Started the removal some weeks ago. Have now removed over 8 000 images from the Fotolia portfolio. Have about 3 000 left now. Have opted out and will probably remove even more of the remaining images in my port. At least the good sellers. A message must be sent that the agencies must start to treat their contributors with respect and fair royalties, and that we are actually willing to give up portions of our income to make a stand. I cannot support the race to the bottom anymore. It seems like it is mostly the russian, asian and european community that protest most loudly this time. Come on american contributors, and image factories, you should get onboard too!

I just got a mail thst confirm that there will be no opt out of subs.
I'm definitely out. I hope everyone drops them to send a clear message to HQ

Orginal poster here again Thank you for all your comments.
I contacted Veer and they came back to me very swiftly and professional. They meant that it was not a clear misuse according to the licence terms but they still wanted to see the site for themselves and discuss it with the legal team. Before we got that far, however, the photographer removed all my content from her site. I guess that's enough for me. The conclusion I make is that this could happen in micro stock and the only thing you can do when you find out such things is to try to talk sense into the person and if that is not working, taking the problem public, so the end customer can see the fraud for themselves.

Thanks

I have contacted Veer and we'l see what they say about the matter. I can't believe how anyone would build their photographic business upon others work. Unbelievable.

It is a photographic business that does maternal/baby photos and my images are in its portfolio showroom for maternal photos.
It is not stated in text that he/she claim copyright but that's the way it is portraited towards the customer.

I have tried to read the licensing terms, but cannot find anything about such use. I am not a lawyer and English is not my first language so I might be missing something in the legal text that the agencies use.

I person in question is not located in the same country.
When I contacted the person, the reply was in short:

"I bought the images at Veer, and this is a legit use. Other photographers use stock in their portfolio all the time" At least I paid for them."

Can a photographer buy a stock photo and use it in his own "portfolio" section on his/her photographic web site portraying it as it is his/her photograph to his/her customers?
From a moral stand point it is of course not ok, but how about according to license terms?
I have come across such use of some of my images and I am not sure if this really is ok?
I have no problem with my images being used in commercial activities, but when someone else is taking credit for my work, claiming indirectly that they created it, Im getting annoyed.
Any thoughts?

I am one of the photographers who rarely post anything at discussion boards. I try to focus my time on taking pictures and uploading. I follow the forums on a regular basis though and this time, however, I feel I must write a few lines and give praise to how Veer have handled this issue. The other large agencies should learn from you, and how you handle it. You don't judge a person about the mistakes he/she make, you judge him by how he/she handles the mistake and how he/she tries to amend it. If you continue this path you will soon be among the top two-three agencies to the right. The attitude that Istock, Fotolia and others has shown towards their suppliers and moneymakers recently, will be their fall in the end. Somewhere along the line, the big players seems to have forgotten who has provided the product which they have made their profits from. They are a middleman, not the main man. We need to promote agencies who listens to their contributors and are willing to work with them.

I also have the problem of incorrect keyword to images transfered from SV. Keywords from other images has been placed on my images somehow adn descriptions are gone...

I also have my own business and is wondering if I should get ITIN or EIN. There could be future problems with the EIN. I read somewhere that you may have to lodge a tax return each year to IRS if you have income with EIN. That could mean more paperwork and even more hazzle than to just get the ITIN. Anyone knows anything about this?

Thanks for your fast reply Keith!  Time to push a couple more pictures through then =)

I don't really get the new upload.... I liked it better when I didn't have to do anything myself What happens if I submit photos and don't do categories and price?? Will staff do it for me when reviewing?

I think the blocking option in the control panel only blocks subscription on future uploads. If you want to block subs on previous uploaded images, you have to disable subscription on each image on by one. I started to do that, but had enough after a few 100 images and let them be for now. Not the smartest system around.....

Finns det plats för en svensk med ? 

