MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - Uncle Pete

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6
1
In your personal opinion, of your own situation.

If you fall into, Hobby like I do now, pick a percentage that applies to your income. If you use Microstock to pay for travel, make an estimate. If you have some other use or way you use the money, like gear and not lifestyle, but I suppose gear is, hobby, lifestyle or entertainment? Make up your best answer, that applies to how you use your Stock Photo Income.

This poll you can change your answer, you don't have to vote to see the answers, and there is no deadline end date. Things can change.

@Pacesetter thank you for asking.

2
iStockPhoto.com / February 2024 statements - how did you do?
« on: March 17, 2024, 12:43 »
Coming Monday, the 18th. But I thought I'd just jump ahead and start the thread.  ;D

3
AI Generated Stock Photography / Night Cafe' Free
« on: March 04, 2024, 12:08 »
Basically it's based on Stable Diffusion, but does many others, offers styles and you can also go advanced and use your own original images. Variable seed or select, use the same. Same in so many ways as the rest for size. I'm finding it's different from DALL-E and doesn't make the icons and illustrations, logos I mean, as well. Seems that NC wants to be more complicated and intricate.

Making cartoons and illustrations, the results for mine have been better than DALL-E.

All the usual flaws and problems of AI images, but since it's free and you  can get a minimum of 5 free credits a day, where 1 image is 1 credit, there's some good fun.

https://creator.nightcafe.studio/?ru=PeterPorroKlinger

SPAM Notice = Referral Link if that does anything for me, I don't know. They just started that today.

But give it a try, another source for fun graphics.


Spam and Eggs



4
The new rules, set to go into effect on March 11th, redefine the classification of workers, particularly in the gig economy, as employees rather than independent contractors. This move, while intended to provide greater protections and benefits to workers, has raised concerns about its potential impact on businesses and the broader economy.

https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20240109-1#:~:text=The%20rule%20addresses%20six%20factors%20that%20guide%20the,a%20factor%20regarding%20the%20worker%E2%80%99s%20skill%20and%20initiative.

The new independent contractor rule restores the multifactor analysis used by courts for decades, ensuring that all relevant factors are analyzed to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. The rule addresses six factors that guide the analysis of a workers relationship with an employer, including any opportunity for profit or loss a worker might have; the financial stake and nature of any resources a worker has invested in the work; the degree of permanence of the work relationship; the degree of control an employer has over the persons work; whether the work the person does is essential to the employers business; and a factor regarding the workers skill and initiative.


6
Image Sleuth / AI In The News
« on: December 27, 2023, 14:10 »
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ny-times-sues-openai-microsoft-for-infringing-copyrighted-works/ar-AA1m75sX?ocid=00000000&pc=U528&cvid=36cdc2530ee347549955a4670eb08328&ei=17

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Wednesday, accusing them of using millions of the newspaper's articles without permission to help train chatbots to provide information to readers.

The newspaper's complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court, accused OpenAI and Microsoft of trying to "free-ride on The Times's massive investment in its journalism" by using it to provide alternative means to deliver information to readers.

"There is nothing 'transformative' about using The Times's content without payment to create products that substitute for The Times and steal audiences away from it," the Times said.


The case is New York Times Co v Microsoft Corp et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 23-11195.

7
https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2023/07/ninth-circuit-highlights-the-messy-law-of-contributory-trademark-infringement-online-yygm-v-redbubble.htm

If you want to read the whole article, there's the link. Basically what the courts are dealing with is, Contributory Infringement and Willful Blindness.

The part that's entertaining and interesting for us, would be, rightsowners must send takedown notices to defendants, DMCA. And with that, agency is activly trying to prevent the illegal activity. There are some other points of argument, but this is interesting:  "Removing infringing listings and taking appropriate action against repeat infringers in response to specific notices may well be sufficient to show that a large online marketplace was not willfully blind.


If an agency, knows that people are image thieves and repeatedly steal others images, instead of taking down only the offending images, they would be forced to take action.

Again, from the actual case and claims: "...the court says that the rightsowner can put the defendant on notice of specific infringers. This implies that rightsowners can force defendants to remove vendors for alleged infringement, instead of just removing their infringing items. The DMCA also directs services to remove repeat infringers, but only in accordance with their standard policy, whereas the YYGM standard implies a 1-strike rule to avoid future infringements by the identified alleged infringers."

