Pond5 support told me the 2@contributor name was for pixmac; 1@contributor was for the now-ended 123rf. They also told me they would take down the pixmac mirror if I uploaded directly and asked them, so I'd write to support as it sounded from their reply to me as if you had to request it.

Profimedia lists my portfolio there as 4,129 which is amusing as I don't have that number of images anywhere.

They have images from 123rf, Alamy (both RM and RF) and Veer. You can check the alamy fairly easily via the list of sources on the left side; you can see Veer from the watermark, but they aren't in the list on the left. None of the Corbis names (Ivy, blue, ...) bring up the Veer images.

They don't list Inmagine, or 123rf but by looking at CanStock (which sends content to its parent company Fotosearch) and 123rf portfolios, I was able to pretty clearly see it was 123rf. I haven't uploaded since early 2012 to 123rf, whereas CanStock, Alamy are up to date. Veer images are marked and I only have 800+ there.

This is such a mess (a) because they have multiple copies of the same image and (b) because they're at different prices.

One, two, three.

The price for the largest size ranges from 200 Czech crowns to 600 to 9,100 depending on which copy you buy (~$11 to ~ $33 to ~$500)

If I swtich the language from Czech to English (using the site's option to do so, not Google translate), some of the copies of the image stay around and one says

"Object id 0141117161 was deleted"

So I guess they only have rights from some of their suppliers to sell it in certain markets? I can switch to Hungarian for that image and it still shows. This explains why my portfolio size there is only 2K+ images if I set the site to English.
I suppose it's not entirely my problem that they're doing this and my name doesn't appear anywhere - I'm just artist PC-0128468216! But it just looks so stupid and I hate to see my work on a site that looks stupid.

For the item with the Veer watermark, the prices in crowns translate to $2.75 for the small size and $33 for the largest which is reasonably close to the $2 to $30 that Veer charges for that item

The more I learn about these partner deals the less I like them. And why would a buyer shop there given what a total shambles the "store" is?

If I had to pick just one, it would be terrible communications. They don't keep contributors informed about anything going on with the site in a timely enough manner. We're always finding things out and then what else there might be that we haven't noticed.

I thought I'd set $10 for the 25 trial images I uploaded directly (I have some there from Pixmac which will come down if ever Pond 5 reviews my content) but I apparently set $12

I assumed the prices came down from that for the top size (mine are 21MP images) and the default was $1!!

I didn't want to undercut GL stock where I set the top price as $10

The Yahoo image search with Getty's connect built in produces just horrible results - courtesy, I think, of the Getty CV. I wrote a blog post about it with some image examples.

This is what a search for Maine produced from Yahoo image search (click for full size and see the Google and Bing comparisons in the blog post)


I'm not sure I can untangle the Google/Getty/Yahoo tangle, but I'm very wary - would be delighted to be surprised to find it's a great new revenue source for contributors

Have you checked under your username and your real name "john doe" with the quotes, for some contributors images on Thinkstock show up partly under one and partly under the other.

If you mean me, I know that my images have always shown up with my full name and not my iStock member name. I have checked to see with all four permutations (single vs double quotes and member name vs real name)

I saw 2496 images there before I deactivated and see 409 now, 297 of which should go

My number of files on Thinkstock hadn't changed this morning (409) so I made a list of 297 file numbers and opened an iStock support ticket to get them removed.

There might be a faster way to do this, but to get the list I set my Thinkstock portfolio search to show 20 per page (makes the selection easier); select the 20 images (thumbnails and all); copy; paste them into a text editor - you get a number on one line, "istockphoto" on the next line then a couple of blank lines.

Repeat that for all the pages (I skipped the first few pages as they were images I've left on iStock).

In my text editor (Text Wrangler) I can do a gobal search & replace for the line breaks, iStockphoto & line break, putting comma space in as the replace string which gives me a comma separated list of the image numbers alone.

I'll post back here once the images are gone.

Blog on the subject of Google's inconsistencies in having/apply a policy on linking to copyrighted content:

http://www.onthewingphotography.com/wings/2013/02/04/is-googles-new-image-search-violating-their-own-policies-the-law/

Even if Dreamstime isn't perfect, having someone go to bat with Google on contributors' behalf is a good thing, IMO. We aren't exactly spoiled for choice in terms of agencies rushing to our aid, and I think that old expression about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good times to mind.

Of the three agencies I contacted about this, Dreamstime was the only one to even respond to my support ticket so far (although they said they weren't sure what could be done). I don't expect anything from iStock because they're trying to get in bed with Google and won't likely want to upset that apple cart.

I did make a post on that blog this afternoon:

"I love how your new image search looks, but you're not respecting the sources of copyrighted content - images and the pages that host them - in effectively encouraging users to bypass the web site and ignore the copyright. Stay with Google and download what you need - but what about the owners of that content?

If you don't consider the rights of the copyright holders, in time there won't be content for you to index and provide search results to - photographers and web site developers need to be compensated for their work, not just have it hijacked by a spiffy new search tool"

I can see stats again, but nothing I'd describe as "... for most dynamic contributor related features. " I can't see any differences at all. I also didn't see my 12 month total change and shouldn't that change at the beginning of each month? I don't upload to 123rf any more, so perhaps that's where these dynamic features are?

Does anyone else see any new contributor features?

I posted on the Facebook thread of another ex-Getty/Flickr user and in the fred miranda forum thread started by an ex-Getty/Flickr contributor

I think this might be the best place to keep track of progress - my portfolio on iStock went from 2638 to 153 on D-Day. While I was still deleting on iStock, my Thinkstock total was slowing going down and it has continued the trickle.

This morning (Pacific Time) it's at 1,772 - from 2486 on Jan 28th

I'll keep monitoring - obviously I want those files gone ASAP versus in several weeks; I could argue that as I have removed the right to license that file from iStock that they have no right to continue to sell it anywhere even if they have some time to take it down according to the ASA. If for some reason something ended up on Google Drive during this limbo time, I would be royally ticked off.

This evening (nearly 11pm PST) my total's at 409