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Messages - polar
127
« on: February 11, 2013, 15:18 »
I just want to add my voice to those thanking Sean for his leadership and wishing him the best. With the quality of his work, I'm sure he'll land on his feet -- and deservedly so.
He's handled this situation (and the events leading up to it) with a lot more class than Getty/iStock did.
128
« on: February 02, 2013, 09:23 »
I just deactivated 66 files, in addition to the 48 I deactivated earlier, for a total of 114. I have a very small portfolio so this represents a reduction of about 42%.
I also reported this in the "tally" thread. Not sure which one is the official count thread.
129
« on: February 02, 2013, 09:20 »
I just deactivated 66 files, in addition to the 48 I deactivated earlier, for a total of 114. I have a very small portfolio so this represents a reduction of about 42%.
I wasn't sure whether to report here or in the "D-Day" thread or the "Feb. 2" thread. I'll add it to the Feb. 2 thread.
130
« on: February 01, 2013, 14:32 »
I'm wasn't exclusive so I had to check a couple of sites. The extended license terms are slightly different everywhere but at the time I believe at least one of the sites I was with allowed print on demand use in a extended license for resale. The image in question hadn't had anything but standard sales so I was sure it wasn't legit. I don't think resale licenses that allow POD are very common.
Okay, thanks.
131
« on: February 01, 2013, 14:12 »
I was just doing some random searches to see if there were similar products to what I was creating. I was able to to easily check that that image hadn't had any extended license sales, so I gave them a call and I just remember being really surprised when I got a real person on the line fairly quickly (and I was at night if I recall correctly) they were very pleasant and eager to help. Then next day the product was gone.
I've also noticed on quite a few stores that use clip art type images you will see the store owner posting a message about using properly licensed clip art and a link to the artists whom they have deal with.
A bit confused here. Are you saying this was an iStock image that was infringed -- but it wouldn't have been if they'd purchased an extended license? I can't recall now if extended licenses allow purchasers to use the images for products like this. I don't use any of my iStock images on Zazzle but I might in future use a couple that I plan to deactivate tomorrow.
132
« on: February 01, 2013, 13:36 »
From my experiences on Zazzle they seem to take copyright pretty seriously and the community there that is active on the forums is more knowledgeable than the average internet user. You have to click a specific box agreeing that you own the copyright of materials/ have the legal right to use them for each product created.
In one case I found an image of mine being used improperly and when I contacted Zazzle by phone, I actually got a person to speak in the department that deals with copyright questions and the issue was resolved very quickly (within a day) and professionally.
Zazzle has big ongoing deals with companies like Disney and Marvel comics so they can't really afford to be slack on copyright violations. You know how militant the Mouse can be. 
I hope that helps set some people at ease on this particular bit of the ordeal. Some people may be smart/dumb enough to go to the trouble of finding, downloading, and saving images in their Google Drive acct. but they would still have to blatantly ignore Zazzle's terms and risk Zazzle shutting them down as soon as it's seen or reported.
Thanks for this information. It's good to know that Zazzle, at least, might be on the ball and actually make an effort to protect our work. ETA: I actually haven't looked at my Zazzle account for awhile but I hope to get back to it. How did you find the infringing use of one of your images? Is there an easy way to check Zazzle for this?
133
« on: February 01, 2013, 11:53 »
Yeah, no need to freak yet. I think it's only things you have saved "locally" to your drive. I can't find a way to just pull something from the "online" google drive. I even tried creating a "drawing".
When I select Google Drive I see a pop up where briefly (split second) a search field shows up which disappears again just to show you the contents of your Google Drive account.
I cannot select ANY general Google Drive archives, only personally uploaded content.
I haven't tried using GD myself but as I understand comments from people who have, you can download high-res stock images from GD to your own computer, right? If so, what's to prevent you from uploading them to Zazzle from your hard drive? I understand that this may violate Google's rule that you're only supposed to use the images within the GD program but there've been lots of comments about how the Google terms of use are rather vague and hard to find, so many GD users may well think it's okay to download them and use them elsewhere. Based on Google's statement that the images are okay for commercial use, it certainly doesn't seem impossible that some (many?) of these images might end up on Zazzle. I don't know how vigorously Zazzle polices its policy that you can only use images to which you own the copyright. If they get a flood of people using GD images, will they go after them?
