Come on guys, you know I didn't mean any disrespect to nobody. I only have a small portfolio online, but I know how hard it was to produce it. In the end, you own your images so it's your decision if you want to participate. That's why, naturally, you have the right to choose.

Cheers!

When some 35 million images have been offered to bloggers, for free, as embeds, we came up with a Wordpress plugin that made it easier for the same bloggers to buy images from Dreamstime. That should tell you something about our intentions and our long term strategy.

You can turn my words upside down as much as you like, bottom line is: when there is an opportunity to have a clear, legitimate deal which could bring all of us more income, we should at least try to get it done.

There is nothing more to be said in public about the possible deal. That's how business works, that's how negotiations are made in the real world. Sure, we can pray for better income, but it won't rain with dollars anytime soon. Different opinions are actually good, they help everybody somehow. All you have to do now is to act on your own judgement.

DT doesn't take 70% of the profits, not even of the sales. The 70% out of independents' sales must cover also the referrals, partners, human resources, technical resources, advertising, taxes and so on. And let's not forget that exclusives get 60% out of any sales. Even more, you can compare our subs with other agencies' subs and decide for yourself who pays more on a sub from the day one a contributor joins the agency.

You don't fund the beta test alone, Dreamstime pays for the people and technical resources required as well. And we're not getting the 70% either. While you don't have to do anything more than you already did (uploading the images), we have to pay more for the resources involved in the test.

Let's face it, the free images are good, but not good enough to impress a partner or a customer.

As I am an employee of Dreamstime, I can confirm that stockmarketer is not.

You keep talking about the deal, let me clarify that: there is no deal. Yet.

There will be some tests for a possible, future deal. The success of this deal pretty much depends on your enrollment in the tests, cause, like Rinderart said, you guys own everything. If you want the deal to be successful and earn more in the near future, you should opt in for the tests. I think it's a fair agreement: you provide the content (which costed money to produce), Dreamstime provides human and technical resources (which costs money), know how and the ability to do business with big companies, for free, during the tests. All for a possibility to earn more, both from your perspective and ours.

We all want to earn more, but that doesn't come that easy. You must be able to give something in order to get something back. It's pretty much what we're all doing (I'm also a contributor) from the first step into a stock agency: we upload our images without knowing if we'll ever going to sell anything. The agency has the same risk: it provides the human and technical resources without knowing if there will be a positive return in the end.

Businesswise, if Dreamstime wanted to make a shady deal, you wouldn't have been asked in the first place, just like the other recent happenings in other places. We don't have such a record and we're not interested in getting any. Fair and square, a small group out of 184,000 contributors have been invited to participate. You can either participate or opt out. It's your choice, but bear in mind that participating means higher chances for getting the deal done and earning more in the future. Dreamstime has always been about the community. If you want to earn more as much as we do, join the tests and let's make it happen for both sides of this business.

Quote from: ShadySue on June 25, 2013, 14:55
I don't see that particular photo you reference on their home page on facebook here (UK).

If you don't see anything suspicious, that's a good thing

In most countries, their content is local, managed by local crews, so you won't see the same photo in UK and Brazil (FB has this option, of targeting content to certain countries). I'm just trying to find other local crews managing their Facebook page in a wrong way, so I can write a letter to their headquarters.

Thank you!

Hi guys, I have recently realized that Coca Cola Romania is using, to promote their business on their Facebook page, photos grabbed from social networks and photo sharing sites. The problem is that their page looks different in different countries, even if it's the same link:

https://www.facebook.com/cocacola

So, before writing a letter to the headquarters, can you please check their Facebook page and, if anything looks suspicious, post a screenshot here like the one attached by me? Don't forget to specify the country you are posting from.

Maybe it's just the case in Romania, but I suspect it's a little larger problem.

Thanks in advance to all of you who want to stop photo stealing!

I'm using my real name as my username, so I think it's a good idea to know who you're talking to. Being anonymous means you take no responsibility for your words. Who can benefit from that?

I'm concerned about users with 10 or less pictures in their portfolio and 2 months of stock advising people around about stock photography.

Quote from: sjlocke on May 17, 2013, 21:16
Oh, and there's still the little matter of this:
http://peopleimages.com/

So, I don't think so.

Actually, on Dreamstime you can be exclusive AND sell your images on your own website.

I don't know the terms of exclusivity at Istock, but maybe it's the same situation or he got a pass.

