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Topics - Axel Lauer

Pages: [1] 2
2
General Stock Discussion / Pixtastock - new TOS
« on: January 23, 2015, 04:43 »
Hi,
i know that most of you think that PIXTAstock is crap and i know that their changes of royalty in 2014 was a scandal.
http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/pixta-changes-once-again-commissions-etc/msg384492/#msg384492
Nevertheless i would like to know what their new TOS rolls out in comparison to their old TOS.

The new TOS will be effective on 30.01.2015
http://www.pixtastock.com/blog/updates-of-the-terms-of-use-effective/

We asked them to provide us with a comparison between new and old TOS but the only thing we got was answers which were very vague and unclear like:
"As for the details of our new TOS, we'll announce on 30th January.
So please wait for the announcement.
"

Our answer was:
"Since your new TOS will be effective on 30.01 i can not wait until the 30.01 to get the details.
So please send us a comparison of your old TOS vs. your new TOS asap
"

They answered:
"The updates this time are mainly for the purchasing users,
and we have tried to explain in the previous notice on January 21
the updates that may also affect the contributor members among them.

Hope you understand that we need to be fair to other contributors,
so please wait for the official announcement on 30th January.
"

We informed them that we will start this thread and invited them to make statement here.
We will see what happens

Is somebody around here who can bring some light in that darkness and who can explain us what exactly will change??
regards axel

3
Shutterstock.com / SS sends mass-mail with open adresslist
« on: November 19, 2014, 03:47 »
I have no G-rated words for this :

I received a begging-mail from [email protected] containing a litany about the benefits of opt-in into subscription footage sales ...bla bla

the scandal is....
a: we stopped to sell our footage a while ago because SS stopped to support us (alsway trouble with CSV import)
b: the mail had an open adresslist with more than 60 adresses

4
Hi,
has someone an recommendation for an US-based attorney?

We already asked our german attorney to take legal action against DT but its always better if you have a "partner-lawyer" in the country where the compagny resides.

If you know a competent lawyer with experience in copyright-law and stockmarket-business , please let us know (either here or by PM).


Thanx for your help
regards axel

5
Hi,
since the support from stockeon is not willing (or able ??) to clearify a question about minimum payout i ask here and hope that someone knows.

I asked them if there is a minimum payout amount.

Support said : "There is no minimum - you are paid what you earn each month. If you earn $1000 for example, we pay that (minus hold amount which is paid later). If you'll earn $1, we pay that as well. No minimum as we don't want to hold users money unnecessarily. "

Their TOS (http://www.stockeon.com/conditions.html) say in Paragraph 7:

"The Author agrees for the remuneration to be paid after reaching the
minimum amount
and to be paid by the 15th of next month, in accordance
with these Terms of Service and a relevant agreement."

This is a relevant discrepancy between what their support says and what their TOS say.

That means:
Whenever they want they can change the minimum payout to what ever they want (because you agreed into their TOS).
 And if your balance is high and their minimum payout has been set high enough you will never see a cent.

 i asked back and since then i just get lame explanations and they try to threat me with that funny stuff :
If you dont like it here we are happy to close down your account

The next shady company??

6
123RF / Is 123RF a hostage-taker ?
« on: May 21, 2014, 02:59 »
Hi
I want to terminate my account and the last mail from them sounded a bit as if they would act as shady and dubious like many other so called "agencies" (Dreamstime eg) which make the process of termination so painfull that contributors leave their content online only because they do not want to spend a huge part of their lifetime with clicking "delete buttons".
Thats the hostage-strategy.

Does anyone have experience how a termination works with them?
If it turns out that its a hostage-company i better ask my attorney to get that done.

regards axel

PS: and this term from their TOS makes the impression that 123RF is something quity shady complete:

"Effect of Termination: Within a reasonable time after termination or expiration of this Agreement, 123RF shall delete all digital files representing the Accepted Images and withdraw the availability of such files for search and licensing from all Distributors databases and repositories. "

Reasonable time......
aha...that sounds very much like something very crook to me

7
Hello,
does someone knows what that is and if its a "official" partner of SS?
http://www.flower-pics.com/
(I am pretty sure that you will find your pictures there too - even if your work is not about flowers)

And yes .... i realized that they just link ....and in the footer its sayed :
" Images and data by Shutterstock"
So there must be a kind of API / Partnerprogramm established by Shutterstock and i want to know how many "Partners" there are.

