So based on the above, I'm back to my original point. Don't offer any rights warrants with the photo since you can't guarantee those warrants for infinitude. Better to let the buyer know there are no warrants on the photo at all and let them assess the risk for themselves and decide whether or not they are willing to take that risk and buy the photo or not. A far better solution than giving them a potentially invalid warrant I assure you.

I also don't see how notarizing it would make it binding on the next buyer unless it was registered and attached to the deed. The notary will only validate the current owner's signature. It isn't a guarantee of future performance.

Bottom line, unless the property release is registered against the property in a legal fashion or the new buyer signs a legal acknowledgment and acceptance of the existing PR when they buy the property, then nothing is binding on the new buyer and your PR becomes worthless as soon as that property changes hands, regardless of what the previous owner might have agreed to in an informal unregistered agreement with a  photographer. In a legal dispute all the new owner would have to say is they were never made aware of the agreement nor did they accept the liability of the PR against the property and they have won the battle.

Since property releases are technically only binding on the current property owner then how is iStock going to feasibly ensure that each property release on file for a house is still up to date at all times?

I don't see how they can and it will become nearly impossible for iStock to guarantee photo buyers in the future that a release is up to date and binding on the property owner at all times.

They would be better off keeping things as they are now and selling photos without releases because selling a photo license with an invalid release has to be much worse then licensing a photo without one at all.

By providing a release you are making a legal promise to the buyer whereas without offering a property release you aren't making a promise.

Common sense says don't even open the door.

It seems like the questions and complications with this issue will be endless. Plus there are gray areas which can never be absolutely sorted or made consistent.

In addition, what happens to images pulled from iStock that are on Getty? Do they stay on Getty or will Getty be pulling all their house snaps too?

Then what about images that have been deactivated. How will the contributor know which ones they are? Will the contributor be given a list or will they show on the site somewhere where the contributor can pull them up?

I know a lot of people aren't uploading much to iStock anymore, but I uploaded a bunch of stuff this month and I was amazed how most of the pictures I uploaded got inspected within just a couple of hours. On top of that, everything I uploaded was accepted, including some stuff that would have perhaps never passed inspection before.

From this I draw 2 conclusions; Inspectors don't have a lot of pictures to review these days (because uploads are down so much) such that when you upload something it gets inspected right away. Secondly, they have dropped their standards of quality tremendously to encourage people to start uploading again and that is why I have a 100% acceptance rate now. They also aren't nearly as concerned about duplicate images from a shoot as they were before.

The fact that they will pretty much accept anything though is a dangerous double edged sword. Sure, it makes life a lot easier for contributors. For one they don't have to work as hard as before to achieve a certain standard of picture to get something up on iStock and they can add to their portfolios faster by throwing up lower quality images which are easier to snap quickly. The bad thing though is that the buyers are not being offered the same standard of quality as before.

What always set iStock apart from other pixel peddlers was that they had a more discriminately curated, high quality collection and buyers recognized that. Now the standards of quality are all over the shop. This has to start hurting sales further at some point though when buyers can no longer tell the difference in quality between pictures on iStock and other sites. And if there is no difference in quality, then why will buyers pay more for pictures on iStock at all?

The fact that there are no upload limits, combined with the fact that they will accept just about anything now, makes the whole situation much scarier.

Posted By 2ndLookGraphics:
This kind of makes the Exclusive Survey and accompanying retoric a big joke. There is obviously no committment to iStockphoto Exclusive contributors.

Posted By Lobo:
Sure there is. I appreciate your frustration but I think you might be thinking your content won't be Signature + worthy so it won't be offered a chance for mirroring. I would expect you would have selected E+ material for the E+ collection so everything should work out in the end.
 
When we were talking about the prospect of some of the previous content not making it over due to Connector issues we decided it was better to get infront of this issue rather than wait until we found out from Dev. So we found out exactly what the plan was so we could inform everyone as soon as possible. I can assure you we would prefer that we could get everything in place immediately but unfortunately we are getting ready to make a huge change to the site.
 
We expect the Collection changes will make these types of issues moot. We don't get any pleasure from disappointing our Exclusives or the Non-exclusives for that matter. However, we would prefer to be upfront about the realities of the incoming changes and how it will relate with the current Connector issues.
 
The question has been asked a number of times so we went to see exactly how all that would work. Unfortunately it's not the answer we would have preferred.
 
