Quote from: For Real on October 26, 2021, 02:23

Quote from: leremy on October 26, 2021, 01:19
Hi Matt. How long will the my free vector content being free after they are accepted into the program?

Will it be forever free? Or will there be a time period where it will become paying-asset again?

if it is the same as the photos than one year after they select and usually pay you. Once one year is up it goes back to the regular status (paying asset) on your portfolio.

Yep, that's what I understand. But I hope Matt can re-confirm this.

Hi Matt. How long will the my free vector content being free after they are accepted into the program?

Will it be forever free? Or will there be a time period where it will become paying-asset again?

Thanks guys. It is working now

https://www.123rf.com/contributor/dashboard?

Seems like the page is down when I go to Upload page.

It shows a blank white page.

What about you guys?

Quote from: Firn on August 31, 2021, 18:37

Quote from: Charlene on August 31, 2021, 17:19
Shutterstock is also having new policy to stop contributor for using keyword like "diabetic" or "handicapped parking" because it sounds inappropriate.

They want you to use "a person with diabetes" or "accessible parking" now.

I didn't have any problems getting images with the word "diabetic" in keywords and title approved on SS just last week.

They said they this guideline will be starting on 14 Sept 2021.

What I concern most is that they allow buyers to resell the artwork digitally. Even though it says they are very strict on this and doesn't allow the new produced artworks to be competing with the original artwork, but it sounds like a grey area. Who is going to monitor this and say what can be done or not. Then you will have to fight for every cases in the future.

Furthermore, all microstock sites need their contributors to 100% produce and own anything they submit. But now, somebody take your artworks from CreativeFabrica, modify it, and upload to microstock sites, and claiming they have license to do so. This will be conflicting and raise a lot of problem.

Quote from: LizC on August 12, 2021, 15:19
You don't need to buy anything there to list. I've made more money with Creative Fabrica than I made on the two microstock sites I'm on combined, and I haven't even sold that much there. Subscription sales are shared with all the contributors so for someone like me who gets occasional sales it's well worth it.

Hi LizC. Can you share which two microstock sites you are comparing with?

And is it true that someone can just buy your artwork at CreativeFabrica, altered it, and resell at sites like Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, and etc?

Anyone contributing to CreativeFabrica? What is your experience with them?

Quote from: Zero Talent on June 28, 2021, 13:34

Quote from: leremy on June 28, 2021, 12:45
Someone download my bestseller and resell it at Etsy. I report for infringement. Etsy took it down. Now the thief counter claim it. Etsy says they cannot take side. Etsy says "Unless you notify us of a court action seeking a court order against the allegedly infringing member, the member may reactivate or repost the material specified in the counter notice". I am determine to take a court order, but how can I do it?

Try Copytrack.com. I wrote them describing a similar case and they are willing to pursue it. Now I'm waiting for the infringing material to be reinstated, before engaging them.

Wow thanks. This will be a multi million dollar industry if CopyTrack is able to pull this off. There are tons of demands for our kind of case, while there is almost no services for this yet. Demand is way way way over the supply for what we need here, and I think I want to give a try too.

Someone download my bestseller and resell it at Etsy. I report for infringement. Etsy took it down. Now the thief counter claim it. Etsy says they cannot take side. Etsy says "Unless you notify us of a court action seeking a court order against the allegedly infringing member, the member may reactivate or repost the material specified in the counter notice". I am determine to take a court order, but how can I do it?

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on June 15, 2021, 09:15

Quote from: Zero Talent on June 15, 2021, 05:16


What do you do if some guy shamelessly claims that he made my photo 32 years ago? LOL. He refused to share a higher rez photo where the identical details would have been even more obvious, like cloud patterns in the sky, etc. He countered my DMCA report.

Etsy says that if I don't follow with a legal action they will re-instate that listing after 10 days.
I wrote them back saying that I'm 100% certain that the photo is mine, asking them to not re-instate it.

Any such experiences? I thinking about filing a claim with Copytrack, if Etsy doesn't listen.

It is very frustrating. Some Etsy sellers have found out they can just dispute the DMCA. It really isn't practical to take them to court. What does work though is to let other people know about the infringing shop and get as many copyright holders to complain about their work as possible. Etsy will eventually take down the whole store regardless.

Yep, hence we all need to be a little pro-active in this endeavor. If good men like us didn't do anything, then this kind of behavior will spread like a pandemic.

I saw many people use my artworks in their merchandise products (stickers, mugs, scratch cards, etc) at Etsy. And I wrote to them to check if they have an Extended License for them.

All of them do not have Extended License. Some of them thought they have it, but they actually bought the wrong license. The honest and good will then proceed to buy the Extended License from me... usually they will buy even more artworks (Extended License) than the existing one. The lousy one will just remove the listing. The worst one will pretend they didn't do anything wrong and dare me to report (which I did).

Is all good. Is not as complicated as you thought it might be. All of this translate to instant reward.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on June 10, 2021, 20:49
So back to my question. How do I find these people on Etsy, do I have to go through every listing?

Etsy marketplace is not flooded like stock agencies. Usually a simple keyword only have a few pages of listings. So, for my case, I try to search for the keyword of my bestseller and browse through the listings.

I understand your point of view. But please, we do what we can do, and filing infringement is the least we can do.

