So Why are you publishing the link here!  So somebody can make a mistake and click on it!.  

Yuliang:  Please modify your post and put the link in a Code wrapper.

(i.e.) http://www.somewhere.com

c h e e r s
fred

Quote from: caspixel on December 22, 2010, 19:29
Aside from using TinEye and searching through all the results, is there any way to find out who the original photographer was of a particular image? It's an image that I think has been around the web a lot. Thanks!

Sometimes the EXIF data is available and can be read with something like the EXIF Viewer plugin for Firefox.

fred

Quote from: a1bercik on December 22, 2010, 07:19
Mentioned artefacts and noise, over-saturation, everything caused by high ISO. From my experience, Canon 50D gives unacceptable noise above 200 ISO..."

Agree.  EXIF shows the OP's shot at 800 ISO.  Is anyone having much luck submitting at over 400 ISO?  With my D300 I rarely try anything over 200 ISO for stock.

fred

Quote from: a1bercik on December 22, 2010, 07:19
Mentioned artefacts and noise, over-saturation, everything caused by high ISO. From my experience, Canon 50D gives unacceptable noise above 200 ISO..."

Agree.  This was shot at 800 ISO.  Is anyone having much luck submitting at over 400 ISO?  With my D300 I rarely try anything over 200 ISO for stock.

fred

Quote from: KB on December 17, 2010, 23:27
I recall a few years ago a similar situation, and the upshot was they could do that, but they were required to purchase a new copy of the image for each sale. There was nothing against the licensing (it was DT or FT, I don't remember which) that prevented this. The defense of this practice was that it is no different at all from a buyer purchasing one of our images and then going to a photo shop to get an expensive print made of it.

That was FT with Bilderking.  This is probably the same kind of deal but DT needs to let us know.

fred

[quoye]"According to Seidman, HMH hasn't changed its licensing practices so much as it has changed the fine print in its contracts to prevent future lawsuits from contributors. "They're doing it by saying that if you sign [the license] agreement, any use in excess of the permission that you are granting will be extended, and that you automatically are granting us an extension of rights if we need it."[/quote]

How would this work?  The contributor is licensing the image to HMH based on the terms provided by the copyright holder or his/her agent.  I don't see where the copyright holder has anything to sign.  HMH just buys a standard license - that would not provide for "excess of the permission" - or they do not use the image. 

fred

Quote from: pet_chia on December 13, 2010, 21:28

Quote from: adijr on December 12, 2010, 23:17
... I don't disagree that most governments have some corruption, but I think for the sort of facts you're posting you need some references (and I mean statistics, studies, etc back up by some scientific plan, not an article from FoxNews) ...

An article from Fox News, LOL.  I never watch it.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that probably if you watched Fox News for a little while, and then compared their opinions to other networks, you would conclude that all of these networks are pro-(big)-government, and they only disagree on which areas should have Big Government and which areas should have Really Really Big Government.

Here is the case against government, it rests on logic and not on statistics.

A government is by definition a group of people who claim a monopoly on the use of violence in a particular geographic region.  Violence is the beginning and end of government power (if you don't believe it then try subtracting from your tax payment the money which you feel is being wasted or stolen, and wait to see what happens).  Yet, governments claim that this violence is necessary for them to perform beneficial acts of charity and cooperative "public works".  That is a logical impossibility - governments are saying, "Let us help you ... or we'll kill you."  That is not charity, it is brigandage.

Quote
... I've heard all too many times about the long lines and people dying because they can't get a surgery, but very little in terms of proper numbers. I can definitely understand how overhead goes up due to strong unions, misuse of money and so on. But to go from that to saying that all these systems will collapse, especially without numbers, might be overdoing it.  And this of course is a completely different discussion from the one that decides just who is allowed to have medical access in each system ...

