Please someone, explain to me, how RF images from one agency can be lawfully licensed RM on another site.

I'm lost as to why you keep asking if it's - lawful, legal, illegal etc. There isn't a law to govern the licensing of stock image, there's contract law but each site applies it's own contract so that's an impossible question to answer.

The content will be highly regulated. I wouldn't share my advertising money with something that won't sell.  The central search will not be available at first, but we might be able to implement it later.

Monitoring the content would be hard if not impossible to do, I think monitoring the content providers might be a better idea. Good to hear about the search, I'll be sure to check it out once you're up and running.

Elena,

I applaud you for taking the leap and trying to get something like this going, I run my own site but till now have done nothing to market it other than referring buyers who have contacted me via regular sites, and yet I am seeing more and more sales coming in through my own site, There is definitely a market for something like this.

My concerns are similar to a couple already mentioned, namely:

- I'd only be interested if there was a central search that subsequently sends the buyer to the site for the image they found.
- Plus, as bad as it sounds, a serious concern of mine would be my images being mixed in amongst unregulated content, I think that could do more harm than good for both me and the site you're creating.

I echo Christians comments, it's a start and whether it works or not anything that raises the knowledge of buyers going direct to the creator is good in my book.

EDIT: Actually Tyler you can go ahead and just cancel my account. I'm thinking you created the site mostly so that private groups could be opened, and those groups are designed to filter out smaller contributors. I won't be able to participate and my comments are irrelevant, so there's really no sense in me belonging. Thanks anyway.

Cathy - I hope my Diamond Group didn't spark this reaction, I'll admit the group is designed to filter out the smaller contributor and I've clearly mentioned that in the description.

But in defence of Tyler - The majority of us do this anyway either by way of email, PM's, phonecall or meetings. All Tyler has done is create a much needed site where we can have these discussions easily and conveniently and to have the option to participate or not. This forum is a great place but like some others I've spoken to it's becoming harder to discuss things at a peer level due to not everybody being on the same level, threads get diluted and the original point of discussion diverted to the stage it's almost impossible to work out what's relevant and what isn't.

I've joined and created a group called 'Diamond club', if you qualify send a membership request.

The idea of the group is not to create an elite 'them vs us' mentality but a place for the highest selling microstock contributors to discuss business matters that may be of interest only to them. Any general interest matters will I have no doubt be discussed here for all to see.

One more thing � this group is for contributors only. No agency owners, employees or admins will accepted, the reason for this is to discuss without fear of reprisal.
  

The main point is, images that are RF can't be sold RM someplace else.

Pete,  BaldricksTrousers has done a good job of trying to explain to you what RF,L + RM are, they are just terms to do with how your royalties are paid, they having nothing to do with the image itself and it's content or the purpose for which the image is used. It is the individual site that determines what can and can't be sold under the licenses it sells, there is no hard and fast rule or guidelines.

Tomorrow one microstock site could announce that they are changing all of the images they have on their site to RM, you could still sell the same images on another micro site as RF, it makes no difference whatsoever. It is on;y the site internal administrative policy that determines whether you can sell the same images elsewhere under different licenses. The only time anywhere that problems arise is when there's some form of exclusivity license purchase involved.

As far as Alamy goes there licensing system determines the license based on the questions you answer during process to get them online, and in some cases an image you want to sell as RF gets put to RM if you answer the commercial question, but that is just their system.

Here's an example, I take a photo of a Porsche 911 and want to sell it as RF, on some microstock sites that's not a problem if you tick the editorial box, on Alamy however it would end up as RM because they don't have the feature to be able to sell RF with an editorial restriction.  Now I know you're immediltely going to tell me I can't sell the Porsche as RF, yes you can and I think you need to understand that before you'll understand the rest.

Oh and by the way Alamy does not have RF, RM and L, they use to have RF and RM but changed it to RF,L and LRP a while ago, RM and L are one in the same.

Edited to add: An editorial image can be used for commercial purposes, if you notice iStock cottoned on to this recently hence they want photos of iPhones, Blackberries etc isolated with logos showing, all in the editorial collection but these will be used for commercial purposes quite legally. The big IF is how they are used, but that is down to the buyer.

@ the OP

No there isn't any legal problem but it may infringe on the sites own policy.

No wait __ everything is going to be OK after all. RM says they've just fixed all the old problems with some new kit;

Or in other words they got rid of the Sinclair ZX-81 and bagged themselves a shiny new netbook to run the site from. Obviously this extra expense will add to the unsustainable finances of the site and someone will have to pay - wonder who.