YYGM is the trademark owner in this case.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/21-56236/21-56236-2023-07-24.html

"...the panel held that a party is liable for contributory infringement when it continues to supply its product to one whom it knows or has reason to know is engaging in trademark infringement. A party meets this standard if it is willfully blind to infringement."

Willfully blind to infringement!

8
The whole article is loaded with interesting points. Much of this related to the Warhol Foundation decision. Which is also complicated by the results which are mixed.

This case, and artist used an image, to create a tattoo. The photographer sued. Both at this point are claiming that the Warhol decision should be grounds for summary resolution, in the matter.  :o The most recent decision, the judge has sent the case to the jury.

Seizing on the new Supreme Court decision, Sedlik argues that Warhol clarified that photographers routinely license their creative works to serve as reference for other artists, and that such artists reference licenses are how photographers make their living. Artists references, does that apply to AI?

https://copyrightlately.com/court-to-revisit-fair-use-in-tattoo-infringement-case/

And while I'm typing:  https://copyrightlately.com/making-sense-of-copyright-fair-use-after-warhol/  a breakdown of the decision and situation, Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith.


9
Shutterstock.com / Shutterstock News Terms - September 5, 2023
« on: August 04, 2023, 12:39 »
These are usually "exciting" news. This time not so much. Lowering the payout to $25? How big is that? Just can't wait to read the new terms that offer no choice, but fine, web and data distribution.


Dear Shutterstock Contributor,
Were updating our Contributor Terms of Service to make it easier for you to earn more and get paid faster.

On September 5, 2023, the following key changes will take effect:

    Lowering the minimum payout threshold from $35 USD to $25 USD
    Further explanation of how Shutterstock distributes content, including through our web and data marketplace
    Confirming that Shutterstock can not distribute Content from any person who is a target of economic sanctions



10
Dear Peter,

Thank you for your contributions to Wirestock! Your portfolio stands out with great quality and originality.

We want to let you know that we are changing the submission limits on Wirestock. As Wirestock is becoming more popular, we are receiving increasingly larger volumes of submissions from our content creators, which result in:

    Delays in content review and processing
    Growing costs of labeling, review, processing and storage
    Difficulties in detecting copyright infringements and fraudulent activities

To solve these, we are making marketplace submissions a paid option for all accounts regardless of their approval rates. Going forward, in order to submit content to marketplaces, all accounts need to subscribe to one of our premium plans.

This change will not affect your previous submissions. Additionally, you can still post and sell content on Wirestock directly through your portfolio without subscribing. We will start featuring and promoting your content on Wirestock to increase your chances of having direct sales.

As a gesture of appreciation for your significant contributions, were offering you a 50% discount on our premium plan with promo code 50DISC. With this exclusive offer, you can continue contributing up to 200 images per month.

Please reach out to us if you have any questions.

Best,
Team Wirestock


Ha Ha, direct sales? Anyone ever had a direct sale, I mean did you direct someone to your WS account, to sell a license? Upload limit 200 with a paid account? $7.79/mo
$93.48 billed yearly and what of the 15% they don't mention that? Only that direct sales are no commission. Selling AI creations? but 5 free a month for $0

I think this marks, let it ride, nothing new, and possibly, SEE YA = AMF in the near future.

Premium: $14.99 a month

Expand your presence with 200 monthly marketplace and challenge submissions
Supercharge your output with 200 monthly AI generations
Perfect your images with 400 AI upscaling


I didn't follow but the AI is through Discord.

11
Off Topic / Apropos of Nothing
« on: June 27, 2023, 11:15 »
Tired of AI, agency rejections, cuts in pay, people who steal, politics, other topics that never die, and all the SOS (same old crap)? This is the place for everything about nothing?

My first, even though I have posted others, where I'll keep them in one area and not in the threads about the usual exciting news.

US 66 / Route 66, was established on November 11, 1926, underwent many improvements and realignments over its lifetime, and was officially removed from the United States Highway System, on this date, in 1985.

Chicago, IL, to Santa Monica, CA with a length of 2,448 mi (3,940 km) It was the main highway for much of the early auto travel across the nation, and the migration West. Although the Transcontinental Railroad was the major event that opened the expansion, Route 66 was the next, for automobiles, busses, trucks and road vehicles.




