And all of those things that have happened, happened without having to sign a petition. To me, it seems just as effective to write to support, or complain on the forums. Whatever SS is going to do, they are already doing it, without the petition.
 

So far 440 people disagree with you.

to me, the old size is enough with the magnifying glass to a certain area. no need for the whole picture disponible encouraging pirates.

don't ss give comps to long-standing big corporations who are regular customers with history of
loyalty i think that should be the only people given special treatment,

so if you are one of those regular customers or firm with loyalty patronage to ss,
you can see this very large preview.

but for the rest of the audience, no can do. this is my thought.

Un-FREAKEN-Believable!
What is the point anymore when they are just giving my images away! I'm in total shock they did this.

I'm not one of the big portfolios - although with 66 million in the collection, I'm not sure who is these days - but I have been around SS a long time. I haven't signed the petition because I think they're aware of the problem and making a fix. This feels very different from situations were the agency has told us to pound sand.

I think it's important they fix this watermark - even the new one isn't adequate. I have two images with the black-bottom (V2) watermark; one is OK and the other - on a white background - isn't.

I've written to support with these images as examples asking that they fix this. I think they've had other examples sent to them showing the V2 watermark needs some work, but if anyone thinks there's a good example in one of their own images, send the information to support to help them see all the problems.

If Shutterstock says they won't improve the V2 watermark, I think it'd be time for me to sign the petition. If they fix the problem, then I hope they've learned their lessons:  (1) that they need to do better quality control when making a change like this; and (2) they should improve the frequency and scope of contributor communications so they tell us about stuff like this versus we find out about it from each other. None of this would have been such a mess if they'd told us what was going on directly.

It's hard to rank the various agency shenanigans in terms of severity, but I do think there's a difference between dealing with thieves - enabling them or not pursuing them vigorously enough - and setting onerous terms and conditions of sale - reducing royalties, giving away more rights for the same royalty, etc.

It's unfortunate that SS's success has made them a target of thieves and pirates for years. I'm not the only one who has contacted SS about sites like Fiverr with stolen SS images (I just checked and I can get 50 SS images for $5 from Fiverr - I just searched for Shutterstock on the site). Watermarks won't help with this theft as people buy subscriptions and then resell. If I had to rate the current poorly watermarked preview against the lack of effort shutting down Fiverr gigs reselling SS content, I think I'd rate the Fiverr problem as a bigger threat to our income. One of the gigs I just found had an "extra" that for $40 the guy would teach me how to download any Shutterstock image free!!  There have been all sorts of sites offering free Shutterstock vectors and images for years - I've stopped reporting them to Shutterstock but a quick search reveals there are still plenty around.

Most legitimate businesses will not do an end run around licensing work they just because there's a poor watermark any more than when it's on a scummy free content site. They don't want the legal risk.

We don't need to make life easy for thieves, but given all the other piracy of work that has been going on for years, I find it hard to see this watermark issue as more than something that needs to be dealt with. Given that it's wholly within SS's control (unlike the piracy issue) I expect we'll see a resolution (although we may have to do their QA and show them the problems, which we shouldn't have to)

If Shutterstock says they won't improve the V2 watermark, I think it'd be time for me to sign the petition.

It seems they don't want to improve V2 watermark. I got an email reply from them saying that they have started to publish V2 new watermark across all images. I think that's it from them. So disappointing. 

This is not V2 watermark, it comes with a black footer, but the watermarks are not much different.
Previews are not smaller either, you can get a larger preview by just right-clicking and select 'view image'.

Quote from: anathaya on October 27, 2015, 23:30

Quote from: marthamarks on October 27, 2015, 23:18

The previews are smaller, but the "new and improved" WM still doesn't offer much protection.

Click the "preview" link on these to see why I'm still unhappy:

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=301581569

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=309471632

This is not V2 watermark, it comes with a black footer, but the watermarks are not much different.
Previews are not smaller either, you can get a larger preview by just right-clicking and select 'view image'

Guess I haven't seen the "V2" watermark yet. Can you point me toward one?