Jag har faktiskt tänkt åka till Norge om några veckor på en liten fotoresa i bil.
Min planerade rutt är Sverige - Narvik - Lofoten - Bodo - riksväg 17 ner efter kusten till Mo i rana och sen hem till Sverige igen, 5-6 dagar totalt. Nåt man inte bör missa när man är i dessa trakter? Har faktiskt aldrig varit i Norge tidigare så det ska bli spännande att se vad den Norska naturen har att erbjuda

I've had 9 sales so far. The last two months have been slow for me though, probably due to massive amounts of uploads. The site is new however, and I expect it to take a long time before results are getting better. The scandinavian market is pretty unexplored when it come to cheaper stock photography, and I think they might have good chances to gain a lot of customers there. Especially since I think many european and scandinavian buyers are looking for other pictures than the traditional american style of stock photography.

It's been a while since I laught this hard 

Quote from: suziecee on February 29, 2008, 13:04
moori, I think it's fair to say that the people here like the site and would like to help make it successful, it's in all of our interests! I assume that MP want us to contribute - the site is advertising here. The rating system isn't working and it is annoying a lot of people. There are now many pornographic or near pornographic images appearing because they are not checked. How many female buyers are going to take offence with that? Sorry but I don't have the time to report each of these!

Of course they want you to contribute! Im not a spokesperson for MP in any way, I'm just talking out of my own ass

I couldn't agree more what you are saying about the near "pornographic images"! I read in the recent newsletter from MP that they are working on some kind of adult filter which will be released soon. I hope it will work well because some of these images will surely scare away some female (and male) buyers. They have also put in "Pornographic or any offensive photos may not be uploaded on Mostphotos" in the upload agreement. That was not there before (I think).

FlemishDreams : I contribute to Featurepics too and I do like that site. The upload is smooth and painless. It doesn't seem to generate a lot of sales though. (or maybe its just my work) One difference between these are that featurepics doesn't do any marketing. You are supposed to do that yourself if I understand it correctly?? MP is at least doing a lot of marketing in its primary market Scandinavia and will hopefully do more in the future. And btw the RF price at MP is 25 EUR, not 50 

Without a rating system you would need a physical reviewer to control the images, and then it wouldn't be that much different would it? I like the fact that I can control what I want to sell. It is a nice addition to the other stock sites. I was sceptical at first too, but I will not make any final judgements until I have seen  the system at work for a longer period of time. So far I think it seems to work just fine, and I know they are constantly make improvements in the index system according to how buyers react to pitures and so forth. Arian has explained how complex the system is over and over again, and that votes is only a part of the whole thing, but the only thing some seems to see is some "bad votes".  Does that really matter if you get images sold? To me it doesn't. I don't think it is unprofessional. It is just a new take on the "micro thing". If you don't want others to rate your work, sell elsewhere. Simple as that. 

Remember that there is a market out there for different images. Images that is not "microperfect". There a buyers out there who wants to find different images then what they can find on every other micro. My sales so far tells me that. Im selling things there that don't sell well on the micros and it give me a commission that is way higher then all the other newcomers/lowearners (LO, albumo, canstock etc) together. MP is trying something different. If they did it like every other micro did....well....they would be like every other micro.
I am not that personally attached to my images that I can't handle some negative votes. Different people have different taste, just like buyers.  I don't really see the problem....but apparently thats' just me 

6 sales, 12.5 euros commission, 75 euro in total = approx. 110 USD

I have the same problem with FTP. I have to "save" the images twice in the "ftp uploaded section" to get to the next one, and then I get one working and one not working image.....really annoying. I uploaded 1000+ images. Don't want to have to do it all over again.

I am also about to close my accont at CS. I too feel that the subsales are bad for the photographers and that it is killing our profits in the long run. Do you have to delete all your pictures one by one or can you just close the account?

Quote from: madelaide on January 18, 2008, 21:36

I wonder if these buyers don't want to let their clients know where they get those images from?  You know, they may be telling clients they pay EUR$250 when they're paying EUR$25...

Regards,
Adelaide

Good point. This is probably more common then we know. Many agencies must have travelled from macros to micros. I doubt the have lowered their prices they charged the customers for the finished product. They charge the same and the photographers "pay" their profits. Makes me sick thinking about it......

Quote from: anonymous on January 18, 2008, 19:53

Quote from: moori on January 18, 2008, 19:37
The voting doesn't really count for much  in the end either.

Then what purpose does the voting serve?

One bad vote out of ten or twenty woun't make a difference. A large majority of low votes on an image will however surely make the image end up later in searches. There is no reviews so the voting is one part of the rating.