I am not willing to let other people decide where my work is published and not even get informed that it is publsihed somewhere else.
This at least is unethic and unprofessional (if not even more)

regards axel

8
Can someone explain why i find my images here and what Shutterstock has to do with them?
http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/

"PublicDomainPictures.net is a repository for free public domain images.
The pictures are free for you to use and you should feel good about doing so.
"


9
General Stock Discussion / Photaki - the next crook?
« on: April 30, 2014, 05:37 »
Since that DP / Shotshop-scandal we had a look to agencies we had contact in the past and what shell i say  - we found the next one you should have a very close look at.
www.photaki.com

Although we cancelled our account in June 2013 they still sell our images.
And on top - they locked us out of our account
Here is the link to our port:
http://www.photaki.es/fotografo/rightlight

The next "agency" you better should put under surveilance

10
Hi,
4 weeks ago one of my employees made that joke and the whole team were laughing their heads of:
"Wait a while - soon SS will ask for a PR of the tatoo-artist if you shoot a portrait and the person has a tatoo."
Oh boy -  what a laughter....

You should never make jokes like that............

Rejected:
"TATTOOS-We require a property release from the tattoo artist for all prominent tattoos"
Example: http://www.axellauer.de/wp-content/uploads/slider-paula-mandy.jpg

And for this one i have to send you 12 PRs???
http://www.axellauer.de/wp-content/uploads/slider-anna-just.jpg

What comes next....??
PR from Dolce & Gabana if a model wears a D&G coat?
Oh no, i am sure it will be like this:
You need a PR from the farmer who owns the sheep D&G made that coat from the model wears on your shooting.
Thats the future.

Strange that its always SS which makes these "special" rules.
Why dont they invent something useful instead?


BTW:
I heard there will be a new agency with 90% split for the photographers in the first year and not less than 75% forever , no subsystem and you set your price yourself and they have a big print-company in the background as financial sponsors.
Does anyone knows more about that?

---
admin edit: updated title

11
Mostphotos.com / Severe Bug
« on: April 16, 2014, 06:29 »
Hi,
usually the process is like this:
1: FTP Upload
2: Edit your images and sort them into editorial / commercial
3: Click on "publish"

Now i found hundreds of images online wich i have not published yet!!
I just uploaded them via FTP - thats all!

If you upload editorials they seem to go online directly and as commercials - and this might cause a lot of legal trouble.

Axel

BTW: Yesterday the Website was down because of "maintenance"



EDIT

We wrote a mail to Mostphotos where we told them that they publish without waiting that the images are tagged and that we have send a supportrequest regarding that issue yesterday

Supporter Hanna wrote back that the tech-teem got informed and that they did not get the supportrequest we sended the day before.

We wrote back:
Quote
Hi Hanna,
then you found a second severe bug - your contact-form is obviously not working because this was the way we sended our support-request.
Please note that we will not take any responsabilty for eventual upcoming lawsuits if you publish files before we even could make appropriate settings to the files (editorial / commercial).

And now second supporter wrote:
Quote
Regarding commercial and editorial images. It is the photographer's responsibility to ensure that the images are tagged correctly. If you as a photographer have editorial images, you can add and tag this in the Media Cloud in your settings. Regarding legal issues, it is the photographer who is responsible for their own photos, not the buyer or Mostphotos.

FYI: Our tech-team is working on a esier solution for editorial and commercial images. So that it will be easier to tag them right.

we wrote back:
Quote
Hi,
yes, this is true.
But if YOU publish images BEFORE we can make the settings its obvious your responibilty.

Like said before:
You publish files directly after we upload by FTP and this is not like it is supposed to be.

I am speechless.

12
Pond5 / Video Upload fubar
« on: March 19, 2014, 10:34 »
Since days nothing else than bugs, bugs,bugs,
If that goes on like that P5 is the next agency that kicks the bucket...

There's been a problem processing some of your recent uploads. These uploads were not processed:

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13
Pond5 / From now on...P5 as absurd as Istockphoto.
« on: March 18, 2014, 07:06 »
Hi,
I was a great fan of P5.

