I wonder if SS had another glitch?  I have a batch pending since April 23.  I don't think I've ever had to wait so long.

Quote from: Karimala on April 30, 2012, 13:51

A friend uses Package Choice.  http://www.packagechoice.com/  You can also get insurance through the Professional Photographers of America (PPA).

These appear to be US companies.

Yes, they're both in the US.  Didn't know where the OP lives, so just thought I'd throw it out there. 

When I Googled "photographer insurance," Package Choice comes up first here, so if the OP does the same, a reputable company wherever he lives will likely come up.  Not many companies deal specifically with photographer's insurance.

A friend uses Package Choice.  http://www.packagechoice.com/  You can also get insurance through the Professional Photographers of America (PPA).

March was a surprising BME (had an EL plus someone bought a series of 22 images at $3-5 a piece), so I expected a drop this month.  And surprisingly again, it didn't drop nearly as much as anticipated.  Instead of returning to my monthly average, I'm having my 4th BME.  So for me at least, I haven't seen a decrease in sales. 

Quote from: velocicarpo on April 29, 2012, 10:23

Quote from: lisafx on April 28, 2012, 12:45

However, while it may pad the profits in the short term, it is a strategy for failure in the long term.  Not only does it disincentivize the current crop of top sellers, it also gives the middle tier nothing to aspire to.  

Lisa, I think with this statement you pointed out the biggest "design error" of the whole western business model. Our society in general cannot continue to run after short term profit - a concept which destroys our planet and literally burns our ressources beyond need. We cannot just continue to grow and ignore all moral values.

Especially in the last 40 years People got more and more convinced that "Profit is everything" and moral and fairness has to stay out of business. The result is that in the same time period we almost destroyed our whole planet and brought the economic world to the edge of a nearly unresolvable crisis.

I do not accept the argument that moral has to stay out of business.
I do not accept the argument that if you work for a company you are not responsable for what the company is doint because you need the money.
I do not respect nor buy from companies which try to ignore all moral - companies like istock, paypal etc.

I completely agree with everything you posted.  I definitely think that morality, or more accurately ethics, should be a part of business, politics, society, and of each of our individual daily decisions. 

The only reason I said "fairness doesn't enter into business" isn't because I don't think it should, but because it so frequently is not considered by TPTB.  Also, there is a great deal of flexibility in what different cultures and individuals consider "moral", so it isn't enough to win you a debate about business practices.  Practical arguments are much more persuasive because they can be backed up with empirical evidence.

Interesting thoughts. 

It won't be long until IS and FT no longer profit off of my work (and 123RF might just be the next).  I just can't deal with their lack of consideration for anything other than their own bottom lines.  What about mine?  Doesn't matter to them.  So...because I (and all of us) don't matter to them, I'm hitting their bottom line by pulling my portfolio.  The only companies I'll submit my work to are those that are willing to act like we're industry partners and help me grow my business, not drive me out of business by keeping increasingly higher portions of my profits for themselves.

Lisa is so right that when companies "punish" the most successful among us, it gives us middle tier folks less incentive to work harder.  The harder we work, the less they will pay us?  Is that how it works?  Just makes me want to pull my portfolio from their hands, not work harder for them.  There's plenty of places that don't continually hurt their contributors where I can sell my image archive as stock or products.

As the old saying goes, "What you reap, so shall you sow."  Good ol' Karma will eventually catch up with these companies.  Take money away from us that we rightfully deserve, and I and many others will take our money away from them.  Plain and simple.             

No.  It's not legal.  Send them a cease and desist demand letter and let them know they are currently infringing on your copyrights, and that if they are not removed within a certain period of time, you will pursue legal action.  That should get the job done.

Still waiting.  Seems like they often start on weekends, don't they?  Maybe this coming weekend? 

Yep...the first three weeks tend to come on Saturday/Sunday and the last week finishes on Monday.  And it tends to happen on the weekend prior to the last week of the month.

However, that was before all the layoffs.  Seems to be more random now.

Quote from: trek on March 18, 2012, 08:53

Time Warner Cable and the MPAA sent these notices to me.  They claimed I was uploading stolen movies or TV programs... and demanded I remove them from my computer...

The article says that the companies, including Time Warner, are not supposed to start this policy until July 1. But I guess it has been going on already, unless they got you with some kind of test or pilot program. Maybe Time Warner is more aggressive since they own companies which produce music and movies, while some of the other cable companies do not.

Comcast has had a monitoring and notification policy for years.  It's nothing new...just looks like they are going to step up efforts industry wide.

Hi all,

For those having trouble with the website.... Please reply and tell me if you can see this well?

http://123rf.me/images/jan_1.jpg

Thank you,

Alex.

Nope.  I get...

Server not found
     
Firefox can't find the server at 123rf.me.

I'm guessing this has something to do with the layoffs at IS, since we haven't been paid over there yet, too.   

I've seen the misformatted text and very slow loading of even that over the last several days.  I'm the US on the west coast.

I'm also in the US on the west coast.  Changing browsers doesn't fix the issues (Google Chrome/Safari/Firefox).  Even the front page has text only, missing images and links that don't work.

For the past 12 hours, I haven't been able to completely access 123RF.  Only text is loading.  I've tried Chrome and Firefox, and both have this issue.  Anyone else having problems?