12
Print on Demand Forum / Society 6 new terms
« on: April 22, 2023, 12:44 »
Rather than just hijack the RB subject:

Have you checked your tier, many people are premium without selling a lot, it seems the tiers are randomly assigned. They could change every month too.
Society6 also introduced new fees and plans.
With AI and everything else the good news just can't stop coming.

Just looked at RB it says I have no account. There's some good news? Zazzle I dropped because the fees are more than anything I make. Etsy is dormant, I still can't tolerate the fakes, frauds and creative descriptions that are lies or misinformation.

Effective May 4, 2023 the fee for creating a new account on Society6 will increase to $5.

Effective May 4, 2023 when you make a sale through Society6.com, or one of our third-party affiliates, a shipping fee ranging from $0.30 - $8USD will be deducted from your earnings. Shipping fees vary based on the product sold and the full list of fees can be found below.
 
Announced but not in effect yet:

"In Fall 2023, Society6 will introduce annual subscription plans for artist accounts. This program will offer tiered plans, each with their own features and benefits. All artists will be required to select a plan to continue selling with Society6.
These plans will be designed to support our commitment to high-quality original artwork, improve the shopping experience, and allow us to offer enhanced services for the artist community at each tier. We look forward to sharing more about this new program in the coming months."

Annual Subscription Plan = pay to sell on their site.

The point is, some people have said they would drop RB and move to S6, which doesn't seem to be more than trying to change horses in the middle of the stream.

Society 6 paid 10% on some items and we were allowed to set our own price on others. Add the shipping, and the Subscription?  👎

13
This is a setup by him. He should get a master troll award. It's sad to see comments saying things like, it's about time someone stood up for us photographers. He's not doing that. He's not against AI images. He's selling workshops on how to make them.

The best review of all of the circus is on Petapixel. https://petapixel.com/2023/04/14/artist-refuses-prize-after-his-ai-image-wins-at-top-photo-contest/

The guy paid his own way to the awards, forced his way on stage and is making a splash on his Blog about the whole thing. Took shots of the event just to attract attention and create controversy, but not about AI vs real photos, but to market his workshop on using AI generators.

His Workshop: https://www.eldagsen.com/new-website-promptwhispering-ai-creative-professional-use-of-ai-image-generators/
Creative & professional use of AI image generators

One of his older workshops was EyeEm!  Invited by EyeEm Berlin, and co-organised by PhotoWerkBerlin, I was happy to give a one-hour lecture to an audience of 80 photo enthusiasts.


However a good point, AI images are what they are, they should not be sold or marketed as Photographs. They can be an area of art on their own. Sony should have disqualified him the second he revealed it was AI and not a real photograph. You don't enter a chalk drawing in an oil painting competition. Intentional bating the issue and trolling for personal publicity.

14
Doesn't matter to me, but just in case it does for someone here:


IMPORTANT UPDATE ABOUT VIDEO CODECS
   
Effective April 3, 2023, we will no longer accept video submitted in the PhotoJPEG and MotionJPEG codecs.

If you have video files that are already uploaded in the PhotoJPEG or MotionJPEG video codec, but you have not yet submitted them please submit them immediately.

Getty Images will not accept or publish any PhotoJPEG or Motion JPEG encoded video from April 3. This will include any late submissions that are left in the inspection queue.

Were making this change because customers have a clear preference for the ProRes family of codecs, h.264, and h.265/HEVC.

15
General Stock Discussion / Are Outputs Of AI Models Copyrightable?
« on: February 07, 2023, 12:38 »
Heather Whitney and Evangeline Phang at MoFo explore whether artificial intelligence models can be the authors of their outputs for purposes of copyright protection, and whether human use of an AI model results in copyrightable work authored by the human or in an authorless, uncopyrightable work.

https://mofotech.mofo.com/topics/ai-trends-for-2023-generative-ai-in-the-spotlight

The last one is more for people here: Fair Use

Use of copyrighted works as training data for machine learning (ML). ML requires massive amounts of machine training data. Whether courts agree that the use of copyrighted materials as training data qualifies as fair use will be, as was the case with other disruptive technologies, critical to the future of AI innovation.

WHile we watch and wait for these cases to go through the courts and hopefully to some decision.

16
See after you vote. Please share your experience with others here.

Next time, it will be better if each range is larger than the previous one and not all of them are using 20USD steps. In such a case, there will be a large number of votes in one "basket" but nothing in the others, especially in the larger ones. 20 and 40 USD is 100% difference but 280 and 300 USD is just 7%. It will be miracle that someone will fit there. 0,01-20USD basket is extremely big and we have not got much information (is everybody near 0,01 or near 20? That is a huge difference). It will be better something like 0-1, 1-2, 2-4, 4-8, 8-16,... or slightly rounded (like 0-1, 0-2, 2-5, 5-10, 10-25, 25-50, 50-100, 100-250,...)