But now they become as absurd and irrational as IS or SS if it comes to rejection reasons.

1000 images of a Carnival and almost all photos show different subjects.

80% rejected and guess why....

Yes....
that famous and nuts "We can not accept similars" stuff.
In Comparison:
Depositphoto: 96% Acceptance Rate
Shutterstock: 85% Acceptance Rate

Oh Boy...P5 seems to be the next one going down








14
DepositPhotos / Woman Big Tits ??
« on: January 05, 2014, 11:43 »
@depositphotos
you should at least correct the german version (saying "Woman Big Tits lying with empty textspace" / "Frau Grosse Titten liegend mit leeren textfreiraum ":
http://de.depositphotos.com/30294109/stock-photo-Woman-big-breast-lying-with-empty-copy-space.html
thats offending and sexism!

Its hard enough to explain "Non-Models" the concept of stockphotography
And its not helpful if you try to explain that it is safe to upload to a stockegency and that they do not use images in a dubios way and then you start your browser, open up Depositphotos and stumble upon headlines which look like cheap porn-spam.

not convincing though.


15
Shutterstock.com / FTP upload gone foobar
« on: January 01, 2014, 11:39 »
After uploading 20 clips 17 of them have 0 byte.
Did it again = other clips from that batch have 0 byte

What  the he.ll are they doing there?

16
Pond5 / Changes in their digestion of editorials?
« on: December 27, 2013, 13:18 »
Hi,
does someone knows anything about changes in their policy or submission-system regarding editorials?

Since twoday they seem to reject editorials if they do not have modelreleases - paradox!
Note of a reviewer:
"No model/property release on file for this clip; may be suitable for editorial (news and documentary) usage only." If that's the case, please indicate it in the Note to Curator and resubmit your file"

Since there is no way to mark images / clips as editorial in the submission process and you probably can not send a message to a reviewer before you upload and submit it looks like they expect you to upload every batch a second time.

I am a real fan of Pond5 - hopefully they dont start to become as inconsistent and unreliable like others.

regards axel

17
Hi
we found a subscription-sale (Resolution TIFF) in our stats - earning 35 Cent .
Now we had a look on the frontend and the only Resolution we could find is this one:

TIFF    5295x7942px (120.3 MB)    44.8cm x 67.2cm@300 dpi

Does that mean that DT sells your stuff for peanuts in a resolution so that any buyer could print your images on squaremeters of canvas????

regards axel

18
Shutterstock.com / Bugstock / Shutterbug or what?
« on: October 07, 2013, 13:09 »
Website completly down for a long time some days ago, always trouble with CSV and now its not possible to delete rejected photos.

1: Go to your backend and choose rejected
2: scroll down and click on "show all rejected photos"
3: try to click the red cross for "delete" with any image

all red crosses lead to: http://buz</div%3E%3C/td%3E%3Ctd%20align=center%3E%C2%A0%3Ca%20href=

oh boy...
did they let their interns practice some coding?

19
General Stock Discussion / Where to buy !! images?
« on: September 17, 2013, 01:58 »
Hi ,
we need to buy a bigger bulk of images for our customers and we dont like to support the worst exploitators.
What agency has the best compromise between good material online and good royalties for the photographer?
We do not mind to pay more than the usual "mean 30 cent"

regards axel

20
iStockPhoto.com / Buzz of Istock !!
« on: May 23, 2013, 13:51 »
Thats a kind of an open Letter because we decided to give IS the axe.
We are not willing to work with people who try their best to sink the boat

Why....????
Amongst all these latest scandals the last thing which annoyed thehell out of me was this and what can be asked as "Is IS selling images although they know that they do not have a correct MR??"


Here we go.
I uploaded around 100 images of a shooting with one model.
After uploading files and MR I realised that the MR was the wrong one !!!

We informed IS like this:
Quote
Dear Misses N...
we have to inform you that we mixed up the data in the modelrelease we uploaded with the latest delivery.
So please do not publish these photos.


We informed them that they do not have a proper MR and that they are not allowed to publish these images.

They said
Quote
Hi Alex,

The file is currently in process............. and you will be able to cancel
the file after it has been processed and before it has entered the
inspection queue.