134
« on: February 01, 2013, 11:32 »
They've had plenty of time to make a serious response to the contributor kickback. They've now turned on the fog machines and are teasing some sort of announcement for next week, because they want to blunt the impact of the bad publicity generated by D-Day by spreading out the deactivations. The hope is that many contributors will at least delay pulling out for another week in hopes of some miracle; that will reduce the raw number of deactivations on D-Day itself, which is the only thing the trade press might report.
Yes, exactly right! This is precisely what I meant when I posted earlier: "I was thinking more along the lines of some kind of "cat among the pigeons" statement that might wave off people who are uncertain about participating in D-Day or those who still believe they'll offer a real solution at some point." ETA: Unfortunately, I think it could work. :-(
135
« on: February 01, 2013, 01:47 »
Do you think Lobo actually wrote this or was it handed to him by someone higher up with the instructions to post it and see if contributors quiet down? Pretty much in line with whoever posted elsewhere that they would put something up just before D-Day to try and disrupt as many deactivations as possible.
I was the one who made that suggestion in the D-Day thread. The mention of taking images back from Microsoft was a little more substantive than I was expecting, but I think it was designed to subliminally convey the idea that the promised announcement next week (conveniently after D-Day) might offer contributors the possibility of getting their images out of the Google deal. I doubt that will happen, but the mere hint that it might could, I think, make some people think twice about deactivating, especially in light of other comments made in the IS forums that reactivations might be problematic.
136
« on: January 31, 2013, 14:09 »
I didn't know that Getty had made it imposible for their Flickr contributors to select items to remove - seems most unreasonable as you could be offered a deal for purchase of the rights, for example, and want to remove just that image but keep the rest. Fits with this growing theme of Getty removing choices from their contributors - other than "leave if you don't like it". They really are tightening those thumbscrews.
There have been some recent musings on the iStock forum about the possibility of forum bans and/or account terminations there: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=350913&page=12.
137
« on: January 30, 2013, 12:30 »
I'm betting they're going to put out something on Friday afternoon, if for no other reason than to try to disrupt D-Day.
I'm betting you're going to be disappointed then. They've already had 2-3 weeks to diffuse the situation but they've essentially done nothing other than confirm what we had already discovered for ourselves.
Istock management didn't even know about the Getty/Google deal until we informed them (and they went scurrying away to find out what Getty had done). At the moment they appear powerless to intervene or help even if they wanted to.
I think Istock management will be monitoring very closely the actions of contributors on D-Day and will then use that information to hopefully influence Getty. Unfortunately I believe that Getty will only react, if at all, when they see irrefutable evidence that the Google Drive deal is hurting them in the pocket.
I should have been clearer. I wasn't suggesting that they'd put out anything substantive that would solve the problem, or even address the questions people have been asking. I was thinking more along the lines of some kind of "cat among the pigeons" statement that might wave off people who are uncertain about participating in D-Day or those who still believe they'll offer a real solution at some point.
138
« on: January 30, 2013, 07:44 »
Interesting quote from the Istock forums:
-----------------------------
Posted By PaulCowan:
I think I will delete at least one useless old file on the 2nd, just in case anybody is watching the numbers to see how many contributors are annoyed enough to make some minor gesture of protest.
(Edited on 2013-01-29 04:25:50 by PaulCowan)
Posted By Lobo:
Paul, we are watching everything.
I'm betting they're going to put out something on Friday afternoon, if for no other reason than to try to disrupt D-Day.
139
« on: January 23, 2013, 18:51 »
Then doesn't this make orphan works out of thousands and thousands of images that people post to Facebook and other websites?
No doubt, but presumably people who care don't post pics to FB without watermarks.
I'm not the one posting my images, so I have to do something about this.
140
« on: January 23, 2013, 18:27 »
I hope this isn't too off-topic, but I've just had another negative IPTC surprise that I'd like to mention, given the concern we have about the stripping of IPTC data in the Google case.
I submit images to a print magazine that has a website and a Facebook page. They sometimes post low-res images to promote the magazine. With all this Google stuff going on, I decided to download one of my images from their Facebook page to check the IPTC info. Yep, it's gone. Totally blank IPTC form. Does Facebook strip ITPC too?
The pic is low-res but plenty good enough to be used online.
You're right - I didn't know about it. I just tried to upload image to FB and download it and IPCT data disappeared.
I would think that this is fairly common on any website where you upload photos. The original image containing the IPTC data is not being served. When the file gets uploaded, one or more sizes are automatically created and those files contain only the image data, not the IPTC.
