A weird thing happened when I was reading the online version of one of the (more popular) Belgian newspapers in Dutch "Het Laatste Nieuws". In the "bizarre news" section, there was a headline about a man watching child porn on a laptop in an airplane. It was accompanied by a photo right under the headline. You didn't even have to open the article : the photo was already at the summary news. The photo is of an elderly gentleman, clearly not of stock quality, like taken candidly from another seat. The full article is here. I saved a screen shot in case the image should disappear.

Translation: Man watching child porn on laptop in airplane.

There is no copyright mentioned near the image so one could think this was the man. If stock, in my book this would be clearly slanderous and degrading use. Imagine the model (or even the person taken candidly and sold as editorial) saw this title and his image, wouldn't he have grounds to sue for damages after being recognized by his employer, employees, business associates or family?

Being curious where this image was sold, I opened ImageExchange and it was for sale on Getty and Media Bakery. Thought it was quite surprising since the white balance is far off and the framing is very-snapshot like.
On Getty, the image wasn't available any more. On Media Bakery too but I found an image that definitely looks like the same man and plane here, for sale on Media Bakery.

The image was, according to Google images, also in use (cropped) on a site about deep vein thrombosis on longer flights, here, and credited to David De Lossy/Valueline/Getty Images.

My question is whether this kind of embarrassing use is permitted on Getty (Media Bakery?) and the question is for those on this forum that are contributors on Getty.

This is a story about acorns. Once upon a time in Middle-Western Europe a man passed by a village that had its village green bordered with many tall oaks. Needing many acorns for his business, the man saw an opportunity and spread the news around that he would buy all available acorns for 1 euro per kg. A fair price and after a day he left, his two carriages filled up with acorns and the villagers with a decent amount of cash.

The next week he was back, now offering 2 euros per kg. Of course, the easy to find acorns were already gone, so the villagers and their kids went all around the village green to dig out more acorns. Sure enough, the man left the next morning with one full carriage and the  lucky villagers with plenty of more cash.

Ten days later the man returned again, spreading the news he was out of acorns and was willing to pay 5 euro per kg this time. The villagers, hearing this, stopped working on their fields and the kids staid out of school just to rush around for more hard to find acorns. After a hard day roaming around in the woods, they returned with a few bags of acorns and were elated to receive a 5 euro bill for every kg. Not even half a carriage but the price made up for it.

As they expected the man to be back soon with even a better offer, the villagers stopped working and schooling altogether and tried to hoard as much acorns as they could in advance. Of course those were almost all gone. The most clever ones walked to neighboring villages where they bought all the acorns they could get for 5 euro, but that weren't that many since apparently our acorn-buying man had passed there too.

Greedy and desperate, the villagers now started buying and selling acorns amongst themselves and prices went up a lot. No work was done any more except searching for acorns in all possible forgotten places and the school had to close down. They expected the man to be back 10 days later with an offer of 10 euro per kg or more as apparently, he badly needed more and more acorns all the time.

But just two days later another man happened to pass by the village. He had four carriages full of acorns with him and announced he would sell all those for 15 euro per kg if there were any buyers. If not, he would go to the next village.
The news spread like a wildfire and soon enough the villagers turned up with heaps of cash as they had withdrawn all their savings, pawned their wives' jewelry and their house. No way they would let go a lifetime opportunity like that, and after just two hours the four carriages were totally sold out.

Needles to say that the first man came never back. It might come as a surprise but this story is also not about acorns. It's about the stock exchange, the banks and Wall Street. Just think how you all have been fooled, peasants 

Thank you for your attention. 

A well respected member of this board, Matt Antonino, started a consulting business for images search optimization (SEO). I'm not involved at all, no referrals etc... Just because I feel he is too aware to the sensitivities here to post it himself:

http://photoseo.info/

There are scammers, there are idiot scammers, and there are totally dumb scammers. The Chinese still have a lot to learn from the Nigerians.  

Dear Customer!
 