........


We replied:
Quote
Hello K.,

the name is Axel, by the way. We do not just mean one single file. ALL the photos that we have uploaded to iStockphoto on the 3rd of May are concerned. Please delete all of them, as the data in the model release is not correct. If these images are published there is no valid MR attached to them. I believe I do not have to tell you about the legal requirements when publishing images of people... That is why we request that these images are not to be published at all.
Please note that we have done our duty by informing you about the incorrect model release. If any legal issues should occur due to these images being published on iStockphoto we want to emphasize that the responsibility lies entirely with iStockphoto.


Today  we got two different informations

1: Many of these files have been published.
Quote
Hello Rightlight-Berlin

Your file "Peacock girl" has been accepted into the main iStockphoto Collection.

Thank you for submitting your art to iStockphoto. You can view your file here:

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=24215523

Sincerely,
The iStockphoto administration team.
Please note that the file will be available within 24 hours.


2: A mail in many cases regarding these images that these files can not been published because of incomplete MR
Quote
Dear Axel Lauer

We regret to inform you that image # 24214622- (Peacock girl) has been deactivated from the iStockphoto database of Royalty Free Images.



Reason for deactivation:
The model release does not comply with iStockphoto legal standards since it is missing the following information:

1. Models telephone number
2. Models email address

Note that when a model does not have complete contact details, like it is the case for homeless and nomad people, just as examples, that person must be photographed while holding the model release and that image has to be combined on the release.

Please provide a new release containing the required mandatory information and contact [email protected] to have this file reactivated.

Thanks for your understanding.


Perfect , we thought. Finally they realized that they are not permitted to publish these files and they delete or deactivate them
Great


But i was wrong.
We replied like this to their last mail
Quote
Thats great because we informed you more than once that we dont allow you to publish these files.
Obvious you were willing to publish them anyway.

Now you stated yourself that it would be illegal to publish them.
So make sure that not a single image of this model will be published!!!!



And now guess what happened???
Read yourself what IS ansered:
Quote
Hi Axel,

You are welcome to cancel these uploads within your my upload page as
stated in our pervious discussion.

If the file is approved you can also deactivate this on your account by
navigating to the file close up page and selecting deactivate. As a
reminder it is your responsibility to ensure legal permission prior to
uploading.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.


Maybe i should inform the model that IS sells without having a proper release and with the perfect knowledge about missing MR and watch how IS is been kicked its ass.


But we all (my employees and me too) are so pissed about that "company" that we decided to give them the axe..


Here is our "farewell-mail" to them..
Quote
I dont need to deactivate because you stated that images with incomplete MRs are not allowed to be published on istock.
We informed you several times now that you do not have a proper MR.
Now your team proofed that you are aware of it!!!

If you really want to cause a legal issue go ahead!
And obvious you really try your best to become the "Titanic of Stockagencies" (in two days you can read a post in our blog about our experience with IS, titled exactly like this)

Just to mention only a few things....
-the way you treat your contributors (see Sean Locke)
-Google Drive Scandal
-you behave absolutely arrogant and ignorant
-you are the biggest exploiter under all agencies

So buzz of and delete our account!!!!






21
Yaymicro / Does YAY reprocess your images??
« on: May 18, 2013, 10:34 »
Hi ,
we just noticed that a many of our images does look on their site about 1 - 2 stops darker than ...
a: on other stocksites
b: on our site
c:  on our calibrated systems

They look horrible -strange colours, much to dark.....just b....

Compare yourself:
Yay http://www.yaymicro.com/portfolio.action?search.offset=0&search.limit=50&search.numResults=1302&search.filterExplicit=false&search.sort=date&search.advanced=true
Deposit http://de.depositphotos.com/portfolio-2062725.html?14cnnz

We always develop images , export them and then load them up to agencies.
Means i can say that it is not a error on our site.

Do you have an idea what could have happened ?
regard axel

22
iStockPhoto.com / Bullied by Istock??
« on: April 24, 2013, 14:57 »
Hi everybody,
i just experience a very interesting encounter with Misses K. N. from Istock.
It started with one of these weird rejections you normaly get only with little agencies (MR for a flower-bouquet or PR for a governmental building etc...).
I answered with a critique and suddenly Misses N. found some "Issues" in my profile and now it seems like she is searching desperate for a reason to get me kicked out .
And it seems like she tries that in a way that noboy can say its censorship against photographers who are not willing to shut up with every thing they do.

