I think its a caching issue. When I click on the link to the images I can still see them but, if I then click on the contributors name, I get the, "that was unexpected" message and no port.

Childish attitude by SS...

Childish attitude by SS...

So true ~ they can't handle the truth its a kindergarten attitude not at all worthy of a so-called professional company

Heres another profile:-  https://www.shutterstock.com/g/patrick+littles

Its most likely the same group.  Travel a lot, all editorial, illiterate captions that have no relevance to the images.
So far images on there are stolen from Getty, Universal studios, a few glamour collections and even some from personal blogs and trip reports.

SS yet again pathetic in its lack of reviewing and verification.

Given how much Getty love to lawyer up you have to wonder how long it'll be for them to have large scale selling of their images by a competitor before they choose to act.

True wackamole style. New one pops up as soon as another gets wacked!

True wackamole style. New one pops up as soon as another gets wacked!

...and promptly passes quality control review and images go live.  THAT to me is the most frustrating part.  Its not the thieves themselves, its the system that SS has created that allows them to get these large scale stolen images on sale in the first place.

The portfolio is still there, so I replied to the "we're working on it" email with two examples of Getty images work the thief has claimed were his - along with a suggestion they need to look more closely at initial uploads of new contributors to stop this crazy behavior.


A Boston Dynamics robot that is by LAURA CHIESA/PACIFIC PRESS/GETTY IMAGES and first appeared in October 2018, and was not shot in June 2019 as claimed by the thief

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-yorknew-york06082019-photo-capable-robot-1467273704

https://www.wired.com/story/boston-dynamics-is-prepping-its-robot-dog-to-get-a-job/

And this is from Getty Images from 2017, shot in Tokyo, not shot in New York in 2019 as the thief claims

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-yorknew-york06082019-photo-capable-robot-1467273707

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/softbank-group-corp-chief-executive-officer-masayoshi-son-news-photo/819235032?


Edited to add that the port is still up on Tuesday afternoon, so I wrote to the blogger, Lauren, with the Christmas image suggesting she contact Shutterstock compliance directly. That seemed to work well with the other blogger I contacted...

Wednesday afternoon I'm getting a 404 error on these pages, so it appears SS has taken the thief's work down. Finally.

If I were a betting person, I'd take odds on how long before a contributor spots another of these portfolios - but at least there are two down...

...what troubles me is that there's no system in place them being accepted in the first place. I know it's RF and non-exclusive which makes it more difficult but the current system isn't working.

I don't think it's difficult at all. It just requires more careful (and largely automatic) monitoring of the uploads of new accounts. Probably just monitoring the first 100 uploads would do it - at least it would weed out the vast majority of the professional thieves. I included that suggestion in my emails to compliance

You would have to have been purposefully asleep at the wheel to allow what's been going on to occur.

Thread on thieves taken down and comment wasn't even accepted. Predictable.

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on August 13, 2019, 10:21

The portfolio is still there, so I replied to the "we're working on it" email with two examples of Getty images work the thief has claimed were his - along with a suggestion they need to look more closely at initial uploads of new contributors to stop this crazy behavior.
...

As noted above, the portfolio did come down, but today, a week and a half later, I received snotty email from Shutterstock compliance saying that they (1) had taken down the images; (2) rely on the integrity of their contributors not to infringe others' copyright; (3) were a "service provider" (their quotes) and would respond to proper DMCA take down notices;

(4) "Though your correspondence did not adhere to the strict statutory requirements of the DMCA, we elected to treat it as a proper notice and expeditiously removed the image(s) in question."

Very big of them to do me a favor that way...

This is a pathetic, butt-covering piece of corporate word barf apparently disavowing any and all responsibility for vetting their uploads and leaving it to copyright holders to submit streams of DMCA notices when thieves have uploaded their content to Shutterstock.

Tossers!

Pffft.....can it get any worse at Shitterstock?