Are you sure you are not from FT?

I'm not from Fotolia unless I suffer from long and short term memory loss but thanks for asking.

Just as a reminder, IS has pulled off stunts that makes Fotolia look like a little midget. The list is endless. However enough people support IS no matter what they'll come up with next so will most people with Fotolia. Do you really believe that any given agency really cares about every single contributor that has a portfolio of up to 2000 or 3000 images?

I don't know how long you've been doing this but when I started in 2005 customer service wost mostly run by the CEOs of the agencies and they did care about contributor's concerns. Times have changed. Now, when I contact support, sometimes I don't even get a response anymore. So what do you suggest I should do? Go crying to daddy that they won't respond? Or just keep doing what I'm good at and make more money?

If you don't like their attitude, nobody is forcing you to be with them...

Fotolia is performing very well for me. The charge backs are annoying so is image theft and copyright infringement. Unfortunately we can not control everything. I take it for what it is, a minimal reduction of my monthly income. The income stream far outweighs the little charge-backs. Maybe my pictures suck so bad that barely anyone is using a stolen credit card on them. Well then, more power to me.

Probably. But don't miss two points:
1. It was not happening until 3 months ago. At least not at this level, it was not even close to 1/10th of it. It happend just after FT changed management.

2. My case is a good example that FT can not be trusted. It's not a credit card fraud case and it shows, without any doubt, that FT pocketed my money.

To 1:

My first declined credit card charge backs happened in early 2008 so it has nothing to do with the change of management. And I had quite some refunds there.
Back then barely anyone paid attention to it.

to 2:

Fotolia is running a successful business in tough economic times - that's rare. Despite such irregularities we should be happy that they are still around.

There is not one agency that does EVERYTHING correctly!

I know some will not agree with me on this one but sometimes an agency has to rule with an iron fist to make things "work".

IS used to do the same thing and everybody complained, well guess what, the biggest stock image agency on this planet decided to buy them because they are successful and know how to do business and not everybody likes their decisions. Plus you can't make everybody happy.

Wait wait wait,

I brought this up before as well:

Fotolia is MAYBE using a cheaper system to "process" credit card payments.

It appears that they do NOT verify the CC data right away when the buyer purchases credit packages.

What I mean is that they quickly run the number, expiration date and security code through a piece of software that ONLY determines if this particular card COULD be real. But then once Fotolia is actually processing the payments (I don't know, maybe once a week) - then they will find out in some cases that cards are fraudulent.

I could see this happen.

This may be a cheaper way for Fotolia rather than having a merchant account that verifies funds at the time of purchase but the fees for that are significantly higher. That's a guess. Otherwise I don't understand how so many stolen credit cards get through the system successfully as our images are being downloaded AND used and that's a bugger since it's not a real loss for Fotolia but for us.

Whatever, but the hair is always a terrible mess and a timewaster. 

Nice shot.

So what's the deal here? Too much light spill from the background? No gobos? Too close to the background?

Experts anyone?

All 3 lights are 150ws at full power.

Example:

I can see that you get proper white background right away when you can seperate the model from the background by positioning her several feet away from the wall and use gobos to prevent light spill

BUT

How do you get the 100% white of an isolated object that is actually laying on the white background?

I'm having a hard time to get the background properly white without having too much spill light on the subject.

I see tons of wonderfully isolated objects on SS and IS and wonder if the image that came out of the camera actually had 100% white background or if the camera was only metering the subject properly and the background had to be cleaned up because you can't get the subject properly exposed AND get the background 100% white.

Anyone?

I use two 300WS monolights and an SB-600 external flash. Juice enough...

It's funny how compassionate we are when we are defrauded by a lady, isn't it?...

Yes, I think there is truth to your statement.

I must clarify though that there were no "special" procedures applied in the "prosecution" of "her".

I've been contacting so many people about stolen images that I really don't care anymore if they are young, old, Chinese, American, mother, child, sister, neighbor, doctor or whatever else.

If I can shut them down efficiently I will do so or if I see that I can get some compensation out of it.

It was understandable too, as many teenage magazine freelance writers are spreading this misinformation re: music, TV, film,etc.. so naturally stock photos "RF" falls into this dome of free use without pay.

Well, that's where I draw the line. Even as freelance writers you need to accept the fact that you are contributing to the media industry in some way. As in every business it's vital to know the rules AND laws. If you don't care what your business is about you won't be very successful. Especially these people need to be made aware of such misunderstandings.

Furthermore, the image that has been used for Zazzle was used for a reason: it's a good image. People: use common sense. Obviously many, many people still believe that good images are made by photographers for free for everyone. Doesn't it ring a bell to at least make an effort to find out about the usage rights? Of course we all here know that but I totally believe that writers, editor, ad agencies, freelance designers should know how image licensing works (at least to some extent). Probably useless to ask for even that.