She digged very deep for a reason and now they suspect me that i  upload images which are not mine.
Of course i only upload images which are made by myself.

They come across with the argument that with companys (i run a company - but that does not mean necessarily that i upload images as a company) it might be a bit tricky.
Quote Istock:
"Since iStockphoto is really set up to deal with single photographers, it
is a bit tricky to work with a company that may employ several
photographers or artists."

I answered:
"-All required fields in the profile-section of your backend are filled out.
-I dont hire other photographers.
-All images are made by myself. "

If i am right with my "feeling" its one of the most unserious behaviors i encountered in 35 years of businesslife.
I really hope that this is just a severe misunderstanding and to clearify that i invite Misses K.N to give her statement here.
regards axel Lauer.
www.axellauer.de



23
PhotoDune / PD - Most absurd rejects ever
« on: February 22, 2013, 04:37 »
Hello everybody
probably you face the same absurd rejects with PD the wa did.
After i tried to get some reliable advices or rules from them and all tries failed because they only answer with empty phrases all my amployees told me to give PD the axe but i always believethat people are reasonable and fair and so i tried and tried - withot any results.


How do you cope with these absurd situation??

Lets face rhe facts:
PD rejects obviosly public buildings (churches, cathedrals, governmental buildings etc) with the argument that you need a PR.
PD rejects pictures like these ( http://www.axellauer.de/photodune-rejects/ )because of missing MR , at the same time they accept pictures like these (  ) and i am sure that the photographer has no MRs
PD rejects a image of a flower bouquet with the reason that you need a MR (!!!) and accepts another image from the same situation (just the crop and the perspective is slightly different.

All in all you can say that they prrof with every single upload that they havent got the faintest idea what they do and (this is the most upsetting thing) they are not willing to provide photographers with reliable rules or train their reviewers.

We replied in their forum like that (just one part and you can read the whole locked post here (maybe they will delete it because they are no fans of democratic structures)


Quote
Quote
HiHo as you might see im quite new as a seller on Photodune but we are selling at almost all major stockagencies but what we realized here is, sorry to say that, the most absurd ever.

1: A image of a governmental building, shot from a public place without any gear like multicopters has been rejected because of missing property release. This is absurd and we sell that image even on istock, shutterstock and getty and no one of these are asking for a PR.

Who shell i ask for a PR ??

Angela Merkel????

2: it gets even more absurd!

A image very very similar to this one
http://www.axellauer.de/wp-content/gallery/hochzeitsfotografie/mg_8397.jpg

was rejected because of missing Model-Release.

Shell we ask the flowers for a signature????? Boys, its flowers, not the bride. You cant even tell if its a female, how can you tell that it is a specific person!!

thats soi dont even have words for

Right now we have 169 accepted and 20 rejected.

about 600 are still in process .

about 40.000 we have in our stock.

I am interested if photodune stays on our list of delivered stockagencies. we will see Regards axel


After some "kind but empty phrases of an Mod" we had to answer like this:

Quote
Hi there at first i want to say that this is your plattform and therefore you have the rights to set up any rule you like however they are.

Conclusion: We accept that! We upload, you accept or reject we dont care.
And now please have a closer look at some images you rejected. Remember: You rejected them because of missing Model-release!!! Qoute Photodune:

    providing signed release forms for images containing recognizable humans

And we remember one topic more: People (even in America) must accept that they might be on photos even without their explicit affirmation if they are...

   
  • not the main motive
  • or blurred (means in most cases that they are not the motive)
  •     or if they are ( dont know the proper english word) padding / attachment in photos of general charakter like streetscenes


Even if they are the full motive (but that might not be the case here) they maybe can be published without their confirmation if the picture has a state of art and in that case the personal rights of the person shown, has to step back behind the public rights for art. Or do you think photographers like Nachtwey or Curry do have MRs ??? But thats not the topic!