Have a good weekend, folks.

Posted By 2ndLookGraphics:
When we selected the images for E+, E+ had completely different criteria than the new and improved E+ now Signature + which will have the same criteria as Vetta and Agency files included in it. At that time the selection was based on the contributor's belief that an image would sell at the higher price point.
 
We were also told, AND ENCOURAGED to select additional E+ images with the promise that these would then have the opportunity to be mirrored on the Getty website. This was months and months ago and during that time we have been told over and over and over again that this migration would take place by the next afternoon or the next week  or the next morning.
 
This never materialized due to technical issues that are beyond belief. At the same time we are told that the entire iStock collection would be sent to be mirrored on Getty 360 which would take place in a couple of weeks.
 
When you indicate that if any of our "left behind" images do not make it into the Signature plus, that it is our own fault for choosing inappropriate selections you are not keeping in mind the criteria by which the selections were made. At that time we were not considering that these images would have the same criteria as Vetta and Agency images.
 
The fact remains that we were encouraged to move our images to E+ with the promise of having them mirrored at Getty. Anything less than fulfilling the promise would be unethical.

Above are a few other posts. The real reversal of things comes in where Lobo the admin says:
 
I would expect you would have selected E+ material for the E+ collection so everything should work out in the end.
 
Basically, no, that wasn't always the case. At one time people could use E+ as a vehicle to get some of their content that wasn't selling so well on iStock to be offered to a new set of buyers and at a higher price point on Getty by simply making those files E+.  So I think 2ndLookGraphics� first paragraph reply from above is the key to it all:
 
When we selected the images for E+, E+ had completely different criteria than the new and improved E+ now Signature + which will have the same criteria as Vetta and Agency files included in it. At that time the selection was based on the contributor's belief that an image would sell at the higher price point.
 
And then where 2ndLookGraphics further states the following which again covers the fact that contributors were using a different criteria before when selecting E+ files which they simply wanted mirrored on the Getty site:
 
When you indicate that if any of our "left behind" images do not make it into the Signature plus, that it is our own fault for choosing inappropriate selections you are not keeping in mind the criteria by which the selections were made. At that time we were not considering that these images would have the same criteria as Vetta and Agency images.
 
So basically iStock is now unfairly punishing people by not mirroring their E+ files onto Getty as previously promised unless those files now meet the new iStock criteria instead. Had the Connector been working properly all along, this point would be moot because the files would already be on Getty and iStock would not be able to shift gears on whether to mirror the content or not. Instead, what was promised before to contributors is again being taken away because there was a sudden change in policy. As a result, iStock is not willing to grandfather in the old files which should have been moved over already but weren't and weren't only because of iStock's failed technology. As usual the contributor get�s unfairly and unjustly treated because the new policy is either better or easier for iStock to implement. What is even more ironic about the change in policy is that just 2 days ago Old Lady Bird had stated this:
 

Hi All, just a quick update on the Connector.
We are making great progress with the pulls and we should start to see the new files moving again next week.
We are hopeful that will be early in the week.
 
Missed files should still be in the queue and since they haven't been shared, should be still in the new category.
Let's see what progress we make next week and take a closer look then.

Even if Getty doesn't sell at list prices to buyers, it means they are selling at half of list price in order for me to have E+ sales on Getty that are earning $1. That doesn't sound right. There is still something fishy here unless there are some Getty partners reselling Getty content and getting 50% of the pie. But my understanding was/is that E+ content selling on Getty is only being sold directly to Getty buyers and not part of some partner deal. Getting a $1 from a Getty sale is hardly worth it and no better than putting your stuff into the PP program on iStock.

The total amount of content might be a bit light for a full on site launch though. They have just under 120 contributors and perhaps about 50,000 images online or less. That probably does not offer enough subject coverage yet to make it a worthwhile stop for designers yet. They will have to grow that a bit more first I think.

Main page freezes my browser on my iPhone for long periods while it loads batches of thumbnails. During that time I can't do anything except quit the browser. No scrolling, pinching, or anything. Oh well.

Or maybe even "Artsie". Well at least I don't have to worry about them competing with my isolated on white coffee cups and apples

Darn pulled up stocksy.com and was re-directed to instagram 

I guess that retro, semi cross processed, faded, 1970's look is in... Again??