Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 26, 2015, 22:25

If you can demonstrate a link between reduced ODDs and the appearance of your portfolio on DPC it would be an important factor in determining any damages in a lawsuit.

It would be kinda hard to do that since I have no idea exactly when they took it upon themselves to ignore the op-out instructions on my profile and steal my files.  This is a new low, even for them.  They may get away with it, but I will do everything I possibly can to make sure their buyers know how callously they disregard a contract.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons why a class action is difficult - you have to be able to show quantifiable damages.

I have a pretty good idea about when they stole my files and put them back on DPC...just about the time my ODDS started dropping like a rock on SS!  I am now in the process of deleting my entire port from FT.  It appears that is the only way to protect them from these rotten b@stards!

If you can demonstrate a link between reduced ODDs and the appearance of your portfolio on DPC it would be an important factor in determining any damages in a lawsuit.

But marriage is a religious invention, anyway.

Remember this?  Fotolia D-Day (Deactivation Day) - May 1, 2014

It was a 64 page thread.

And something like seven million images removed ... and now apparently back again.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on May 26, 2015, 13:46

Quote from: r2d2 on May 26, 2015, 13:45

what fotolia?
its unbelievable how untrustworthy are the agencies.

You might be able to send a message by starting a class action.

we should all do this togehther.
A crowd funded kickstarter Lawsuit!

I despise Fotolia so much that I might well contribute, even though I couldn't be party to any proceedings, since they lost my portfolio years ago.

what fotolia?
its unbelievable how untrustworthy are the agencies.

You might be able to send a message by starting a class action.

Surely this is a serious legal violation? Breach of copyright springs to mind (equivalent to unauthorised use by a buyer). I can't say it surprises me much, though.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32873562

Now there's an interesting twist! I would have thought that the usage was contrary to the usual terms, since there is no doubt that the issue is controversial and should have required specific consent.
I'm glad I don't shoot people (in any way).

Let me remind that when istock,first with Bruce, then with Getty, was raising prices year after year, a lot of people, including a lot of photographers used to angrily protest

I was one who was concerned about it. I though it risked losing customers and the higher commissions risked pulling in a load of new photographers (which I suppose was part of the point).  For the most part, Bruce balanced the increased value of sales against the loss of customers very well but it did lose some - which boosted SS - and it did make us face tougher competition with some people dumping entire portfolios into the site and being excused the limits placed on the rest of us.

Ralph - if the squabbling hasn't driven you away - I actually do shoot the very stuff you are talking about. I started in April 2004 and I've sold more than 250,000 licenses but I still remember the excitement of my first 10c. Things were a lot easier then, within a month I had about 100 files uploaded and I've never had a day since April 23, 2004, without a sale. I doubt if even the most talented, high-commercial-value (HCV) photographer could get off to a start like that today.
I reckon I might have sold a million if I had followed all the advice about  HCV content but I didn't want the hassle of model releases and, more significantly, the risk of anyone getting upset over an illegal usage which, though rare, does happen. I also persuaded myself that if I chased HCV stuff I would be shooting the same things as a lot of other people, some of whom would be much better than I was, while low-value content would be likely to pop up near the top of a short search result, giving me more exposure and less competition. It's probably better to be on page one of a search that only 10 people a year make than on page 100 of a search that 100 people a day make. Even so, I still reckon that with HCV I would probably have sold three or four times as many files as I do with LCV, but the difference is not as great as people tend to make out.
The number of files I quoted to get $5,000 a year may sound extreme but it is my assessment of what you could expect from a portfolio like mine in the future. I do significantly better than that but I have a lot of old files locked into decent search engine positions that continue to sell. New files rarely sell, which is why I have scaled back my production.  My rough estimate, based on sales of new material, is that I would need to produce about 250 isolated-on-white files to generate one sale every day. That's a month's serious work for maybe $175 a year. 
Travel is simply not worth the cost these days unless you are going somewhere anyway. Popular locations are swamped with content and for the little-known LCV location you may pick up a sale or two a year from the one person searching for it, but each of your pictures then goes into competition with your other pictures of the same location. Unlike "isolated on white" you can't just shoot a location four or five times from different angles and call it a day, you have too much invested in going there. So you are not going to upload four files the way you might with isolated on white, you are going to upload 100. And while 24 sales a year from four isolations would be just about OK in my reckoning, 24 sales from 100 would not even cover the effort of processing and uploading them all. So competing against yourself in a LCV niche is a problem. With LCV you want to shoot, process and upload in three or four hours, total, then move on to the next subject.
It's also worth noting that earnings growth is always most rapid to start with. As you go from 10 files online to 1,000 your sales should increase 100-fold, and going from one sale a week to 100 sales a week looks good, if you do it in a year. But in year 2 the same effort only doubles your return and by the end of year three your 50% increase, from 2,000 to 3,000 files, will be undermined to some degree by the increase in the overall size of the libraries. In year four you may struggle to maintain your income and from year five it is probably falling.
So if you want it to pay you a pension you need to save it all up and put it into something that delivers a sure-fire return. I bought a house but I got lucky, starting when I did, I doubt if many people could do that well starting today. 

Right, thanks.

But there is at least six months if not a year or two lag from the beginners doing uploads until they are disgruntled and stop. Then it will take time for the word to get around and the beginners no longer begin. I figure we are 3 to 5 years out from that point.

Now, it would be interesting if our thousands of images started to regain value after that....