The first two sets of dice are identical copies just without the arrows.

The third image might be a direct knock off (or original) using the actual vector file.

The first two are raster so they could come from the Shutterstock vector without rounded edges.

Something that should be investigated. That's too much of a coincidence that the angle is absolutely identical not to mention the shown sides of the dice.

Looks fishy.

Not so sure about that one.  Is it not possible that xedos4 is the microstock name of that actual person?  

Have I missed something?

Oh sorry... I barely had a wink of sleep last night.  Apologies for that unnecessary post...  

Again - great work!  Very thorough.

wow ludar, you have a lot of time on your hands. Thank you for your vigilance.   

Maybe you can start your own "find your stolen photos" service 

Haha, not too shabby! It is kind of fun, in a way. Reminds of the pixel hunts of the old point-and-click adventure games .

Found one more from iStock exclusive Subman:



Original:

Not sure what to think of this:

by Jean-luc Cochonneau
by Gbydream
by Laschon Maximilian.

Off Topic: those dice are not realistic. Real ones always have six and one on opposite sites, as well as three and four.

Off Topic: those dice are not realistic. Real ones always have six and one on opposite sites, as well as three and four.

Yep, I think opposite sides always add up to seven. Makes it even more unlikely the similarities are a coincidence.

Quote from: dirkr on August 22, 2011, 04:18

Off Topic: those dice are not realistic. Real ones always have six and one on opposite sites, as well as three and four.

Yep, I think opposite sides always add up to seven. Makes it even more unlikely the similarities are a coincidence.

You are correct. 1-6, 2-5, 3-4, always, except cheating dice.

I have a question about these sorts of issues: does all of the money for the sale of stolen images ultimately get returned to the original owners of the asset / content in cases like this ? Rather than only the commission. And are the buyers contacted and told that their licenses are not valid?

About the money: No. The original copyright owner will not get any money that has been made by another uploader, basically the agency gets to keep it all. This is wrong but true. I've had my images stolen and re-uploaded at all major agencies and not one agency either offered or actively refused (after inquiring) to pay me the lost royalties.

I assume the administrative efforts to move such royalties from one (abused) account to another are too big and the agencies don't wanna deal with that.

Only at Zazzle I had someone else's royalties paid out to me using my best seller.

I don't know if the buyers who bought it from the thieves' accounts get a note of invalid licenses. I don't think so, haven't hear of it.

Quote from: click_click on August 29, 2011, 12:52

I don't know if the buyers who bought it from the thieves' accounts get a note of invalid licenses. I don't think so, haven't hear of it.

Really doubt it, that would give a bad image of the agency and could be a lost costumer. I asked Shutterstock about the royalties on the stolen image and haven't heard from them since I started the thread...

But wouldn't it be worse for them to have a customer turning to them because they have been questioned?

Well, maybe this is less likely to happen in the RF world, but for ELs they might be more careful, also for editorial use (because of the requirement of having the photographer credited). Maybe they give a valid license for free.

By the way, is there a way to contact photographers at Fotolia? I tried to discuss the matter with Fotolia support, but apparently they don't care that one of their contributors is ripping other Fotolia contributors... They told me to file a DMCA complaint .

Sounds strange unless you mean he's taking them from FT and selling someplace else and not on FT. In which case they can't do much, the DMCA must come from the owner, not an agency? Part two of that is always the complication that we'd have to prove that the thief is stealing from FT if the images are on any other site. That's why many of the agencies won't do anything except for exclusives.

Keep up the good work. Seems you are tracking down one big offender.

Cracked me up with the bit about stealing and re-selling Adobe Photoshop images.

This might be an old post but I have to clear some things regarding the images with dices.
So, nobody stole from nobody . Adobe Illustrator, has a free inspirational symbol sample with these dices in the same position , it's very obvious these guys have used that . There is no "thievery" regarding that image.

Yeah, the dices are fine and a lot of people are using such things in their compositions but can't say the same about the other photos which are clearly altered ..