Anything that mentions 'new and exciting' in the same sentence generally means bad news and less income. This sounds to me like there's going to be shed loads of rejections so that our content can go in the dataset catalogue, so they can pay even less to contributors.
What does everyone else think?

So basically the images rejected can now be used to train your AI competition.  So thats ALL accepted and rejected unless opted out.

SS now has an interest in increasing rejections on top of that.  We can see clearly where they want to be headed a few months or years down the line.  User media is now just a massive data set as opposed to actual, useful media.

Although, i wonder what happens if malicious people started submitting atrocious images, with clear flaws all grossly miscaptioned and mis-keyworded to train that AI with......

At least there is an opt out.

Yeah, though it was only added AFTER they already used our images to train AI, so that's all just for pretense.

I just got a review that says data set image which means a rejection, without saying it's a rejection or why. This is stupid dumb. I will delete the image. Now SS doesn't have to review, just let AI drop them into data set or approve.

You can opt out of data sets so they dont get to use it.

True but what if someone wants to be included for accepted photos and not have this, phony way to skirt reviews, by putting every reject into data sets? They don't even say why an image is rejected now. But called it accepted for data? 

"Eligible for data licensing
Date approved: 06/29/2023"

And then we get a new area Data Catalog for this farce?  https://submit.shutterstock.com/data_catalog

For what I know Shutterstock never had any real and actually working strategy against keyword spamming. So their AI could get quite "distracted" by all thoose irellevant keywords, and end up as pure entertainment.

 Plus how does SS get the right to accept my images to the data catalog, but they actually have rejected them, and I have no control over them? I don't want a new home for rejects!

Opt out of data licensing in your account settings and your images will not be used for this, rejected or approved.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on July 03, 2023, 09:43

 Plus how does SS get the right to accept my images to the data catalog, but they actually have rejected them, and I have no control over them? I don't want a new home for rejects!

Opt out of data licensing in your account settings and your images will not be used for this, rejected or approved.

Of course, we could argue, cynically, that they already used our "good" images for AI training *before* offering the opt out and could well do the same with rejects.

...

Wow and thanks for that deep answer. But that wasn't the question.

I had an image rejected, that went into the Data Catalog and there's no way to delete it. They arbitrarily have assumed control of my image and I can't remove it.

If I had blocked all data use, of course, that's easy, but I hadn't. They just introduced this new program, without notice.

I'll try again: How do I delete an image that was put into the Data Catalog by SSTK?

a troubling aspect is they don't say why an image was rejected & send to dataset limbo -- many rejections have simple fixes & are accepted when re0sub mitted

Thanks for posting that information. I'm no longer with Shutterstock, but if I were, I think the only sane choice is to opt out of the data catalog so they can't benefit from wholesale, no-explanation-no-appeal rejections.

...I just got my answer from Shutterstock support...

I'd like to add comments from another forum (with permission from the contributor) about the details of what happens if you opt out of data licensing (emphasis mine):

"...even if you opt out of data licensing, you still can't resubmit. I had one yesterday and asked Shutterstock about it and they told me it wasn't rejected, (approved for data licensing only), so I couldn't resubmit. If you switch off data licensing, submissions can still be approved for data licensing only, but the image won't be shown in the data section. However, although hidden, it's still there, just in case you want to enable data licensing at a later date. As it happens, I'd already resubmitted, so now the same image is sitting in the data section twice, and I can't even delete the duplicate.
Shutterstock have always given us autonomy over our content, with the ability to delete if necessary via the catalog manager. However, this move has taken away all control, and we have no right of redress if we think a reviewing error has occurred. I guess we are now supposed to believe that Shutterstock�s reviewing system is infallible and that mistakes will never happen."

Assuming what the contributor was told is correct, there's no way to resubmit unless an image is rejected for both the regular collection AND data licensing - that seems nuts.

Quote from: JustAnImage on July 05, 2023, 18:03

...I just got my answer from Shutterstock support...

I'd like to add comments from another forum (with permission from the contributor) about the details of what happens if you opt out of data licensing (emphasis mine):

"...even if you opt out of data licensing, you still can't resubmit. I had one yesterday and asked Shutterstock about it and they told me it wasn't rejected, (approved for data licensing only), so I couldn't resubmit. If you switch off data licensing, submissions can still be approved for data licensing only, but the image won't be shown in the data section. However, although hidden, it's still there, just in case you want to enable data licensing at a later date. As it happens, I'd already resubmitted, so now the same image is sitting in the data section twice, and I can't even delete the duplicate.
Shutterstock have always given us autonomy over our content, with the ability to delete if necessary via the catalog manager. However, this move has taken away all control, and we have no right of redress if we think a reviewing error has occurred. I guess we are now supposed to believe that Shutterstock�s reviewing system is infallible and that mistakes will never happen."

Assuming what the contributor was told is correct, there's no way to resubmit unless an image is rejected for both the regular collection AND data licensing - that seems nuts.

I don't see how SSTK can take control of our images, whether we have the data licensing on or off. And especially the second part, where we can't delete a rejected image, which is transferred into the data catalog. And if true, there are invisible images that are archived, in case we later change to opting in?

I think they are overstepping their rights and boundaries for OUR content and submissions. Inclusion into anything that we can't control is usurping our image rights and copyright protection.

Maybe the best option from hereon is no longer submit images to Shutterstock.

...While the TOS could say that, it wouldn't make the rights grab legal.

With contracts, you're in the realm of civil law and enforcement of contract terms isn't handled by any agency or any state, but by one of the parties to the contract taking the others to court and claiming damages or a declaration that a particular part of the contact is invalid (specific performance is another, very rare, remedy but isn't relevant here).

Lawyers are expansive, court proceedings lengthy and the outcome uncertain. In practice, without some foundation or the ACLU or some deep-pocketed philanthropist who hates scummy stock agencies, the power imbalance between the agencies  and their suppliers is what determines the outcome, not whether the contract terms are actually enforceable.

In other words, "you, and what army..."

In Shutterstock's case, the terms of service have a binding arbitration agreement, so you can't even go to court directly: "The TOS also includes a binding arbitration agreement that requires arbitration of covered disputes instead of litigation by court or jury trial."

(I think version 10 is the most recent version of the TOS, but it still references forums which are long-since removed).

It all s@�ks, but your only realistic option if you want to stop SS grabbing your stuff and refusing to let go is to stop uploading for the moment.

If SS changes the terms for the better, it's always worth remembering that the terms of service say that they can change the agreement at any time...

"Please note that Shutterstock reserves the right to modify these terms at any time in its sole discretion"

Ive started seeing these (when its not asking for a translation required on an image of ocean waves).

Im opted out of data and despite having several images rejected (sorry "approved") for data licensing, when i try to view my data catalogue it appears empty.

Are you seeing your "rejected" images appearing in there?

It'll depend on the other agencies definition of exclusive but having that media living on a competitors server may well break that no matter what SS say.

From a coding point of view its trivial to remove an image from a database and serve that by their claims, is not being used for or doing anything.
You can already perform the much harder task of removing an image from the active library.

In other words, they really dont want to do this.