If any of you find threads on any of these sites pertaining to this subject, would you please be so kind as to post them here? I cannot find any and I'm EXTREMELY curious to see how the individual sites "deal" with the posts. If they close them or punish any of the "posters", this might lend credibility to the "insider" speculations.

THX

Here is the thread that Lumaxart2D started at DT. The last post right now is by one of the Admins saying "awww c'mon, they're off for the weekend. give em a break..."

http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_9737

And I personally admonished them via private email for having a Site Admin that was first to link the offender as a fave photog, so just counting the minutes till my account suspension. They have done it for stranger reasons. For instance the saga of a Polish girl reporting a blog article as "useful" when it was just chatter. The girl just automatically marked it because she knew the photog name or was a friend. Happened fairly recently. Don't know f you can access blog posts from the outside world, but here's the link anyway

http://blog.dreamstime.com/2008/03/25/to-apologize-and-warn_art25856

As far as sites like SS, IS FO etc, well just hoping some of the active people there check in here as well and see what is going on.

Contakt,

That's gotta be the top funniest responses of all time!
I just about p*ssed my pants when I read it.

You have a unique sense of humor that runs parallel  to mine.
Thank you soooo much for making my day.

The MIZ

@Contakt, funny or not, I think you need to judge people by their actions, not their ponytails or national origin. In general, the principals at DT have played things straight.

I won't defend the fact that their lax review process has permitted this outrageous theft, but I don't think it's fair to go from that to suggesting regional conspiracies or knowing and not caring.

Contakt,

You have a unique sense of humor that runs parallel  to mine.

I'm living in a country where nobody would find anything funny in Contakt's post. I guess we are not living in the same country The MIZ.

Even though I'm sure it was an attempt at humor it comes across as a personal attack.   

It's not a personal attack: it's an attack against a group of people based on their origin. There is a word for that I think.

What a pity to see such comment here.

Yes, I agree that it is upsetting seeing this sort of theft occurring. 

But, unfortunately, Contact, a person is often not remembered for the overall good they did in their life, but for their worst moment.  Now I cannot picture Hugh Grant without that prostitute or Mel Gibson without his racial slurs.  In your case, it is your above post. 

In addition to the fact that Scott complained about this on the DT forums, the reason this is clearly theft is that the work of a number of known artists (who've been around a number of years) shows up in one portfolio. There's no explanation for that other than theft.

I think it comes down to simple exposure. The more accounts you would create the greater the number of sales. I don't have a lot of faith in people searching through thousands of images of "organic orange" and picking my own.

While I have not done it, I think duplicating your portfoliio would go close to duplicating your sales.

Yeah, surprising they haven't taken this more seriously... unless they are still planning on checking into this further and taking further action.  I can see Fotolia not wanting to be brash in their decision, but on the other hand this seems pretty blatant.

If it ends up that the punishment is simply a slap on the hand that will only encourage others to try and steal images and see how much they can get away with with little fear of any serious consequences.

Quote from: leaf on April 21, 2008, 04:35

Yeah, surprising they haven't taken this more seriously... unless they are still planning on checking into this further and taking further action.  I can see Fotolia not wanting to be brash in their decision, but on the other hand this seems pretty blatant.

If it ends up that the punishment is simply a slap on the hand that will only encourage others to try and steal images and see how much they can get away with with little fear of any serious consequences.

I simply cannot believe that is taking so long to deal with thes gangsters. what is up with thes bozo amdins?

bozos might be a bit harsh...

Top Dog Chad is a stand up guy 100%

I have a feeling it may be some strange red tape BS( that needs to be streamlined ASAP to prevent this delayed full on action in the future)

Let's see how the day unfolds.

...TOTAL ELIMINATION AND BAN OF THE OFFENDER with legal action is the ONLY ACCEPTABLE RESPONSE.

I agree. There are a number of mistakes (going overboard with keywords that are marginal, for example) where I think it's quite right to give someone a chance to shape up after a warning.

Image theft deserves no second chance. This isn't an honest mistake, or an accident. It's deliberate and without any possible mitigating circumstances.

I also think the sites in question (DT and FT as far as I can see) have been put on notice that they need to do some more careful monitoring with new submitters (my suggestion in another thread of some image matching on some small/med images was for a combined database across all micros, but even if DT had done this within their own database they'd have caught this guy).

They don't need to monitor every submission this way, just the first 50 or 100 for new submitters. 

Good for Dreamstime!!!!!   Right on!!  =tom

Quote from: a.k.a.-tom on April 21, 2008, 13:33

Good for Dreamstime!!!!!   Right on!!  =tom

Agree!  This is the kind of decisive action we need to protect our images from thieves.  Hopefully FT will follow suit and shut this guy down once and for all.   

Unfortunately the reality is that the most Micro agencies will do is close the user account.  That's it.  It does not matter if the user is in Russia or US.  They simply don't have the resources to engage in a law suite.

I remember when someone hacked my Fotolia account, Fotolia told me that it was happening quite often and that they would not even do an investigation.

When my account was hacked at the same time with StockXpert, I don't think they ever tried to even contact moneybooker to have access to the hacker personal data and bank info...

That being said I agree, agencies should take it much more seriously and also be a little more proactive.

Quote from: lisafx on April 21, 2008, 17:28

Quote from: a.k.a.-tom on April 21, 2008, 13:33

Good for Dreamstime!!!!!   Right on!!  =tom

Agree!  This is the kind of decisive action we need to protect our images from thieves.  Hopefully FT will follow suit and shut this guy down once and for all.   

Unfortunately the reality is that the most Micro agencies will do is close the user account.  That's it.  It does not matter if the user is in Russia or US.  They simply don't have the resources to engage in a law suite.

I remember when someone hacked my Fotolia account, Fotolia told me that it was happening quite often and that they would not even do an investigation.

When my account was hacked at the same time with StockXpert, I don't think they ever tried to even contact moneybooker to have access to the hacker personal data and bank info...

That being said I agree, agencies should take it much more seriously and also be a little more proactive.

why your account was broken into at least twice? Was it a short password problem ? I wonder if we should change passwords more often.