I've got this:

URGENT: W8-BEN Form Required for Continued Royalty Payments

Dear Contributor,

As part of our ongoing compliance with U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations, we require that you update your tax documentation and provide supporting evidence of your non‑U.S. status.

Our records indicate that the W‑8BEN or W‑8BEN‑E form you previously submitted is either incomplete or requires further substantiation.

In the next 24 hours you will receive an email from [email protected] with instructions on resubmitting the form so that we can continue processing payments to you and apply the correct withholding tax rate.

This is an important request, so please add [email protected] to your safe sender list now. If you do not receive the email within 24 hours, please check your junk or spam folder. If you are certain you have not received it after 24 hours, please contact us at: [email protected].

The next email we send will be detailed in order to comply with U.S. IRS regulations. Please read the email and the FAQs very carefully before you resubmit the forms.

If you have any questions after you receive the next email, we will support you via this special, dedicated email address: [email protected] (please do not open a support ticket).

Many thanks in advance,

Creator Support
Getty Images

****

Latest tax form was submitted and approved in December 2024, on web it says form is OK and valid till the end of 2027.

Did anyone else get the same communication. It looks half-legit / half-suspicious.

From FAQ:

1. Assets in the free collection may also be used by Adobe in templates and other design assets within Adobe applications, allowing Adobe's customers to discover and use the features of our applications. For example, Adobe could combine an asset from the free collection with text and additional design elements to create a template for use in one of the Adobe apps.

2. Content in the free collection can be offered by Adobe to customers for free or for a fee (e.g., as part of a subscription or enterprise contract).

So it's not a perpetual license to distribute for free, it's a perpetual license to distribute any way Adobe wants. Not exactly "Perpetual Free Collection" TBH. 

iStock is paying 15% flat commissions to photo contributors. SS currently is paying 15% to 40%. My gut feeling says there's a huge screaming "cost optimization" opportunity for managers after this merger. 

I sent my objection to them December 16th - no response whatsoever.

Did anyone else also sent the objection? Did you get a response?

Well, it's getting worse.

Violation(!!!) details

Sick Woman with Cough Syrup (Raster)

Facts and circumstances:
We identified this content through our own investigation.
This content violates our policies on regulated content.
This decision was made by a member of our team.
Enforcement taken:
This content won't be shown to Canva Education account holders.

I was also surprised with removals of diversity and inclusion contents. Something is very wrong about it. Next they will probably start witch-hunting female empowerment topics or contents with disabled people. 🤷‍♂️

Of course it's up to Canva to decide if these contents are not welcomed there. I'm not going to argue. But "VIOLATION and ENFORCEMENT with a threat to suspend account still being attached to THIS?" Really? As a "thank you" for more than a decade of cooperation to a contributor who was among the first ones to believe in them back in 2013? Strange.

Yes.

Violation details

Hands with Gay Pride Wristbands (Raster)

Facts and circumstances:
We identified this content through our own investigation.
This content violates our policies on stereotypes and misrepresentation.
This decision was made by a member of our team.
Enforcement taken:
This content has been removed.

Hand with Gay Pride Rainbow Wristband Shows Rock (Raster)
   
Facts and circumstances:
We identified this content through our own investigation.
This content violates our policies on stereotypes and misrepresentation.
This decision was made by a member of our team.
Enforcement taken:
This content has been removed.


Gay Couple with Rainbow Wristbands and Hand Heart (Raster)

Facts and circumstances:
We identified this content through our own investigation.
This content violates our policies on stereotypes and misrepresentation.
This decision was made by a member of our team.
Enforcement taken:
This content has been removed.


Hand with Gay Pride Rainbow (Raster)
   
Facts and circumstances:
We identified this content through our own investigation.
This content violates our policies on stereotypes and misrepresentation.
This decision was made by a member of our team.
Enforcement taken:
This content has been removed.

Quote from: DannyCanva on February 29, 2024, 13:24
The messaging around "suspension" is not intended for the latter case; so please don't be alarmed by this, and you don't need to worry about account suspension.

Thanks, Danny! I really appreciate your response. 🙏

Is it possible to make these library cleanups without sending "Notice of violation - We've had to take action on your account" emails each time? Or maybe edit a template somehow. The subject is very aggressive and the whole tone of template used feels like being in the police station or court room:

"content or behavior associated with your account violates", "Facts and circumstances", "Enforcement taken". When you get something like this it basically says "you're criminal and you're guilty".

And then I discover all of these words are because of innocent closeup photograph of two male hands with gay pride wristbands on them. Are we in Putin Russia now?

OK, at least email is not threatening with time in jail or death penalty for images of gay pride wristbands or women walking on beach in bikinis, that's a relief. 🤷‍♂️

My point is: if something accepted years ago is no good for your library anymore - of course it's up to you to delete it. But this template being used for such a library cleanup is a major miscommunication, Can you please forward it to your team and then maybe they can figure out some other way to notify us? 🙏 Or maybe cleanup  without notifying us at all, as Canva was doing for years before? It was way better than what we get now.