I was talking about coinage, not notes.  My information is current and directly from The Royal Mint.  If others get different answers they must act as they see fit, but I will stick to the letter of what they told me, as that's the only way I can be sure that my own actions are above board and in line with the information I was given.   If yours tie in with what they've advised you directly, that may be because you were working in a one-off commercial scenario(?)

I asked specifically about  microstock photography, where the photographer does not know how or where the image will be used.  I understood from the response that one-off commercial photography is assessed on a case by case basis, so that is a different scenario.

Like I've said before it's not the taking of a photo of notes or coins that is illegal, neither is using them commercially, reproduction of coins and notes is illegal, taking a photo and then using it for a commercial use is not reproduction, in simple terms, the times and reasons you would need permission from the BoE or Royal Mint to reproduce would for example be:

- where you wanted to take an image of a banknote on fire (willfully destroying currency is in itself an illegal act) and wanted to photocopy or print a note to burn, the act of photocopying or printing the note would constitute reproduction as defined by law and therefore you should get authority.
- if you wanted to take an image of a huge pile of banknotes to use in a scene, most people don't have access to a few million so they'd have some mock ups printed, again reproduction that requires authority.

I'm sure you get the picture (excuse the pun). The problem where everyone gets confused and why the stock sites got concerned is that a number of people where taking direct flat high res images of UK currency (notes and coins) and selling it as stock, whilst taking the photo and selling it as stock itself is not illegal someone could then buy the image and use it to reproduce counterfeit currency, although they would commit the counterfeit offence the photographer and the agencies themselves may be deemed to fall within the terms of 'being party to the commission of an offence' (aiding and abetting in laymen terms) and that is most probably the reason that they don't accept them, to try and train reviewers and even themselves as to what is and isn't acceptable probably is worth the bother or risk.

As for your contacting the royal mint, they have a clear statement on their site, you got the reply you did because of the same reasons I've mentioned above, they don't know how or what you're photographing them for so they can't give you permission, but as you can see from their statement you don't need permission to photograph coins.

"The flat form reproduction of a coin for use in advertisements or other promotional literature is normally permissible, providing the coin is reproduced in a faithful likeness and shown in good taste. The Royal Mint does not presume to be the arbiters of good taste, but relies on the good sense of the advertisers themselves. The stipulation that coins should be reproduced in a faithful likeness is made to prevent part of the coinage design being used out of context. However, showing part or a segment of a coin will usually be acceptable, providing the image is used in good taste and is clearly recognisable as depicting part of a coin."

The BoE doesn't have any reference to photographing banknotes (because it isn't illegal  ) only for reproduction, for which you fill out a form telling why you want to reproduce some notes and what for, they then send you an authority which you take to your printer.

Hope that clears things up for you.

Don't take my word for it though, contact them directly and see what they say.  

I have on occassions for commercial jobs, and there is never a problem, just like the thousands of other commercial usage of british currency you see each and every day. I think you're getting confused with the BoE reproduction of banknotes policy.

Like I said above it is the usage that determines whether the currency can be used commercially, their concern on reproduction is not for the type of usage that most commercial uses apply to, their concern is people supplying high res flat images that could be used to reproduce a note. Too many people on microstock sites have no idea of what can and can't be used.

Fotolia seems to sell a small group of images many times.  If you get one of your images into this 'selling' set then you will see sales, if your images don't get into that set, they will set without view or sales. 

That's probably the most accurate analogy I've ever seen about Fotolia and describes my own experience on the site precisely, I've yet to discover any one reason as to why a image is successful on that site whilst others aren't.

"We are making this post to publicly advise our distributors and contributors that we will not tolerate any kind of infringements.  Similarly, we will not quietly end an infringement, endorsing suspected instances of fraud this way.  Strong ethics must prevail and should be the very first thing one analyzes before joining a partnership, no matter its type."

Nice to see Dreamstime make this statement, wouldn't it be great if all agencies took this approach, especially the part about 'quietly ending an infringement'

I think he was referring to the normal email you get saying "Hey, we got your request and it will be processed, yadda, yadda, yadda"

Maybe that's something you can on or off in your account settings, I request and subsequently get a payout every week and have done since they introduced the system and I've never received a 'confirmation of request email'.

To the OP if you click on 'contact us' there should be a copy of any outstanding support messages you have, within those are the payout requests, if you've got one there I'd suggest all is well.