^
Wrong quotes Cathy!

Emails to contributors or a big red notice box on the home page would be way better, imho.

It would not be just way better, it would be the right thing to do!  It would probably avoid lot's of complaints from contributors and endless threads in the forum.

But as such attention does not exist yet, the only thing we can do is checking the forum.

Quote from: PowerDroid on June 23, 2010, 03:04

There's truth in all of the answers posted here, from healthy skepticism

... everybody can push a button on a cam, illustrators' talents are scarce.

Come on!!!  

Pushing a button on a camera doesn't make anyone a photographer!   Knowledge and talent are necessary to be a good photographer and have success.

Quote from: sjlocke on June 22, 2010, 10:19

Nothing's changing.  You just have your options off in the advanced search.

Wow, haha... took me two years to figure out this exists!

Now you know! 

Quote from: sjlocke on June 02, 2010, 16:04

Quote from: Dreamframer on June 02, 2010, 15:58

They made those contacts while they were bosses of StockXpert. Those contacts are their contacts, not Getty's.

No, they would be the contacts of the company.

Yes, I know. But still... who knows. It's OK to contact potential buyers in one or another way, right? Sending email is one way to do it.

No, it's not ok.  That would be spamming.

it is INSANE

It's good to know this time you are not cheerleading a new subscription plan agency! 

This kind of new "agencies" are born because there are photographers willing to accept anything. You see.

Quote from: Digital66 on May 28, 2010, 22:32

Thanks again cuppacoffee.  Then I'll have to contact Dreamstime.  I disabled my images a couple of days ago, but the thumbnails are still there.  

Just make sure you don't re-enable them by mistake...Their six month hold on the image will kick back in.  I seem to recall that it took a couple of days for the thumbnails of my images to no longer show up in searches.  The key is that they aren't available for sales.

Be sure to also check out imagetrail.  And also make sure to check Google Images as well.  I found a couple of sites that had my images that I needed to get taken care of before taking the plunge.

Thanks jsolie. 

I have just checked again, and the thumbnails are gone!    It took 3 days.

Sorry everyone.  This is the correct post:

According to Achilles via a thread on their forums - disabled files are automatically deleted every few months (regularly between 6-12). If you have older files, they might've been missed by the scripts or maybe something else happened (e.g. you reactivated them at some point). You should email support a list of IDs.

Thanks cuppacoffee.  I was rather asking about the regular thumbnails displaying in the portfolio. Those anyone can see.    Once you disable an image, how long does it take for its thumbnail in the portfolio to disappear?

EDIT: Sorry, I typed an incorrect post  here.

Does anyone know how long it takes for thumbnails (at Dreamstime) to disappear once the images have been disabled ?

I am applying for IS exclusivity this weekend.   

I have been preparing for this since last December. But even so, this week I have been checking and rechecking that all my other portfolios have been closed, that no agency or partner site is even displaying my images.   It took me months and many e-mails to have my images deleted from some FT's partner sites like the chinese one (Tweimei). 

All I can tell you is:  Make sure all your portfolios have been closed and no agency is still displaying your images.

Good luck! 

1. It is going to be very difficult for new folks to get into istock nowadays. Getty/IS is on the path of changing the company back into high-end, high-priced RM-type of business, with exclusive members only, and what was once acceptable will not be now. If I were starting all over with IS today, I doubt that any, maybe a few, of my photos would even be accepted.

2. You are coming into the IS game when there are millions and millions of images, and hundreds of thousands contributors. There are likely hundreds of similar photos already in the database similar, some better, some worse, than your images. Basically what they mean is "we don't need any more of these".

All of the above is just my opinion, and maybe other, more experienced photogs here can be more specific about your composition. Hope my comments give you some perspective, at least.

I completely agree.  This seems to be the path IS is taking.

Quote from: click_click on May 18, 2010, 08:45

Quote from: fullvalue on May 18, 2010, 08:11

...Let's say I design a website that uses 6 images.  Do I need to provide proof now to 6 photographers?

So some of us are contributing to 10, 15 or more agencies. So if we have reason to believe that a company is reproducing/reselling our images we are supposed to write an email to all agencies trying to figure out who sold it to that company (sometimes the agencies don't even know because they sold it to the designer and not the actual company) or me contacting the company directly, verifying if they acquired the appropriate license for it.

Here my suggestion if you're really worried about defending your copyrights, stop uploading to 10 or more agencies. 

Good point.  Defending copyrights and working with many different agencies is practically impossible.