Quote from: VB inc on October 30, 2015, 00:05

I am one of those that get really irritated by seeing obnoxious watermarks. At some point it really starts to affect the image and i think thats a fine line that is different depending on who you ask.

LMAO to the red remark.
depending on who you ask, you say?

that is like asking the petty thieves in my neighbourhood do they really feel it is necessary for us to have barbed wire around our property 6 foot walls to deter them from breaking into our homes.

the only ppl who consider watermarks obnoxious are the ones who do not think it is important to protect someone's else property , in this case, the photographers and vector artists.

are you by any chance one of the mgt fellas of ss who implemented this obnoxious idea of making it easier for ppl to steal our work???

I actually buy pictures. Do you? Or are you actually a content producer who has no clue about the other side(buyer). I've actually stated my case against vectors and simple shapes as this new watermark isn't good enough for those. You sound like you have never bought a picture ever before. Tell me you haven't seen ridiculous watermarks that even a 90 yr old person can see without glasses. And more often than not, no thief would like to steal that image anyways. Microstock is filled with mediocrity because so many who submit never buy and have little clue.
If your a buyer of images, the more subtle the watermark it is the better. If your a thief, you would want none what so ever. But really what percentage are we crying about anyways thats gonna steal your precious images? I would probably say the percentage of people stealing images would be less than 5% and do you think shutterstock will cater to the less than 5% chance of thieves stealing content that they don't own or catering to the other 95% of buyers who dont give a rats ass if the watermark is too subtle. Look at the watermark at stocksy. subtle and barely seen. 

I actually buy pictures. Do you?

Oh, you are a buyer, that's why you love it. You don't have to pay anymore. BTW, do you sell pictures?

Look at the watermark at stocksy. subtle and barely seen. 

But much smaller image sizes.

You just keep expressing vague ideas without any justification.

The reason many may not be signing is that they have to sign up with AVAAZ first.  In this day and age with internet hackers running rampant, people are understandably reluctant to sign on to a site they are not familiar with.

That's not true, you can sign with any existing account. I did it with (one of ) my Facebook accounts which is more likely to be hacked as anything else.

But really what percentage are we crying about anyways thats gonna steal your precious images? I would probably say the percentage of people stealing images would be less than 5% and do you think shutterstock will cater to the less than 5% chance of thieves stealing content that they don't own or catering to the other 95% of buyers who dont give a rats ass if the watermark is too subtle. Look at the watermark at stocksy. subtle and barely seen. 

90% of bloggers using pictures are stealing them with or without watermark, regardless of quality. Many of them are even bragging about it and call you stupid if you mention buying images.
I could prove this (but I don't) with my long list to DMCA of thousands of link to stolen images and the action taken:

We have received your DMCA take-down notice dated xxxxx
regarding the following:
http://YYYYYYYYhtml
 We have reviewed the allegedly infringing content in question. In
accordance with our policies, we have taken the content offline and
notified the blogger of the complaint. Should the allegedly infringing
content reappear at this post, please let us know and we will take further
action.

Of course it will reappear but at that time you are too tired to care. That doesn't mean we should make things easier for them.

that's you thinking that all/most buyers are thieves.... again clueless over reaction. So your basically saying that if you are a buyer yourself, you would just be stealing these images.

This is where you go off the rails, VB.

Nobody is saying "all/most buyers are thieves". By definition, a "buyer" is not a "thief."

The thieves are those out in the great cyber-universe who would never buy an image in their lives, but they will happily steal�and thus devalue�other people's intellectual property.

Why is that concept so hard for you to understand?

I actually buy pictures. Do you? Or are you actually a content producer who has no clue about the other side(buyer).

no, i do not buy pictures, i produce them. no i am not clueless like you claim to be so know all the facts... but i do not claim to be a smartass either.
if you are a producer too, i don't see why you are so against watermarks...
not unless you think giving away your own products is a good way to become popular.

whatever your motive, bully for you. but as you can see, we all besides yourself
choose to have a better watermark, obnoxious as it may be to you.

But really what percentage are we crying about anyways thats gonna steal your precious images? I would probably say the percentage of people stealing images would be less than 5%...

lastly, 5% of annual income from ss of 30k =1500 dollars
and on the lower end annual income of 3k = 150 dollars

please let us all here know how you intend to compensate us for that "little amount"
...since you obviously don't think 5% shortfall in our account is anything to cry about.

SS appears to be moving forward with getting the black bottom previews on more images. I just did a check of a few areas and some newer images (not all and not in any apparent order) have a black bottom preview plus some really old images - 548809 which I uploaded in September 2005, for example.

Certainly the black bottom preview is better than the white bottom one, so perhaps it's good that they proceed with this update. However, they need something better for the predominantly white/light background images and the background patterns/textures:

http://forums.submit.shutterstock.com/topic/87012-updated-shutterstock-watermark/?p=1511557

Please sign, Let's reach 500 today!

If we speak our mind AND stop uploading and they get no new images  they will have to change their attitude towards us contributors and develop a protective enough watermark.  Sure everyone is used to contributing to SS and making money. That used to be comfortable. However that was BEFORE they put all our images out there for everyone to download and use for free. People love free stuff and think that everything they Google is free. So goodbye nice money in the future.

Don't forget that what SS did to us diminishes our sales in other agencies as well.

Every trade demands more pay but stock photographers are expected to donate their work away, free. You are giving your work free you continue to upload to SS. Free work day in day out. Just think. Who wants to do THAT?

Quote from: ravens on October 30, 2015, 03:54

Quote from: marthamarks on October 29, 2015, 21:34

The petition now has 486 signatures. Surely we can get to 500!

Come on, folks:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Shutterstockcom_team_Infringes_copyrights_of_contributors_by_Shutterstock

491!
We can do this today!

Say NO to stealing!

Just few names missing. Come on!

Signed.I feel betrayed

Quote from: Thomas from France on October 31, 2015, 07:52

Signed.I feel betrayed

Thank you, Thomas! Your signature brought the number up to 496.

Surely we can find four more to get it to 500!

I think you would get more signatures if you start a new thread with a link to the petition as the first entry. I found the link by chance because I did not read every entry in this thread and rarely do because I am busy!

i think we will do better and quicker if we twitted Mr. Oringer at his twitter site

you did it ?