Hi!

I've just launched a small campaign against image stealing. The main idea is that people don't usually associate a certain picture with an author, and we should try to change that. We should try to educate, rather than simply bullying image stealers.

I've created a Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/356678121119787/, feel free to join.

You can use the photos available https://www.facebook.com/groups/356678121119787/photos/ as Facebook covers and profile pictures in order to spread the word.

Also, if you have examples of your work being stolen, you can post evidences in the group so we can discuss.

If you can help, please spread the word! It's a constructive way of protecting our creations.

Although I work for DT, the campaign is not connected to any agency and will never be. It's a photographers' appeal to general public, not an advertising campaign.

So, now that D-Day madness is almost over, I can see there are more than 100 pages only on this forum about Getty/Google Drive situation. That's a lot!

While here on this topic we have only 3 pages of messages.

Which makes me wonder: Do you really understand the problem?

Google Drive has about 10k pageviews per day. Do you know how many page views per day Google Images has? 1 BILLION! Yes, 1 billion pageviews a day, for over 10 billion images indexed.

Can you even calculate how small the Getty/Google Drive situation is, compared with the real issue?

Here's an article published today by Achilles, on his blog: http://blog.dreamstime.com/2013/02/04/google-images-new-layout-how-this-impacts-photographers-and-webmasters_art38649

Any input is highly appreciated.

We need to think of a better strategy to protect our images and educate people, if we want to be here next year.

Quote from: cclapper on January 29, 2013, 15:57


Any chance of getting a link to that? I must have missed that.

It's on the first page of this topic

http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/google-image-search-redesigned/msg294583/#msg294583

Quote from: cuppacoffee on January 29, 2013, 12:48
Aren't you an admin on DT (or at least you were)? Isn't there anything official that can be done about this or are companies like DT not able to legally fight back? If not, why not?

I'm still an "admin" (ambiguous word, isn't it?) on DT, but I'm not involved in legal actions. That's the lawyers' job and unfortunately I don't know anything about their job, just like they don't know anything about mine. I'm just a photo reviewer. The official reply from Dreamstime was already posted by jsnover, and I can't add anything to it.

But I'm also a photographer, and a stock contributor, hence my concern. What's the future of stock photographers, if we're only watching? We have to be very vocal about these wrong things happening, we have to point out copyright infringement as loud as we can, or else...

That's just crazy, sometimes I simply can't believe things like that are actually happening. Where are we going to?

What's the future of stock photography?

Found lots of Facebook pages using stolen photos, and I'm talking about big companies, like Canon, Epson, nobody cares anymore. We need to act, or else this industry will collapse.

Stock photography is an entrepreneurial environment. You can take a break from working, but you'll have the same break from earning.

More and more photographers get into microstock everyday, with more and more quality content, while the media has more and more problems (think of newspapers being shut down, magazines, marketing budgets being cut everyday).

Well, all these only mean less and less sales for an individual, unless you have some sort of magic strategy to overcome the financial and media crisis.

The only strategy I know is to work more efficient and more inovative. Diversification is also good. Don't know if it's a magic strategy, but my sales are steady in the last year or so. 

Yes, I did that and still doing it. Just wanted to let stock photographers know that a company's FB page is stealing their work, maybe someone else could act too, because, coming from me, it just seems that I have something personal with that company (and I don't).

Of course, this topic is only for those who care.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151220413177654&set=a.10151220412502654.452677.127545187653&type=1&relevant_count=4  or https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151197604117654&set=a.10151197604102654.449622.127545187653&type=1&relevant_count=2 - lots of photos like these.

We had several discussions on their page, but now they deleted them.

They steal articles as a whole, picture included - like this one here https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151226970492654&set=a.383340382653.160516.127545187653&type=1&relevant_count=1

It's not gone, they're still up and still using stolen photos: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Blue-Air/127545187653

Only a few reported photos are gone, but the page is still full of previously posted stolen photos.

Probably they spend money on advertising and FB needs more reports to shut them down.

roboz: I'm romanian as well. Do you have a problem with my country?

yes, absolutely sure. they even answered with "google is for free". as you can understand romanian, check out the comments on this photo (while still available): https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151225081222654&set=a.383340382653.160516.127545187653&type=1&relevant_count=1

Or this article: http://www.zoso.ro/social-media-blue-air/

Hi, I've found a Facebook page using only stolen photos here:https://www.facebook.com/pages/Blue-Air/127545187653.