With the possible exception of Norway, Alberta and a handful of oil sheikdoms who can (for now) afford to pay for exorbitant social welfare programs, there is NO country right now that I am aware of who provides welfare, medicare, government pensions, etc. and who can balance their budget.  None of 'em.  Go google it if you want, I think you'll find that all of these countries are facing not only budget problems right now, but are also facing more and more severe problems in the next few decades because of demographic problems.  They will have many, many more old people who expect receive pensions and free medical care than they will have young, working people who could be taxed to support the old people.  Whatever savings that older people might have put away are being severely eroded through monetary inflation (printing money) so it's hard to see how any of this is going to end well.  Laughably, what the EU considered to be a "good" amount of unbalanced budget was to borrow "only" an extra 3 percent per year of the value of the entire production of the country.  Even that is digging a hole then pulling down the walls down on yourself (and your children and grandchildren) but many of the countries, especially the benighted PIIGS, simply lied about their deficits and were allowed to participate in the Euro welfare scam anyways.

Any system that gives away "free" stuff will end in the same way.  When the cost of something (to the consumer) approaches zero, the demand approaches infinity.  Stated another way, there is no such thing as a free lunch (unless you steal it).

What happened was this - the politicians who created these social welfare programs did not give a cr_ap whether they would be sustainable for 20, 50 or 100 years.  Being politicians, they sought to grab power only in the next election.  That is the only horizon that matters to any politician.  Every "social program" is in fact a pyramid scheme.  The neatest example I can think of is a little old gal called Ida May Fuller, the first ever recipient of US Social Security.

Quote
By the time of her death, Fuller had collected $22,888.92 from Social Security monthly benefits, compared to her contributions of $24.75 to the system.

Nice little scam!  And she didn't finish collecting the free money until around 40 years after the politicians who created SS won their election in 1936.  Did they care?  Why would they?  Not a single one of them will still be alive when SS collapses in a cesspool of unfunded liabilities in a decade or two from now.

If you dig a bit into the origins and future of every other social welfare program - such as Canada's Biggest Sacred Cow (medicare) you will find the same, scummy, political opportunism and the same, hopeless financial dead-end.  That is why I say that government welfare programs are not just a little bit corrupt and inefficient, but they are inherently corrupt.  It is an irrational fantasy to believe that politicians can create or sustain wealth in a country by collecting money under threat of violence and redistributing it to their political supporters so that they can win the next election.

Well, Malthus thinks we've all starved by now!

c h e e r s
fred

Quote from: lisafx on December 13, 2010, 17:41

Quote from: Fred on December 12, 2010, 22:06

"...in the 28% tax bracket, so we pay 28% taxes on our taxable income..." Nope. If you are filing jointly you only pay 28% on all income over $137,300 and at lower levels below that (see my previous post).   Big difference.

Ah.  Thanks for the correction Fred.  When my accountant tells me I am in the 28% bracket, that's what I believe.  Since our taxable income is less than 137k, I am not sure why we were told we are taxed at the 28% rate?   

Well, your postings are generally accurate, well thought out and well written.  I was surprised to see this from you.  I think a lot of people don't really understand this.  Many posts on pol/econ forums I am on ignored the fact that even if the Bush tax cuts were not extended for those with incomes over $250k they would still benefit from the all the cuts that applied for under $250k and only pay additional taxes on that over $250k.

c h e e r s
fred 

Quote from: adijr on December 12, 2010, 23:17

Quote from: pet_chia on December 12, 2010, 17:36

Quote from: adijr on December 12, 2010, 02:07
I am a canadian living in the US as a student. Canadian taxes are skyhigh compared to here. Most people I know in Canada and with whom I've at least mentioned finances are quite content to pay their taxes, even those taxed at 50%.

I am really curious why (some?) people are sooo eager to not pay taxes here in the US. In my mind, the equation was very simple, more taxes = more social programs, infrastructure, etc. (of course, assuming no excess of corruption)
...

Excess of corruption?  All of these social programs are inherently corrupt...

I don't disagree that most governments have some corruption, but I think for the sort of facts you're posting you need some references (and I mean statistics, studies, etc back up by some scientific plan, not an article from FoxNews)...

