is infringing, you may be subject to liability for damages. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact a lawyer. Please also note that your message to us may be forwarded to the party who filed the original copyright complaint. "

A warning that you can be sued if you try to protect your work, and that the person, often criminals in the case of people running warez sites, who stole it will be given your contact details. Until recently it had a specific example of a case where someone had lost a case and had to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Here is what you get in a tiny font, grey on grey, when you are presented with an image on Google image search.

"Images may be subject to copyright"

No warnings there of what may happen if you use the images, I wonder why? 

Hi guys, I thought I would jump in and say a big thank you to Leo for getting this off the ground!

For those of you that don't know I did some beta testing for Leo on a super early version of what has turned into Symbiostock, my first sale was way back in March 2012. My site atstockillustartion.com is still running on that much cruder version of the software, last month it still made me more than Bigstockphoto, Yaymicro, Graphiclefovers, Vectorstock or any of the other small sites. That was with no promotion at all and without the new networking features, just uploading like on any of the agency sites.

I have just hired Leo to get me up to date with latest version and can't wait to see the results!

Christos

This is just what Leo was working on, I haven't been in touch for a couple of weeks as I've been really busy, but I'll drop him an email and let him know this threads here.
This is the initial discussion about it:

http://www.microstockgroup.com/selling-direct/new-project-need-feedback-or-ideas-please/msg272799/#msg272799

One problem would be that if people pay upfront  but have appalling images, they will have to be included in the collection.  If I was starting this, I would want to select good quality portfolios to start with and to be able to have some way to reject those that upload junk and inappropriate images.

I don't think that it would be like a traditional agency where  the collection is curated. I think that the buyer will have the option of searching the artist/ photographers site they are on or be able to "search the network" if they can't find what they are looking for. Maybe buyers will use it to find a photographer they like and then search within the photographer's own site?

Something that concerns me is if someone wants a site on the network and they are violating copyrights or something like that. I guess that people would have to be able to DMCA to get sellers removed from the network?
I am also thinking that having to pay for a site and use of the network will discourage most people with illegal or unsalable images, because they would not be able to get a return (if their work is no good) or get booted from the network and lose money (if they are stealing images)

I know Leo is open to suggestions at this stage so I am sure he will take your comments on board.

As far as I can work out it will involve having new Wordpress site rather than being integrated into any existing install. I am not sure how familiar he is with ktools, but I have sent him the link to this thread. He is on here from time to time, so I guess he will be on to discuss the ins and outs. He is in the US and I am in the UK so I think he is probably asleep right now!

The main idea is definitely to have a cross search working, the idea about charging for the site, and then maybe a subscription charge for being on the network was one I have run by, Leo. The issue is finding funding so the development can continue prior to launch.

Do you think that people would be prepared to pay into a Kickstarter project to get this off the ground? I know I would, but I have had contact with Leo for some years and know how passionate he is about it and that he has the skills to make it work.

ETA with regards to my site, just to clarify, I didn't have the site before. It was all created via Leo's template. I just had to fill in the blanks and upload my portfolio, all the image pages were automatically created and data extracted from the images. There is also a section on the dashboard for creating discounted collections just by identifying which images you want in them and uploading a cover image. Like these:
http://www.atstockillustration.com/collections/ 

Hi, Microstockgroup people, the reason I am posting is to get some feedback on a project.

There has been some talk on the forum over the years about contributors finding a way to sell directly while overcoming the drawbacks of each of having a limited number of images.

Well, Leo Blanchette, the illustrator famous for those orange men business mascots, has come up with a great idea for interlinking portfolio sites and is enough of a programming whizz to pull it off.

He kindly set me up with a site so he could test out some of the functionality. It is basically a one click upload site, fantastically easy to use.

My site is here:

http://www.atstockillustration.com/

and Leo's is here:

http://www.clipartillustration.com/

I have been getting decent sales even with just the two sites on the network and zero promotion by me, and kept 100% of the money paid by the buyer.
Apparently that is because of some great SEO stuff Leo has been working into the way the site works. I think the real strength of the idea is that it can work as a network of contributors all bringing in traffic.

The idea is to eventually make it possible to search across a network of sites from any one contributors site. Each contributor would have control over their own site, pricing and so on and get paid directly by the buyer.

If you don't want to sell direct it can also be used as a "referral engine" to your other agents like IS, so exclusives may get something out of it to.

So here's the problem, Leo has already spent a lot of time working on this, and will have to spend a lot more to get the project complete. I have been racking my brain trying to work out how he could finance the model. I have got permission from him to post here to ask if anyone has any ideas about how this could raise revenue, I think a lot of us would like to be able to be part of something like this, but how would you be prepared to pay for it? Monthly subscription? One off payment for the site? Should he maybe Kickstarter it? Any ideas or feedback would be very much appreciated.

I have been trying to upload my illustrations and have found the upload process to be really frustrating.
The uploader itself is very good, but once you come to "creating the products" you sometimes have to sit and watch a loader graphic for ages when you select a category then again when you click to move on to the next image. Very annoying if you have over a thousand uploads to do. Multitabbing doesn't help either.
Even more frustrating is that you can't contact anyone through the site, you clicking "Contact Us" takes you to some radial buttons, when you click the right one you get sent to the FAQ but clicking the "If your question is not answered in our help section please contact us" link just gets you back to radial buttons so you get stuck in a loop.
Infuriating.

Hi mtkang
The actual pixel dimensions of the image dictate the "quality" (the number of little pixel squares that make up the image). The ppi (or dpi for printing) tells it how to display or print.
If want to just change how it displays or prints by default but keep the image fundamentally the same then you can Open the the Image Size dialogue box, put in the desired ppi then put in the original dimensions in the hight/width boxes, which will have changed with the ppi (do this without closing and reopening the box, or you will downsize then upsize with horrible results).
You will know if you do it right because PS wont have to make any calculations, the change will happen instantly and the image should look no different.

Hi everyone in the German speaking threads.
I am not a German speaker so feel like a bit of a fraud being here. I know this is a bit cheeky but I am trying to translate some captions in a beautiful book about German art. Google translate is fine for the most part but I keep hitting the odd word that wont translate, and I'm never sure if that's because it is a proper name or if I'm miss reading the Gothic script, or just if it's an antiquated word, not modern German.
If anyone could tell me what "Creglinger" in the context of Church Altars and wood carving I would be really grateful.
Many thanks,
Christos

Thank you all so much for the support.
I assumed that they had taken down all the images involved, but when I checked the person who stole the images still had their files up while mine had been removed.
I don't blame anyone on here for the confusion, I appreciate everyone looking out for each others copyright and protecting the community's intellectual property.
I am shocked that Shutterstock took down the images without making sure they had it right, especially as I have been selling there for so many years.
I just hope they sort it out quickly.