Quote from: ayzek on March 08, 2012, 04:48

There is no problem if the 3d object is not you main subject.
But if its main subject what will you do if 3D models owners selling same model's 3D renders in stock photos?

I'm still not seeing a problem - the images are unlikely to be identical but, more importantly, the modler can choose to make models available for commercial renders and / or make renders from these models but can't (on any level) stop someone using a product within the terms of the licence he sells.  If someone buys one of your images to display on a web site can you say it's not allowed because you want to use it on your own site?

Good points. And beside the legal/licensing issues, I don't see a difference between two illustrators using the same 3D model and two photographers photographing the same human model, or the same geographical feature, or prop, or whatever.

Even IS doesn't have a problem from a licencing viewpoint...

IS used to have a policy that prohibited submitting renders unless you had created the 3D model from scratch. I didn't know that it had changed, I quit submitting there some time ago.

I do know that they let you submit vectors which were traced from 3D renders you had made using models you bought at Renderosity or Turbosquid. Their lawyers okayed that for my images back when I was submitting there years ago.

I use it for everything, haven't a clue where the mouse is.

I too use my (Wacom) tablet for everything; that is, everything I can use it for. Most 3D modeling software still requires the use of a 3 button mouse (although some allow tablets).

I switched to a tablet full time because it is so much easier on my wrist. I was getting that repetitive wrist syndrome thing big time from using a mouse - I tried different kinds of mice and trackballs, but only the tablet lets me work pain free.

Eireann and redo are right. Because a subscription on SS costs over $200 per month, a high percentage of SS customers are art departments and professional designers, they prefer vectors. My vectors make more than 5x as much as the raster versions, which I only upload as an afterthought.

On DT, vectors do not get as many dls as the raster versions, but the non-subscription vectors cost a lot more per download than the rasters and so are well worth uploading.

Quote from: archibald1221 on February 23, 2012, 10:07

Quote from: helix7 on February 17, 2012, 20:33

...I make a few hundred bucks per month at an agency that isn't even on that list at right (no, I'm not telling anyone which agency, don't ask)...

   In one another post Helix wrote this line and i found it very suprising - it's hard to believe for me that it is possible. Currently there really lot of info about microstock, so i thought all good and profitable agencies are already well known to everyone. I wonder where did he find this goldmine
Anyway, once again i've heard some good words about clipdealer - i guess it's time to try my luck there

I am doing that too this minute.. regarding the helix agency I don�t know which is it.. but I have one not a new one that ain�t there too, just finished my upload there, I will let you know, only you

Last month I made over $100 on vectors at an agency which is not on the list (secret codeword 'Rodeo').

Wow, I think that first page is the most colorful and intriguing page of thumbnails I have ever seen. You got some great shots!

377 subscription DLs per EL for me so far this month (I do vectors).

Congratulations on passing another milestone so quickly!

Actually, the 'shapes' in question could really be shapes instead of brushes. Photoshop has a type of vector object which it calls 'shapes' and users can create their own. It doesn't really matter though, I guess, whether the OP used shapes or brushes (I think if it were filters in question, that would make a difference).

I would say to the OP that you would be crazy to try to use those shapes anywhere at any site for anything. And try to be reasonable with SS and maybe they will reinstate you someday.

Font copyrights are a very complex issue - over the name as well as the designs. When Monotype, ITC, Bitstream and others first started selling fonts for computers I seem to remember all sorts of issues over people calling a font "Swiss" instead of Helvetica and whether that infringed - even if the whole typeface was redrawn and not identical. Putting a few letters in vector form in a vector file is not the same thing as delivering a useable typeface (with all the spacing information, kerning, tracking, etc.).

And as far as benefiting from another artist's work, we do this all the time with almost every photograph we sell, but only some of the objects - clothing, hats, fabric, furniture, houses, bridges, landscape gardens, etc. - are protected. I didn't have I.M. Pei design my house, so I can sign a property release for it and photograph it to sell for Royalty Free stock. But if I owned property designed by a famous artist I couldn't. I can include a straw hat or picnic basket I didn't design or make in my photos but not a Le Corbusier chair. The examples go on an on - iStock made a dividing line over which items could be included and which not for photographs and it could easily do the same for sample text if it wanted to.

If I hand draw some vector letterforms for sample text that are clearly similar to typefaces that others have created, I don't think that is a problem for sample text any more than using my house in my photographs is a problem. The designer is going to use an actual font they own to do their own text, not the vectors for samples. No one is giving away fonts they don't own the rights to.

Exactly! It is indeed copyright infringement to distribute fonts in their extractable format - otf, truetype, etc - but no microstock site allows that anyway. If using a font as vector in a design for resale were illegal then every graphic designer in the world would be in jail, as would every book publisher. Using fonts in images for resale is what fonts are for. Else only the font foundries and people who give their works away for free could use the fonts.

And as for "free generic fonts" I don't know of any. All fonts I know of are copyrighted, including Arial (which was based on Helvetica), Times New Roman, MS Comic Sans, etc. Requiring graphics designers to create new fonts, which are not similar to the fonts of others, is indeed like telling photographers that they have to build a house if they want to use a house in a photo, and by the way don't make it similar to any other houses.

...Anja deleted her port on IS soon after the September 2010 announcement was made. She didn't agree with the commission cuts for independents, stood by her word and left...

Another reason she gave for leaving IS was that they were rejecting most of her images. Incredible really. She has become without doubt the most successful microstock illustrator, by a great margin, probably better than the top ten IS exclusive illustrators put together, and IS was rejecting most of her images because there were not suitable for microstock.

It is difficult or impossible to predict what will really work when selling things to people. I have just been reading The Lean Startup, which really makes that point.

So far it looks like GL's changes are working for me, at least. I have 10 dls there today so far, my BDE.