OK does that make for better division of the target earnings?  :)

17
Poll is anonymous, one vote per person. Some people have asked this question before and the answers are scattered. I thought maybe all in one place might be interesting?

Just from a few people, it's not a part of total earnings, because I don't make that much and I got more than some people who are much better and successful.
It's not based on how many images. Same thing. People with more images have been paid less than I got.

We don't know.

Just wondering what kind of numbers, different people got paid for Contributor Fund last year?

I found all my payments in December, I don't know if anyone got anything else before or since?

18
Something more positive as far as artists are concerned, but there are groups fighting against this.

The top two members of the Senate's intellectual property subcommittee are backing a bill that could give the U.S. Copyright Office the power to force internet service providers to use technology that protects against "distribution of stolen content."

Named the Strengthening Measures to Advance Rights Technologies Copyright Act, or SMART Copyright Act, the bill was introduced Thursday in the Senate by Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and came cosigned by Sen. Patrick Leahy, the retiring Vermont Democrat who took over the intellectual property committee from Tillis last year.

If passed, the SMART Copyright Act would give the librarian of Congress the power to compel internet service providers to adopt something the 22-page bill calls "standard technical measures" that could be used "to identify or manage copyrighted works on the service." In a summary of the bill that came from Tillis' office, the senator describes these standard technical measures as programs "to identify and protect against distribution of stolen content," which he says was part of the original intent of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.


Read more at: https://www.law360.com/articles/1475306/tillis-leahy-back-boosting-copyright-office-s-anti-piracy-role?copied=1

What's going on here is, no one seems to want legislation (laws) that protects the artists/writers/musicians/authors Etc. That would be laws that force better monitoring and oversight. By transferring the authority and power to the U.S. Copyright Office, this bill would create a new path for action.

19
DMCA

YouTube argued that this contradicts the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prevents claims based on a lack of affirmative monitoring and places the burden of policing copyright infringement on the copyright owner, which in this case, would be Vasallo.

"Under the DMCA, this is an easy case: the statute bars plaintiff's effort to hold YouTube liable for direct or secondary infringement," YouTube said.


Read more at: https://www.law360.com/articles/1554148/youtube-wants-anti-piracy-suit-tossed?copied=1

More of the same and why

Textbook publishers vs Shopify

In January, Shopify fought back against the allegations, maintaining that it diligently responded to the more than 5,000 infringement notices and that it follows all the procedure laid out by the U.S. Congress under the DMCA.

"Congress decided to preclude suits for money damages against the companies that host the infrastructure that those individual infringers might use, so long as the companies generally comport themselves responsibly expeditiously taking down content that rights-holders flag as infringing, and terminating the accounts of users who repeatedly misuse internet services to infringe the rights of others," Shopify argued in its reply brief.


Read more at: https://www.law360.com/articles/1537037/shopify-settles-educational-textbook-publishers-piracy-suit?copied=1

Shutterstock:

George Steinmetz for suing the platform over a photo of a cloudy forest view.

But U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein awarded summary judgment to Shutterstock in September, finding the platform is protected from liability under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor provision.

Safe harbor applies to a defendant that is a "service provider," has a policy that terminates repeat infringers on its platform and does not interfere with measures used to protect copyright owners' work.


Read more at: https://www.law360.com/articles/1537329/shutterstock-seeks-sanctions-for-ill-advised-copyright-suit?copied=1

law360 is a pay legal site, you can only read headlines without an account.

What all of these have in common is how sites that supposedly terminate repeat infringers are protected from being liable for the damage done. What's missing is, the individual has to file the claim, and the violators can respond, and the company hosting the works, don't have to look for violations, we have to file, and only the creator can do that. What a pail of hogwash.

The case Shutterstock won, after the claim was denied, is to recover legal defense fees and claims that is to protect Shutterstock. Just another way to discourage anyone from defending their rights and their own images by making them afraid to file. The case with Shopify has some interesting details, where they eventually agreed, on both sides, and the places that sell illegal copies of educational text books, are banned and Shopify agrees to stop allowing them.