I know, what else is new? The thing is, the page belongs to an airline company, and they are using the stolen photos to promote their business. I have filled 10 reports to Facebook and they were very fast in removing the stolen content. I also had several discussions with the persons behind the page, they simply don't care.

So, if you find your photos there you can fill in a report for copyright infringement directly to Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/?id=208282075858952   If there are enough complaints, Facebook will shut down their page.

The page is in romanian, but only the photos matter in this case. Cheers!

The user is blocked on Dreamstime. But please note that our support didn't receive any message on this matter. So, I suggest you should notify the agencies on official channels too, instead of just posting on the forum.

I can see here 7 pages of messages on this topic, started 2 weeks ago, but how many messages have you sent to agencies?   

Quote from: stockastic on June 20, 2012, 16:57
A hypothetical buyer is in such a panic that he has only minutes to select and purchase images, but has time to re-process the .NEF in some different way?  Not making sense.  

For a professional, it makes a lot of sense. But I'm only telling you MY experience from the years I worked in publishing companies.

The decision must be made in minutes or tens of minutes or maybe sometimes hours, but nobody expects that's enough time for the agency to see my request, to forward the request to the contributor, to wait for a response from the contributor, to wait for the contributor to come back from his vacation in Thailand and upload the requested file, to wait for the file to be approved and so on. The post processing can be made afterwards, by another person, from another department, but the buying decision is often made in minutes-hours. It makes sense now? 

If you want big sales from raw files, you should make your raw files available without any request. Sometimes, those sales could be subscriptions, sometimes credits. You don't know.

If you want big sales from SR-EL and other extended licenses, you should make your files available for such sales without any requests (you can set the price in the first place, during the submission process, you don't need to wait for a request).

And that's because those request may never come, if you just wait for them, because there are search options that allow buyers to find only the files already available for such sales.

PS: if you want a response from a DT admin, you can contact DT or write on DT forum. I was only sharing my experience with fellow photographers. Don't take it as a response from a DT official, cause I'm not paid to write on external forums

Quote from: stockastic on June 19, 2012, 02:37
Really, I have no issue with selling the .NEF, it's not like there's some magic in there that I need to keep secret.   I just wasn't going to even bother uploading it for a sale that might have netted me 25 cents.  For 10 dollars, sure.  But that wasn't going to happen.

But DT can't be bothered with anything like that - i.e.  the basic functions of a real "agency".   None of the other micros are any different, of course.  They're just vending machines on the web.

Hi, these are the royalties for additional formats (vector or RAW files- NEF in your case):

Additional Format (credits)        (vector/RAW):   double the royalties for the largest size available for download
Additional Format (subscription)   (vector/RAW):   standard subscription royalties

So, if the buyer is a credit buyer, you get a lot more than a standard sale for a RAW file. If the buyer has a subscription, well, the price is standard for subscription. You can't know what type of buyer wants your RAW file, and this information can't be provided by the agency, because there are simply too many sales and additional format requests daily.

And the lost is only for the contributor, because buyers usually buy other photos with additional format available from somebody else, instead of waiting for that requested raw to become available or not.

The same with selling the rights of an image: most probably the buyers will choose something already available (there is a search option to search only files available for selling the rights) instead of waiting for the emails and see if the negotiations turn out well.

When I was a buyer, I needed every image in a matter of minutes. Of course, it's your images and your decisions, I just wanted to share from my experience as a buyer.

Hi WarrenPrice, what is childish and irresponsible in my response? Cause I can't see it, thanks.

@juscommune - I'm pretty sure that you will receive an answer from support and things are gonna work out. I don't know what "reasonable time" means to you, but usually it takes 24-48 hrs.

@juscommune - sorry to hear that you didn't manage to use our site. Hundreds of thousands users are happy to use it every day.
When you buy credits or a subscription, the level downloads are clearly specified in the very same page. So how can you call this a con-trick? It's right there, right before the "Buy subscription" button: http://www.dreamstime.com/credits.
If you want to buy only images counted as 1 download, you can use the Dreamfinder, our advanced search, where you can choose the price of the photos that come up in your searches (I guess you need only level 0-2 images).

@Grandpa - for a photographer with such a small portfolio on every site, you sure seem to know a lot about stock industry. If you ever decide to teach courses about the way to success in microstock industry, count me in, I'll pay whatever it takes!