Then doesn't this make orphan works out of thousands and thousands of images that people post to Facebook and other websites? Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't this create exactly the same kind of copyright-stripping problem we're fighting against in this Getty/Google deal?
141
« on: January 23, 2013, 16:12 »
I hope this isn't too off-topic, but I've just had another negative IPTC surprise that I'd like to mention, given the concern we have about the stripping of IPTC data in the Google case.
I submit images to a print magazine that has a website and a Facebook page. They sometimes post low-res images to promote the magazine. With all this Google stuff going on, I decided to download one of my images from their Facebook page to check the IPTC info. Yep, it's gone. Totally blank IPTC form. Does Facebook strip ITPC too?
The pic is low-res but plenty good enough to be used online.
142
« on: January 22, 2013, 15:24 »
I don't know if I've missed an answer to this, but I'm still puzzled why the kga.me site can identify the copyright holders but people are still saying that the EXIF data has been stripped when they download the images. Can anyone explain at what stage of the process the copyright info disappears? Is Google doing it, or Getty?
Getty Images supplies Google with meta data imbedded in the images. Google deletes the meta data when a user imports a thumbnail into their document.
Okay, thanks. Be interesting to see how that plays out if anyone goes for legal action.
143
« on: January 22, 2013, 13:16 »
how do you find out if one of your images in the Google free image bank?
thanks
http://kga.me/gds
and search on your name
I don't know if I've missed an answer to this, but I'm still puzzled why the kga.me site can identify the copyright holders but people are still saying that the EXIF data has been stripped when they download the images. Can anyone explain at what stage of the process the copyright info disappears? Is Google doing it, or Getty?
144
« on: January 20, 2013, 15:05 »
Nevertheless, I don't want them given away on Google, so I'd like to know what happens if I deactivate them on iStock. Does that prevent them from being sold or given away to Google from Getty's site or not? If yes, I'll deactivate them on D-Day along with my remaining MR images.
Having deactivated some E+ images more than a week ago because I want to submit them somewhere else exclusively, I can tell you: Deactivating them on iStock does not remove them (quickly) from Getty.
I will wait a few more days to see if my non-exclusivity (as of yesterday) will remove my files from Getty quickly.
Otherwise iStock support might be able to help. When I removed my images from the PP, almost all got removed quickly with a few files remaining. They had them pulled manually within a few more days after writing to support.
Thanks for that information. I may try to see if I can get iStock to get my E+ pulled from Getty. There's only two of them and they're the only images currently vulnerable to being shipped off to Google, as far as I know. It would also be a way of highlighting my personal objections about this mess to iStock. Not that it would make any difference to them, but it would give me a little bit of satisfaction.
145
« on: January 20, 2013, 14:25 »
So it's up to 8,696 images now. 
Worse than I thought. 
Thanks for the link. I didn't see any way to tally up the total number of images included in the list. Does anyone know if this is up to date?
1-100 of 8696 images (100 per page. Page 1) --this text located just under the search box. Kenny said that 14 new ones were added on 1/18 but I don't know when the others "hit the page"
Thanks, I didn't catch that. So, for now, I still haven't been caught in this net. I feel I like I ought to escape while I can.
146
« on: January 20, 2013, 14:21 »
It's an interesting question about dropping exclusivity. I would not do so unless and until I'm ready to quit iStock altogether. I don't want images going to Thinkstock and I'm not interested in doing the rounds of other microstock agencies; I'm going in another direction altogether. So I'll maintain exclusivity as long as I stay at iStock.
The real dilemma for me is whether the main collection will remain protected from Google or similar deals and whether we'll receive any notification that it will no longer be so protected. If it remains protected, I might just leave the remnants of my portfolio there to collect a few pennies from time to time. If it does not remain protected, I'll close the account.
I'm in the same postion. I want TS even less than I want SS, and have no interest in any of the others. I think it's highly unlikely that we'll get any sort of guarantee about our content, and as you suggest, what does an iStock promise amount to anyway?
Luckily, I'll still eat even if I deactivate altogether.
Oh, just found out that link works for me when I'm logged in in FF, but not when I'm logged out in IE. Don't know if IE is the issue (?). Anyway, there are only two pages in the new TAC/VETTA/E+ 2013 thread in the Exclusive forum as of now, and the page I quoted was the second. It may be worth reading the two pages, which are asking the sort of questions you're asking, but not with concrete answers.
Good luck whatever you decide.
Thanks. I recall now that I did view the TAC/VETTA/E+ 2013 before so I'll go and check it again for more recent posts and keep an eye on it this week to see if anything's forthcoming from iStock. Maybe I'll see a unicorn too -- it seems equally likely.
147
« on: January 20, 2013, 13:07 »
So it's up to 8,696 images now.
Worse than I thought. Thanks for the link. I didn't see any way to tally up the total number of images included in the list. Does anyone know if this is up to date?
148
« on: January 20, 2013, 12:55 »
Sorry, can't imagne why the Getty dropdown doesn't work for you.
Sorry x2, you mentioned Vetta, but I missed that you'd dropped exclusivity, and that link I posted was to the Exclusive forum.
I'm not sure how to summarise it, it seems that no one really knows for sure what happens when you 'demote' your Vetta files, and certainly not in which timescale. Same with E+ files that were already mirrored.
Specifically, Michael Jay asked:
"If someone drops exclusivity, all his files are going to move collection. Does it mean, they are not going to disappear from Getty then?"
To which Oldladybird replied:
"Michael, all this Connector stuff is confusing for me too so I'm going to try and get the correct answer from the Connector guys downstairs. I'll post here as soon as I know what happens with exclusivity."
(as though there was some doubt as to whether she'd be given the correct answer, the way I read it.)
That was on Friday, so no hope of an answer before iStock business hours tomorrow.
No, I haven't dropped exclusivity (yet.) I can see the Exclusive forums but the link didn't take me there -- it just took me to the main page so I didn't know which forum you were linking too. Anyway, you summarized the information, for which I thank you, and I'll go and look tomorrow if there are any answers. Not that I think there will be, of course.... It's an interesting question about dropping exclusivity. I would not do so unless and until I'm ready to quit iStock altogether. I don't want images going to Thinkstock and I'm not interested in doing the rounds of other microstock agencies; I'm going in another direction altogether. So I'll maintain exclusivity as long as I stay at iStock. The real dilemma for me is whether the main collection will remain protected from Google or similar deals and whether we'll receive any notification that it will no longer be so protected. If it remains protected, I might just leave the remnants of my portfolio there to collect a few pennies from time to time. If it does not remain protected, I'll close the account. I'm waiting to see what, if anything, Getty/iStock says about this. Of course, it's hard to trust anything they do say so it would probably be smart to just close the account and be done with it. But I really want to know how long Getty intends to hang on to images after we've deactivated them, moved them from collections or closed our account.
149
« on: January 20, 2013, 12:39 »
Could someone repost the link to that gallery that lists all the images currently in the Google Drive collection? I lost it and have been searching the forums for it but it's difficult to find anything in all these monster threads. Thx.
Has the list been updated to include the images sent over there in the past week? According to one tally I read, the number of images is pushing 8000 now. I did check the initial batch and none of my pix were there, but I'd like to see if some have turned up since then.
150
« on: January 20, 2013, 12:17 »
If they're still on Getty, they can still be sold from Getty. But check this page:
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=350645&page=2#post6824553 if you haven't already.
Of course, just because the last lot sold from Getty and TS, it doesn't mean the next batch wouldn't come from images on iS only.
To find your own images on Getty, click on Advanced Search, put your photographer's name as used on Getty in the Search Field. Immediately under the search box in advanced search is a dropdown with the default 'keywords or Image #'. Choose photographer from the dropdown there.
Thanks for this information. The advanced search didn't work exactly as described above (the "keywords or image #" dropdown box was greyed out and unusable) but when I just searched on my username, I got two E+ images that I removed from E+ last week. I guess they'll stay on Getty until Getty feels like getting around to removing them, if ever. Neither of the Vetta images is there. Fortunately, the E+ images are not MR either and they weren't included in the first batch sent over to Google, but I guess I should check the new ones showing up. I read somewhere that the transfer to Google has continued apace in the last week and there are nearly 8000 images there now. I wasn't able to follow the link to the iStock forum that you provided. It just went to the main Forum page that lists all the different forums. Did it contain information about what happens on Getty if you deactivate images on iStock? It appears that I need to consider deactivating both the former Vetta and former E+ images. I may do it anyway, but it's infuriating if even that won't prevent Getty from giving them away. And, as you say, they may be coming for the main iStock collection soon and probably without any warning. I'm very close to just shutting down my account. ETA: if my Vetta images are not currently showing on Getty, would deactivating them on iStock prevent them from going over there now?
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