Excellent post.  Anxious too see an answer.

c h e e r s
fred

Quote from: pet_chia on December 12, 2010, 17:36

Quote from: adijr on December 12, 2010, 02:07
I am a canadian living in the US as a student. Canadian taxes are skyhigh compared to here. Most people I know in Canada and with whom I've at least mentioned finances are quite content to pay their taxes, even those taxed at 50%.

I am really curious why (some?) people are sooo eager to not pay taxes here in the US. In my mind, the equation was very simple, more taxes = more social programs, infrastructure, etc. (of course, assuming no excess of corruption)

...Excess of corruption?  ...

Without some kind of reliable reference this is just gossip. Why bother?

fred

Quote from: madelaide on December 12, 2010, 22:02
Now, why do I have to pay 30% if I don'tlive in the USA?   

Someone will correct me if I am wrong but I believe that is just a witholding rate and you can file a U.S. Tax return to get back whatever you paid that was in excess of what you owed.

fred

Quote from: lisafx on December 12, 2010, 15:52
I agree with Cathy's numbers, except for the omission of payroll taxes.  My husband and I are in the 28% tax bracket, so we pay 28% taxes on our taxable income (the income after making all our deductions for business expenses, charity, etc.), plus we pay the payroll taxes - 15.3% self-employment tax on my business earnings, and half that (7.65%) on my husband's earnings because employers pay half the payroll tax and the employee pays the other half.  

As I have said before, I don't innately hate taxes.  I would be happy to pay them if I saw them being used to benefit average people.  Also to bring down the national debt.  They should really offer us the opportunity to assign a portion of our taxes to go directly to paying off the debt.  I am sure quite a few Americans would be willing to pay a bit extra for that.  

"...in the 28% tax bracket, so we pay 28% taxes on our taxable income..." Nope. If you are filing jointly you only pay 28% on all income over $137,300 and at lower levels below that (see my previous post).   Big difference.

Americans taxes are at their lowest rate in 60 years.  (If that makes anyone feel better!)

See:  http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2010-05-10-taxes_N.htm  



fred

Quote from: KB on December 12, 2010, 15:49
A self-employed "rich" person living in a high tax state can easily approach a 50% tax rate, depending on circumstances.

The highest Federal tax rate is 35%. Self-employment tax is an additional 15.3% (the proposed cut notwithstanding), but that applies only to the first $107K of earnings. Only 2.9% is applied to all earnings. State and even city taxes (rare) can be as high as more than 10% (though deductions on the federal return might lower the real rate a bit).

I've never been up there, but while I'd love to earn that kind of money, I suspect I wouldn't be that thrilled with giving up almost half of it to the government.

"... highest Federal tax rate is 35%..."  That is only on income over $373,650 below that is taxed at lower rates.  There are the brackets -- married filing jointly -- 10% for the first $16,750, 15% from there to $68,000, 25% from there to $137,300, 28% from there to $209,250, 33% from there to 373,650 where the 35% rate cuts in on all above.

See: http://www.savewealth.com/taxes/rates/2010/jointmarried/

fred

Quote from: corepics on December 06, 2010, 16:53
I addressed this issue directly with stockpodium, and received a pretty swift response:

Quote
Please excuse us for the inconvenience caused.

We actually start reselling images from 123RF in a few weeks and pretty soon we will have our watermark on the images (according to 123RF resale terms).

To handle the situation right now we just started using the watermarks of 123RF again. Please confrim that everything looks OK now at your side as well.

Thanks for the valuable and timely feedback and hope you will get lots of downloads/money thanks to our service.

It seems they have, already, placed a 123rf watermark over the images. A positive experience!

Thanks and

c h e e r s
fred

Just saw a 123RF partner - new one perhaps - and really don't like the watermark situation there.  Writing 123RF support if you agree drop them a line.  I would really like to get this fixed.