And thanks for showing me those ultra-huge images w/virtually no WM protection. Doesn't look to me like anything is better.

(Also� please do go ahead and delete those links.)

As a PS�  I just looked again at those large previews and also spotted a magnifying glass that let me enlarge them even more. Gigantic images, actually. This wasn't something I'd seen before.

I see no evidence that the problem is being fixed.

Guess I haven't seen the "V2" watermark yet. Can you point me toward one?

Here are some of those:

The new watermark (v2):

• http://image.shutterstock.com/z/new-watermark-version-two-330863216.jpg
• http://image.shutterstock.com/z/new-watermark-version-two-330787895.jpg
• http://image.shutterstock.com/z/new-watermark-version-two-330836732.jpg
• http://image.shutterstock.com/z/new-watermark-version-two-330818534.jpg

I just sent SS a demo of what I can do to their images if they don't change the watermark. This is a sample of what I did in 45 seconds of photoshop.

original
http://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-vector-game-control-over-gray-background-vector-illustration-162639971.jpg

modified
http://i.imgur.com/gxjvKfQ.jpg

I've completely removed the watermark and I sent them the new image just to show that I can steal their many of their images at will. I wonder if these silly decisions are made out of desperation or out of stupidity. Sometimes an angry/fearful CEO can make the dumbest decisions just because their stock is not performing well.

In the petition it says "it can be easily removed, even without complex manipulations just by downsizing the preview image."

I haven't tried it though.

...Guess I haven't seen the "V2" watermark yet. Can you point me toward one?

Here's one where it works well:

http://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-photo-open-layout-kitchen-with-family-room-adjacent-back-in-use-following-an-extensive-remodel-331838918.jpg

And one where it doesn't:

http://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-photo-antique-and-well-worn-gold-jewelry-cameo-amethyst-enamel-garnet-and-three-ring-lover-s-knot-331483934.jpg

It's unfortunate that SS's success has made them a target of thieves and pirates for years. I'm not the only one who has contacted SS about sites like Fiverr with stolen SS images (I just checked and I can get 50 SS images for $5 from Fiverr - I just searched for Shutterstock on the site). Watermarks won't help with this theft as people buy subscriptions and then resell. If I had to rate the current poorly watermarked preview against the lack of effort shutting down Fiverr gigs reselling SS content, I think I'd rate the Fiverr problem as a bigger threat to our income. One of the gigs I just found had an "extra" that for $40 the guy would teach me how to download any Shutterstock image free!!  There have been all sorts of sites offering free Shutterstock vectors and images for years - I've stopped reporting them to Shutterstock but a quick search reveals there are still plenty around.

Most legitimate businesses will not do an end run around licensing work they just because there's a poor watermark any more than when it's on a scummy free content site. They don't want the legal risk.

I agree with you on those points. And another problem is clients buying the largest size available, using it in a website or blog article, then google indexes the large size. Free high resolution image for all!

I just checked 20 or so of my best sellers. The watermark is more than effective on some, and on others, barely visible. I know it is difficult to get a watermark to be effective on ALL images, from my experience in trying to create one for my personal site. The ones that are problematic seem to be images with a lot of white, like the isolated images. Sometimes the shutterstock word completely misses the image. Seems like they should be able to code an algorithm to apply a few different watermarks, i.e. if 50% of the image is white, use this one, etc.

This is the official reply from shutterstock .... ( on shutterstock forum , on 21 October.)

"As always we appreciate feedback from our contributor community on changes we make in our marketplace. To drive more download opportunities, we are implementing a new watermark design. The new design, which we collaborated on with members of our contributor community, provides additional protection for your images that have an off-center focal point and for vector images overall.
 
While we�ve found that the new watermark provides additional protection we�ve also identified a small sub-set of images where the watermark could be more pronounced. We are adjusting the watermark on these images.
 
Our goal is to protect your content and drive value in our marketplace. We will keep you updated on progress as we continue to implement this change. "