And now lets have a look at some photos which have been rejected:

http://www.axellauer.de/photodune-rejects/
Lets beginn with Number 2 (bridal bouquet / red flowers):

Sergey (***a meber of PD-Support-team) replied in an email like this:

   
Quote
Though the face of the person is not visible, she may be recognised by other relatively unique objects: - the dress; - the wedding ring; - the bouquet. Thats why the request for model release form is justified in this case.


The Dress??
I dont now how it works in america but in germany brides usualy do not knit their dresses themselves they buy them in shops where the same dress is available a second , and yes, unbelievable, maybe a third or a fourth time (and so on). Very individual though isnt it??

The Wedding ring??
Can you tell me the colour of the ring???

Yes?? Wow, youre a Mentalist Congratulations. I cant not even in a 100% view!
So if you even cant tell the colour, how can you tell that this is Misses XY ??

The Flowers:
Ah.Yes, they have been grown by the bride herself and she knows every single blossom by its name and in the evening when nobody listens the bride exchanges her deepest secrets with them. Very intimate relation they have.

    ---The Motive is flowers !
   --- Its Flowers we shot !
    ---We shot flowers !

Once more?? Look at the focus !!!!
Thats perfect according to american law.

Next time i will ask my MOTIV (the bouquet) if they would sign your MR. But i think it will fail because flowers have no thumb to hold a pencil.
What a bummer!

And with all the other pictures its much more absurd than in this case.

We work together with 27 international agencies including your direct competitors on the american market and not a single one asked for a MR in cases like that. Do you really believe that all of them have no idea when a MR is needed???
A little bit more What about these images you sell?? http://photodune.net/item/passengers/404429?WT.ac=category_thumb&WT.seg_1=category_thumb&WT.z_author=jeancliclac http://photodune.net/item/crowd-crossing-over/260280?WT.ac=category_thumb&WT.seg_1=category_thumb&WT.z_author=Lifeonwhite

These people are much much much more recognizable than on every single picture we send you!

You want to tell me that this author sended you over 30 different MRs ????
Another Sentence of Sergey:

    Axel, youve mentioned that you have about 40.000 items to be uploaded. Im looking forward to seeing your works soon!

Yes, we do. And we have rules as well and they are very simple. We deliver our good work (not only the C-Class-Stock-Stuff) only to agencies who fullfill the following:

 
  • reliable standards concerning MRs & PRs based on the law in the country they are located
  •   They accept our releaseform (sometime we make exceptions like we did with photodune)
  • They do their job as good as we do ours. That means at least correct reviewing (have a close look at the case with the governmental building)



Regards axel

PS: and one last remark concerning the rejected image with the building you first rejected because of missing PR although its governmental
This one is not governmental: http://photodune.net/item/manhattan/1452887?WT.ac=category_thumb&WT.seg_1=category_thumb&WT.z_author=Galyna_Andrushko Does the author have a PR?? Im in doubt.



Like mentioned before:
This is the most stupid "review-situation" we had under all (meanwhile) 40 agencies we work with and every day it becomes worse with PD.
Shall i give them more chances or give them the axe??
What do you think??

Did you ever made the experience of fair conversation with PD ?

Regards axel

BTW: Now they proofed that they have a understanding of democracy which is definitelly more "J.Edgar Hoover-style" than what we europeans call democracy.
Not only that our posts are locked - our posts  have been deleted with strange reasons and we are banned from their forum.

They obviously dont like critic!

24
Mostphotos.com / All albums gone ?
« on: February 20, 2013, 05:51 »
If i am right then all albums are gone.
Is that the same in your accounts?

Do they really expect that i go through almost 3.000 images and do that work again??
If its really like that i leave mostphoto
regards A.


EDIT
The albums are still visible in the frontend but im not able to add new pictures to albums because you cant reach them over the backend

25
Mostphotos.com / What a crappy coding.....
« on: February 19, 2013, 11:50 »
Oh boy, my 12 year old son can do that better....

1: If i filter the "Mediacloud" by Unpublished it says 1800 pictures (thats not possible because i only uploaded 150 new ones)
2: If i go to the section "Publish" (looks like the new darkroom) it says "You have nothing to publish"

Who coded that crap? Franz Kafka?

Has somebody a hint?
Regards A.

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