Another day in iStockland and an interesting one at that.
Today a vast number of people lost a good bit of royalties due to piracy.
iStock, apparently not being insured, reclaims all the funds acquired from these fraudulent sales putting the full lost on the side of the contributor.

The vast discussion you can find over in the istock forums but not the reason i am posting this here.
The main reason of this message is that it is becoming more and more clear that we are just cows that are being milked dry and have to undergo this silently or else...

Or else what you ask?
Well, i just mentioned in the same thread that i noticed that posts were being deleted (very) fast.
I quickly got a sitemail from Lobo (who is a forum moderator) threatening me with a full ban from the forums and sitemail with the arrogant tone as we have come to expect from his person.

After letting him know i would choose my words more carefully in the future but still value the concept 'freedom of speech' very highly i was immediately banned.

I am certain all my posts were very civil and did not leave the boundaries of my personal opinion and views.
In this regard i feel this kind of censorship is directly in violation of the democratic concept of people being able to freely share their opinions without being deleted, controlled or banned.

This is turning into a right dictatorship where people who speak up are 'taken out' and down right silenced.
They let the others rant on in one thread (quickly locking, blocking, banning any other threads that might spawn) and just wait untill everyone gets tired and carries on uploading their hard work to make them loads (and i mean loads) of money...

I for one will not be silenced like this and i hope there are others like me who will take a stand..
That being said, thanks for the read and i wish you all the best.

Kurt