After read  the � wackamoles � thread I realized how weak we are. Personally I think it is a huge issue, It can kill legitimate artists.
Shutterstock, probably others too, have contributors interest at the bottom of their to do list. Actually I don�t think �trying to help them�, signing NDA and discreetly working for free is a good idea. They try to push problems under the carpet and as long as intellectual propriety problem is not public they will not seriously act.
If it get public and shareholders and clients are informed it will be a serious motivation.
But how to do it? I don�t think a discussion on MSG is the solution.
If we, individually, contact people and groups concerned by digital business, copyrights, design, art etc.  the word could be spread. I am especially thinking about journalists specialized in digital, designers magazines. If important number of people point similar problem, with factual content, real experience and link it could work.

Some ideas to work on.
- Clients can purchase unsafe content. They are paying money without guaranty that the product is legitimate. If the content was stolen inside SS the contract protect them but what if not? The copyright holder can sue the final client, he doesn�t need to handle with SS as he hasn�t any relation with them.
- Today it is very easy to detect identical content. That means they can track potentially stolen work. Why not to do it?
- Lack of reactivity on DCMA. Apparently sometimes only files are taken down, not contributors accounts.
- At least a part of money which was not transferred to dishonest contributor (SS pays once a month) could be easily paid to original artist but they keep this �dirty� money.
- The way how they want to make it opaque, lack of transparency is not appreciated by potential investors.

Maybe we can share here contacts, web sites and others idea to touch an audience that could be interested?

Honestly the only thing that will work will be new legislation.

Make no mistake the DMCA it there to protect sites like Shutterstock, not copyright holders. It ensures that as long as they take down something when they receive a valid DMCA takedown notice they are protected. Take a look at my recent posts about Etsy. Their whole digital download section is almost completely made up of stolen goods, but they don't have to do a thing as long as they follow the letter of the law, no matter how obvious the criminality is, they even let the perpetrators re-list if they fill out a false counter notice.

Service providers hold all the cards at the moment and they pay massive bribes to politicians and wages to lobbyists to keep it that way. People have got very good at spotting BS from oil companies and drug companies but for some reason can't see through the nonsense from tech companies even though they are now some of (the?) biggest lobbyists out there. They need to bear some criminal responsibility if they are not reasonably vigilant about this stuff.

Side note. I know companies like Facebook actively avoid knowing about any abuses on the site as they fear becoming criminally liable if they know. I wonder if the reasoning with some of the agencies is the same? They may not want to have an employee go through looking for stuff in case they get sued if they miss anything. Again a reason to back any legislation that demands reasonable oversight from platform providers, the current framework actively encourages them to avoid taking action.

Your final paragraph nails it!

They may stop operating in the EU.

Companies evolve.
(or go out of business...)
more likely to develop exclusive contribution models (...satisfactory cut / low prices...)
or subscription packages
or other "good news" for us.

But. Perhaps there is a window here for small,
collaborative or personal selling sites though.
Perhaps.

They certainly don�t believe in the �see something, say something� way of combating crime, do they?