The Youtube case is a little twisted.  "When Vasallo approached YouTube in 2015, the company acknowledged the issue and said it had the ability to detect and take down the infringing posts "very easily" through its Content ID system, he said. But it offered to employ the tool only if he agreed to one of three options, all of which required him to release the company from all possible claims arising from prior piracy and let his films remain on the platform either through official channels or ongoing piracy while splitting ad revenue generated from the postings with YouTube."

And YT argued "YouTube is not required to monitor its site for copyright infringement that should be Vasallo's job."

20
Off Topic / Time to make sure the bird feeders are full?
« on: December 19, 2022, 12:22 »
Get gas for the snow blower, check the salt bucket... stock up on soda and snacks.  ;D





21
iStockPhoto.com / 3rd Quarter 2022 Financial Reporting
« on: November 16, 2022, 10:45 »
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/getty-images-reports-third-quarter-210600816.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLmdvb2dsZS5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHUqwLDDBVvhnh7LBsRqFLCtqjU4tevJ3BfCySKNCUuTze_S_YC0MQ2SboMgoiHa4CVuR9gRTDuEjyqgxaXH9EPaI9D4eas9pr8inUxRAYTyqYty1KdZlKbhHNo_wjoqrouRWXddCFR9D3LFjtVWaKgSZG7aG6nYT-rC9OX2Hg-R

LTM total active annual subscribers (thousands)  107 vs 70 in 2021 +52.9%

Image collection (millions) 484 vs 450 +7.6% = 34 million new images added

Getty Images Holdings, Inc. (GETY) today = $5.66 -0.20 (-3.41%)  High Aug 8th = 30.86, rounded at the opening of trading July 2022,  $10 a share.

22
Image Sleuth / Tattoos and Fair Use
« on: November 08, 2022, 10:38 »
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/wwe-video-game-maker-owe-artist-depicting-wrestlers-tattoos-jury-says-2022-09-30/

Tattoos and Fair Use have been a question before. Here's a case.

"The jury rejected WWE and Take-Two's defense that the game made fair use of the tattoos but also declined to award Alexander any profits from the games..."

23
General Stock Discussion / DALL-E and using it
« on: November 07, 2022, 13:04 »
Rather than try to put a break in the doom thread, I wondered if someone could help me understand the edit options for Open AI?

"DALLE 2 can make realistic edits to existing images from a natural language caption. It can add and remove elements while taking shadows, reflections, and textures into account."

"Image editing is now in beta.
Erase part of the image to edit, or add a generation frame to extend the image.
While this is in beta the full images won't be saved, so consider downloading often to save your work."

Has anyone tried this? I don't want to waste my limited free credits by testing.

I wanted to add my own content to an image, but it doesn't seem to do that. In the example, you can mark spots to add a flamingo. I'd like to add myself to a scene. Yes I know, I could make a scene, pose myself, and clone that into the image. But the Open AI also changes perspective and lighting on items as it adds them.

The generation frame is also interesting, as it is similar to intelligent fill, but creates new content.

And no I haven't used the prompt "Photo Quality" yet. The 1024 is pretty small, and I don't know if doing that makes a difference?

24
Shutterstock.com / Uploading Vectors using JPG data
« on: October 21, 2022, 11:40 »
Has something changed? It's been awhile and I thought I could upload files with identical names and they would be recognized, and associated. Instead I ended up with 14 EPS files, with no data and the 14 JPGs with the correct data. Anyone know for sure, the right way? I can use FTP or HTTP, doesn't matter to me.

Was SS the place that required zips? JPG of every image, paired with the identical named EPS?

Maybe I'm better off, as all the JPG were rejected for either, not marked illustration or missing property release. All the vectors were accepted.  8)

25
Image Sleuth / While I'm watching for news, I found this
« on: October 17, 2022, 14:51 »
https://finlegal.io/expertise/intellectual-property-litigation-funding

"As with many cases that utilise third-party funding, intellectual property infringement can be incredibly expensive and the litigation can be lengthy. This makes IP litigation funding imperative for many clients. "

And

https://thelawadvisory.com/what-is-litigation-funding/

"The cost of obtaining justice via the courts might be prohibitive.

The hourly rate for a top-tier litigation partner may range from $1000 to $1700. There are no limits to the amount of money that may be spent on processing and evaluating electronic discovery in huge cases. Other than these, there are travel, expert, deposition, and court fees."


Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors