Same here.  Dang, I wish this thread would have appeared a little earlier.  I feel like a jerk contacting support about it now.  They must be inundated with emails.

They must feel like jerks for making such a huge mistake, so no worries.

123RF sales are non-existent, last one was over a week ago.

It's still online

Interesting (but horrible) situation. I'm very curious how Istock will reply and make things up to you. If not, you'll have a pretty strong case, in my opinion.

Well, I received a reply, which IMO is completely irrelevant to my question.

"Dear Noedelhap,
 
We do appreciate your concern.
 
However, according to Depositphotos' SUPPLY AGREEMENT
http://submit.depositphotos.com/supply-agreement.html, paragraph 6:
 
Depositphotos reserves the right to use the files as part of its own
activities or activities of third parties related to the issuance of
licenses for the Files, promotional purposes, marketing and advertising.
Contributor agrees that he/she will not be paid commissions on the use
of his/her files for such purposes.
 
Thus, we do have the right to use our contributors' files without
watermarks on our blog, and this information is publicly available.
As a contributor, you agreed with these terms when you accepted the
Membership Agreement. Please see the abstract below:
 
http://submit.depositphotos.com/member-agreement.html
BY ACCEPTING THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, THE USER ALSO ACKNOWLEDGES
THAT HE HAS READ AND UNDERSTOOD ALL OTHER RELATED AGREEMENTS LISTED
BELOW, WHICH CAN BE FOUND ON THE WEBSITE, AND ACCEPTS ALL THE TERMS AND
CONDITIONS OF SAID AGREEMENTS:
Terms of Use;
Privacy Policy;
DMCA Copyright Infringement Notice;
License Agreement;
Standard License Agreement;
Extended License Agreement;
Comparison of the License Capabilities;
Supply Agreement;
Affiliate Agreement;
Subscription Agreement;
API Program Agreement;
Cancellation Policy;
Model Release (PDF);
Property Release (PDF).
 
Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions.
 
Best regards,
The Depositphotos Team"


But I never said they couldn't use them, I simply asked if they could protect these images from being downloaded for free. Also, they don't mention my question regarding copyright notation.

The mistake he made (IMO) was that he switched from his ImageToons website to his new website HitImages, which featured smaller download sizes.

I had just gone through the hassle of uploading my port at ImageToons, when suddenly, the website was abandoned in favor of HitImages. We were then asked to re-upload(!) everything to HitImages (no automatic file transfer), and I think very few contributors bothered to do so.

AFAIK this is not possible. No PUBLIC lightboxes, that is.

I do see the similarities with La Linea No plagiarism intended though

this is one picture...what else do you send them?

I have a whole series of them. See the Istock lightbox: http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/9396470#1973128b

Each agency has their own preferences - Veer in particular has some very odd notions (IMO) of what they view as having commercial appeal (having turned down files that have sold well elsewhere). I can see from your SS portfolio that you have a lot of these characters with no features. It clearly has a style, but it's quite simple. iStock seems not to like vectors that are very simple - although they've certainly accepted others of yours with that style.

As far as a specific critique, I don't like the tree much. I think the key shapes - baubles and lights - get a bit lost in this outline treatment. Perhaps a tree where you could clearly see more/all of the ornaments hanging down would look more Christmas-y?

Ok, thanks. That might be it, that the tree doesn't read very well.

I must say that I had my first downloads and I love the $14 RPD. Keep up this great site.

Seems like they're dead.

So, they came up with a fancy looking 'drag 'n drop' upload device, but things are now so buggy I can't even upload my vectors (eps and jpg at the same time). They keep reappearing in the Submit section, then they contain errors because 'the accompanying jpg was not uploaded', then I must delete them, then they reappear again for submitting. 

It used to work perfectly. Don't try to fix what ain't broken, SS!

Shutterstock seems to screw up the uploaded image; IPTC data is not uploaded.