I really hope old contents that are being deleted now because of new guidelines will not trigger disabling of accounts. It would be a nonsense.

Starting from last week I've got several emails from Canva with "Notice of violation" topic.

In each email there are noticed about some of my contents (3-5 in each mail) like:

"Violation details
Smiling Young Woman in Bikini Swimsuit on Beach (Raster)
Facts and circumstances:
We identified this content through our own investigation.
This content violates our policies on sexual content.
This decision was made by a member of our team.
Enforcement taken:
This content won't be shown to Canva Education account holders."

These are all old contents, uploaded 2 years ago or more. Beach photos in bikinis, protos of people drinking beer in the bar and similar. Usual stock contents.

It's OK for me if they delete some previously accepted contents, but latest email also says: "Repeated violations may result in the permanent suspension of your Canva account." Nothing like this in previous emails.

It would be so stupid to lose my account just because they deleted some old contents. I wonder if I'm the only one getting these notices lately.

Quote from: Jaggy on June 23, 2023, 11:59
I just had a look and, right now, it looks like everything is still going into the regular stock catalog. I don't see any option to view a 'data catalog'.

"Starting next week, Shutterstock will be introducing Data Licensing"

It's a major business model shift.

Visual content providers will be transformed to dataset content providers. Advantage is clear - you should only pay once to dataset content providers for training your AI and you're also paying them much less. And once you trained your AI, you can move dataset to archive. No need to keep them online and pay for cloud. Another win.

If Shutterstock manages to stay ahead of competition it's probably a time to get long SSTK stock. Their "paying to content providers" expense article will dramatically decrease very soon and it should positively affect earnings. 

For most of people earning their income contributing the old way, it's probably a message their can kiss their businesses goodbye.

Quote from: Cider Apple on June 08, 2023, 14:53

Yes me too. I received a nice sum of money yesterday but no email notification. I went through my spam and trash but I didn't receive any adobe email. It would be nice to know how many and which clips were selected just out of curiosity.

Same here. Checked everything, no email notification anywhere, including mail server of my mail host. Just got money yesterday with no notification whatsoever.

I've got some money to my account yesterday but no email notification.

Should I expect the email to come? I'm completely in the dark what I'm being paid for. Is it for photos I nominated at the beginning of June? Is it for videos? No idea.

Anyone else with the same situation?

And I just got mine too

Same here. Remittance advice email, but nothing on PayPal.

Too bad.

Adobe felt like the only safe haven lately. But I smell a beginning of major "optimization" process. Currency change can probably be just a first one from the upcoming "good news" series. 

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/PeopleImages-Yuri+A

I've sent a message to support, I hope they will react accordingly:

Hello,

I've started getting messages about images with no downloads for 4 years, saying:

"If no action is taken, your images will be automatically donated to the free section after 7 days from this email."

I'm not willing to donate anything to the free section ever. I never opted-in or agreed to this. So I'm asking you for 2 things:

1. If your automatics already "donated" my images to free section, please remove them from free section.

2. Can you please change default option for "unsold for 4 years" images to "keep online" for my account.

Regards,
Lev

I think now they changed default option to "donate" for everyone, without a chance to change it back.

So every time you have to opt-out each new set of images, and if you fail to do it in 7 days (get ill, travel, don't notice an email etc), your images will be "donated" to their new free platform. I thin this change is directly related to this new platform. It has a separate name and webpage.

Platform name is mentioned on page where you should make a selection. Once I'll get another email with "your images will be automatically donated after 7 days", I'll take a look at this platform.

It's not about rejected images, but about "no sales for 4 yrs"

Unfortunately it's not there (at least in my case)

Got this:

***

"This is an automated notification. Your portfolio includes images that have been online for more than 4 years with no downloads up to the present. In order to keep up with the current standards we recommend transferring them to the free section, allowing fresh content to be more visible.

The following action options are available for you to decide:

- donate the image to the free section which can provide significant portfolio exposure and increase your sales; images can be disabled at any time later. We are also announcing a new feature that enables designers to donate a specific amount to the photographer (minimum $3 USD, entire amount awarded to you).
- keep the image online.

In order to review the images and take the desired action, please access the link below.
If no action is taken, your images will be automatically donated to the free section after 7 days from this email."

***

Sounds very bad. Does anyone know how to change default option for "keeping images online", or "delete images"? I've tried to find it but I can't.

I don't want to "donate" anything to free section, I've never opted-in for anything like this and I hate seeing this as a default option.

Can anybody find a possibility to terminate account for contibutor in these new terms?

I only see a one-sided possibility of termination for Mostphotos there, but not for contributor. Looks like there is no way to terminate account at all. 

15 DURATION AND TERMINATION
15.1 Mostphotos has the right to, without prior notice and in its sole discretion, terminate user accounts and/or to block Users
from the Service in case of, but not limited to, fraudulent usage or breach of these Terms and conditions.


I've emailed Mostphotos support but they just do not answer.

I'm struggling to find Ingram Image LTD VAT number.

Maybe someone has it and can help me?

Thanks a lot!