Check your stuff at this link:  http://www.stockpodium.com/en/

fred

Quote from: lagereek on November 25, 2010, 11:28

Quote from: Colette on November 25, 2010, 09:06
No, I am not thinking of StockXpert. They were not a new and they were not a small agency.
And no, I don't think that new agencies are in for a 'quick buck'.
As John Griffin from Cutcaster wrote a while ago: "I am working my butt off..."
Perhaps some of these agencies are going to make it, but it's not easy money. Not for us and not for them.

and if new small agencies arent in it for a quick buck??  they must seriously think that as a new player they can compete with the established ones? which ofcourse is impossible, so why are they in it?  for the fun of it?
I happen to know a few guys who ventured into Micro only a few years back and they were certainly in it for a quick couple of years revenue

Why do you care?  I think you are way over analyzing this.  The idea for contributors is to sell images over and above what they cost to make.  As long as the additional labor involved in uploading to an additional site is covered by additional sales I don't see what you are going on about.   

Another consideration might be that the smaller agencies tend to charge contributors less for selling their images.  This should be something contributors want to encourage.  The more agencies there are competing for images the more they will pay to get images.

fred

Well it seems to me that once you have an image ready to upload you have done 90% of the work.  Uploading to 4 sites or uploading to 6 or even 10 doesn't increase the workload substantially even if you upload manually.  And there are a number of tools that automate the process and allow you to upload to multiple agencies almost as easily as you would upload to one.

Overhead for each additional agency after the first is really quite low so even if the return is low it is probably worth it.

c h e e r s
fred 

Quote from: lisafx on November 22, 2010, 21:20
Thanks Karimala.  Very useful article.  Glad folks across the political spectrum see what a dumb idea this was. 

Yeah, I think they got a little carried away trying to find the missing $300 Billion.  Actually, IRS is pretty efficient overall.  Costs them $0.42 to collect $100, and they collect $245 for every dollar of their total budget.

c h e e r s
fred

Well the Bush administration's mismanagement of the budget and the economy put us in a big hole:





Just trying to dig out of it.

fred

Quote from: stockmarketer on November 09, 2010, 06:02

... called capitalism...

Ah yes, unrestrained capitalism.  It worked so well in the 1920's.  You remember - robber barons - 12 hour days - 6 day weeks.

c h e e r s
fred

Quote from: RacePhoto on November 10, 2010, 08:40

Quote from: jsnover on November 09, 2010, 15:23
What on earth is the point of joining the forums and starting a post to complain that we're all a bunch of whiners?

Yeah, there should be a rule that they have to read the complaints and constant crying for six months, before announcing that we're a bunch of whiners!

Uh Oh!  I think this is whining about complainers whining about complainers complaining about whiners!

Oh No! I am now complaining about whining about complainers whining about complainers complaining about whiners!!!

Will it ever end!!!

c h e e r s
fred

Quote from: RacePhoto on October 30, 2010, 04:49

Quote from: Fred on October 29, 2010, 12:48
Seems to me it has more to do with the trust of the buyers.  The buyers need to be able to trust that they can license images without being subject to copyright suits. 

fred

...The buyer is responsible for final use and abiding by the law. Not the artist, not the agency, not the web host or anyone else....

And that is exactly why they want to deal with agencies that are careful about what they put in their collections.

fred

Seems to me it has more to do with the trust of the buyers.  The buyers need to be able to trust that they can license images without being subject to copyright suits. 

fred

I got one of those refund emails from iStock.  Buyer decided he needed an Extended License.  He was refunded for his standard license and bought an Extended one so I came out about $30 ahead!

No complaints here.

c h e e r s
fred

Quote from: rubyroo on October 12, 2010, 17:38

Quote from: luissantos84 on October 12, 2010, 17:26
of course not, I didn't said I agree on the bashing.. it is just a curiosity

Ah... fair enough Luis.  I suppose it will remain a curiosity if we can't see his/her port.   

Probably hasn't been accepted anywhere.  Just "'avin' a laugh."  Easy enough to fake.

fred