This mail is to remind you of your registered package.
CONTENT: Bank Draft of $800,000.00 USD officially Registered by an Official of the United Nation. The $800,000.00 USD is a donation to you from the U.N through in collaboration with Nokia Co-operation perform an e-mails Balloting. For your information the VAT and COD and none. Scan airport Up liftment have been paid.
 
But the only payment that you are to make is $275 US Dollars being the security keeping fee of your package. Please Contact FedEx Courier Express Delivery Department (DISPATCH DIRECTOR) Mr. Alex Kennedy for shipment details and requirements.
 
Take Note that this Payment is very important for the security company release and the FedEx deliver your package and IF YOU KNOW YOU ARE NOT PAYING THE FEE FOR THE SECURITY KEEPING PLEASE DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO CONTACT THEM FOR THE DELIVERY!!
 
Contact Person :  Mr. Alex Kennedy (DISPATCH DIRECTOR)
Email Address : dispatchdirecto@w.cn
Telephone : +234-818-387-9560
 
Finally, make sure that you reconfirm your Names in
Full ...............
Residential..............
Zip code  : ............
Country :...................
Occupation : ...............
Telephone/fax Number : ......
Age : .......................
Marital Status :............
Sex : ....................
Nationality : ............
 
Yours Faithfully,
Mrs. Elizabeth Page.
© FedEx Express Corporation
All rights reserved.� 1995-2010 FedEx

Reply:

Dearast Mister John Kennedy,

I begotten your surprised email for the Nokia winning lottery. I like to have the sending soon so why should I pay the maney for the guardian service?

Thank you,
Notzos Tupid

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM[/youtube]

For some reason, it has been taken for granted here that "not fully relevant" keywords on the images of non-exclusives are not removed by the IS reviewers, and that irrelevant keywords are just another reason for rejects, even if the image itself is OK.
Others, and myself, have already said that when resubmitting an image that was rejected for keywords with the offending ones left out, it mostly gets rejected again for another reason.

I just had an image accepted with 4 "not fully relevant" keywords. Surfing to the edit section of that image (to delete those keywords), I noticed that the 4 were all gone. Is this a change of policy towards non-excluives, or merely the confirmation of the fact that IS doesn't reject for keywords (alone)?

Poser 8

- Is output readily accepted by �stock sites?
- Is there a copyright issue about the derivative images made with a 3D model?
- What is the learning curve before you can come up with decent illustrations?
 

All slightly up compared to December 2009, except Dreamstime that tumbled down. WMY at DT. The small gain compared to December is totally due to the "small" sites. I guess this chart looks like one of a real independent. No motivation to go exclusive anywhere.

BBC News

The German government has warned web users to find an alternative browser to Internet Explorer to protect security.

The warning from the Federal Office for Information Security comes after Microsoft admitted IE was the weak link in recent attacks on Google's systems.

Microsoft say the security hole can be shut by setting the browser's security zone to "high", although this limits functionality and blocks many websites.

However, German authorities say that even this would not make IE fully safe.

Speaking to BBC News, Graham Cluley of anti-virus firm Sophos said the warning applied to versions 6, 7 and 8 of the browser.

"This is a vulnerability that was announced in the last couple of days. Microsoft have no patch yet and the implication is that this is the same one that exploited on the attacks on Google earlier this week," he said.

From Reuters (link):

Several Thousands Of Free Stock Photos Added In First 24 Hours Of Enhancement
NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(Business Wire)--
Serban Enache, CEO of Dreamstime, one of the world`s leading digital image stock
photography agencies, announced the company`s initiative to up the number of
images made available ABSOLUTELY FREE.

In January 2007, Dreamstime made available an assortment of images under its
FREE umbrella. The FREEselection-an original and revolutionary sector that has
attracted bargain hunters from around the globe-is a successfully proven concept
that has secured Dreamstime`s footprint in the industry as one-stop-photo-shop
giant.

Dreamstime has nearly doubled the number of images available ABSOLUTELY FREE
(increasing its FREE library of images by 10% in the first three hours of the
FREE upgrade as effected on October 27th).

It's all about more market share for companies. No word about benefits for contributors. I didn't know that giving away images from contributors was a revolutionary sector.