After taking down 30-40 listings that is infringing my bestseller, I now start seeing people buying from me again. This is a win. The reward from doing this is money, justice, peace of mind, and most of all... satisfaction.

I disagree with you @stocksaurus.

Evil prevail because good men like us do nothing. I have been joining forces to file copyright infringement of my artworks (Etsy, Shutterstock, etc), and I have successfully closed down many stores and portfolios. It does work.

Do take 1 day (or a few hours) in a month to browse through and see if your works are stolen at Etsy. I feel so good after filing these complains and the infringements were taken down the next day. It gives me peace and justice.

I know many of you prefer to close-one-eye on this matter because it felt troublesome or fear of being revenged. But you are being violated. You need to do something about it. Don't let them getaway this easily.

I also have two agencies who closed without notice or whatsover.

1. Graphicleftovers or GLStock
2. Solidstockart

Really irresponsible and I believe they still owe me $20-$60/

123rf is the worst. Every year they are delayed.

Adobe Stock send out 1042-S form? I never got it before. Every year I just used the statistic calculator in the website to calculate the withholding.

DepositPhotos? I already got it a long time ago. Why you didn't get it?

I love Payoneer more than PayPal due to he 1-2% cheaper transaction fee.

If anyone need referral link, please PM me so that we can both can get a reward of $25 USD from Payoneer.

I have reported 30-40 listings in the past 2 days.

Gosh, it's maddening. But the reporting is quite easy and straight forward.

I thought of using this service from https://www.protectmywork.com/ to protect my work.

I think it might be easier to report to Etsy and close them by registering my work there. The price is consider affordable at least.

What I am afraid is it doesn't work. Has any of you have experience about copyrighting your work?

Gosh. What can I say? Today I just reported at least 20 listings that took my vector and sell at Etsy. The worst part is that these thieves always take the best seller.

From my rough calculation, I think I lost at least thousands of dollar from these.

Simply browsing through the portfolio at Etsy, I think that 95% of the works are stolen and these shops sell thousand and thousand of sales. You can check their number there.

These piracy need to stop

All these while, I have been promoting my Adobe Stock Portfolio to my fans (through my website and social media) and have successfully referred many of them to become customers at Adobe Stock. I have been telling them that if they want to buy all my artworks, then Adobe Stock is a good site because the royalty is fair to contributors and it has a powerful search engine.

However, upon realizing that my portfolio visibility are actually limited by different regions, how could I ever promote my portfolio at Adobe Stock proudly anymore?

I did not even know about this region thing until recently. I feel ashamed that all these while, I have been sharing my portfolio with such limited visibility. I think only 5%-10% of my entire portfolio are actually showing up.

I think I need to change my strategy and start promoting other sites now

It has been 2-3 months since I uploaded to Pixta. They have approved most of raster graphic, but my accompanying EPS vector are all still pending inspection. Gosh... why are they so slow?

The 33% earning of total revenue is a good thing to hear, at least. So, I felt positive with this.

A fixed percent of total revenue is important as it is very different from giving you $0.38 or $0.10 per download.

Almost all agencies swallow up the remaining unused sub... I think this is the most unfair practice because many buyers did not used up all the subscription downloads. So, even if they promise you 50%, it is more likely 10% only. They also have the motivation to sell less subs so they can eat up all the unused subs. What make you think they screw up the search and accept rubbish to their sites? To make it harder for subscriber to download more. So, a fixed percentage of total revenue is better.

Here is my prediction. All agencies will follow this UNLIMITED THINGS very soon. Agencies who stubbornly stick with the old plan will be gone. Microstock will become something like Netflix or Spotify. Subscription will be very cheap and offer unlimited downloads. People who used to steal our stuffs from pirated sites will soon become a customer (which is a good thing). When you thought they would simply abuse by downloading all the assets, you will find that they won't simply because they are so cheap and easily accessible now. It will become a norm for every designers to have an access to these unlimited subscription sites. Pirated sites will have less and less downloads. Then you will be wondering, why they don't download all your stuffs since they have unlimited access? Why? Simply because is a waste of time and space. Same goes to yourself for not watching all the movies in Netflix, or listen to all the songs on Spotify, or download and play all the games at your phone.

All and all, this industry landscape is changing. I am very sure many old-timers will give up, while many new others will come in at the same time. I assume many of us here are around 40-70 years old and we felt violated by all these plans that devaluing our works. We are all exhausted too. But for those 20 year old kids who just joined in, they see gold. I have talked to some of them, and they are super pump up. I told them golden era is over since 2013 and is not worth submitting, but they are still pump up. I guess maybe it is just us that is fading away and become irrelevant.

Unpopular opinion here, so I expect a lot of downvote. But I'll still chip in.

I actually like this move from Adobe. This move is very different from royalty cut like what other agencies did recently. What Adobe did here is pulling in new customers by offering better things. I would rather these customers getting cheaply from Adobe then stealing our stuffs from pirated site. This is very similar move by Canva who at the end double your earnings by offering unlimited download. They did it with success, and I am very surprised.

Sad to say this, but the unlimited download thing is inevitable. If Adobe don't offer unlimited, others agencies will, and that would make Adobe less relevance. If old-time-contributor like you and me don't submit to unlimited agencies, other new-contributors will submit. This is not something we can stop even if we wanted to. Supply over demand, what can I say more?

So, Mat Hayward, I wish Adobe can prove many of us wrong, and show us our improved earnings in near future