Update for the ones who are interested:

I recently found my bestseller on Zazzle.com on various products. I never created an account with them so I was a bit "confused".

After contacting the user to ask about a valid license I got the usual answer: "Ooooooh, I had nooo idea that this is your image. I will remove it right away from my Zazzle store".

As upsetting as this already is I received a second message from the user: "I've removed the image from my store. Thank god, that I've never sold any items with that picture on it".

Naturally I contacted Zazzle.com (again) to verify this statement.

And, big surprise the user DID sell items with my image on them. My luck that the royalties had not been paid out at that time so I claimed those royalties as mine, since Zazzle already made $$$ off of them.

Two weeks later I had my check in the mail and the user had been removed. 

I'd like everyone to know that there are ways sometimes to pursue such situations - without a lawyer. Think about registering copyright for your images in the US which will back you up in many cases of abuse within the US and it's only $35 for as many images as you like to register.

Sadly, I've just sent 15 complaints to Photobucket's Abuse Department because my bestseller is all over the place. 

LOL I've personally purchased at least six variations of piggy bank icons over the past few months. It's a subject very much on topic for a lot of publications lately. Not so much with the lollipops.

I'm sorry - I completely worded that wrong (again).

I was ONLY referring to the piggy bank that Lucky Oliver had in their design for your status page or something like that. They used funny icons all over the place. All those retro things etc. While it was pretty to look at for someone who got stuck in the 70s I wondered what purpose it has, not to mention the loading times for all the graphics...

I'm well aware that buyers want to buy images of piggy banks don't get me wrong there

At the beginning of Luck Oliver I checked out their site and had immediately the feeling that this is not going to work out.

I'm well aware that they poured a lot of work and heart into that project but to me it looked more like a site for male-Barbie users (if something like that even exists).

It simply didn't look professional.

It's one thing to be successful at the beginning but another to maintain success. Look at the dinosaurs of Microstock SS and IS.

SS has the most simple design there is - does it "bother" the buyers? No, I don't think so.

A stock image agency has to provide a powerful, efficient search engine and good images. That's what buyers are looking for and not little piggy bank icons and lollipop illustrations in retro style...

It's probably just me but I would never order there.

I never would buy on ebay from someone less than 99.5% positive feedback either.

You can tell if a business is serious if you go through the negative reviews. They unveil drawbacks and attitude of the company.

I assume most companies will complete an order as stated but once you would like to return a broken product and need solid customer service you will quickly see who is a serious business and who isn't.

Some rating reviews on that site (some of the positive ones) are even from the company itself to justify the horror stories of some scammed buyers. I'd never buy there if that is the case.

When it comes to photo geat I only buy from Adorama or straight from Amazon because I know they go the extra mile. Since they all are run by humans this won't be a 100% guarantee either but the chances are much higher to get better service than with a company that undercuts prices by 10-20%.

If the file sneaks, it's the inspector's guilt, and the contributor can't be blamed.

Couple of points:

1. We all signed a contract that we will NOT upload copyrighted material from other authors (unless you have a release of course). Which means that it is our responsibility to check BEFORE we upload if the image is allowed for sale.

In travel photography where probably most photographers have problems of not knowing what is protected and what not, it wouldn't hurt to do a quick research about your subjects before uploading.

I haven't heard of that a contributor has been banned because he uploaded an image of the Eiffel tower at night. If you try to do that 5 times in a row I can see why someone gets banned but so far I've only seen contributors banned because of image theft or using someone's image in their composition without a release.

2.

They are changing politics there, so if you are an illustrator(for photos is very rare) control your portfolio and delete as fast as you can all images that look strange or you are not sure.

This statement gives me a creepy feeling... It kind of sounds like that you're waiting for your stolen images to be found and then act quickly to make it look like you don't know what happened? I can't see what this would have to do with "...changing politics..."

It's yours or it's not yours. The contract states if it's not yours - don't upload it. It's actually really simple.

much appreciated! 

I can only speak for myself. I've done this for over 4 years now making a living off of it. What I consider making a living is an insult to some people and others would be happy to make that much - it depends on the country you live in and what your standards are.

As long as I have a roof over my head, food and health insurance I'm good. Others have to have a pool, yacht and five prostitutes a week to call themselves successful - it's all relative.

There is no way around but checking successful photographer's portfolios to see what the standards are. Try to be better and you won't have to worry.

Good luck to everyone!

SS, DT, FT, StockXpert and IS will do the trick. That's where most of your income would be generated.

Probably not a secret to you at this point...

Anyway, other agencies will make you some money but it's up to you to decide how much your time is worth. I assume you don't pay an assistant to upload your portfolio to 15 or 20 sites in the future just for the fun of it.

I do upload to Crestock, 123RF and all the others you mentioned but they won't compare to the big 5.

It depends on what type of images you upload and how much time you have at hand to upload.

Good luck!