Does anyone know if this site has some sort of agreement with istock?

Take a look here: http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=233029

They seem to be making collages with bits of pictures from all over the internet. A lot of the images are exclusive to istock. I have sent an email to support, but they say they make take up to 5 days to respond!

Polyvores terms of service seem to state that they have a worldwide licence to use the images created on their site. Surely they cannot claim that on other peoples images?

I just noticed that they are using images from Stockexpert too. Type your name into the search bar to see if they are using any of your images.

I was going to say that, if they bought them, they can make a collage.  Now, if they're watermarked...

Do they sell those collages?

Regards,
Adelaide

Maybe I'm being dense ... but what's the purpose of that site?

Users seem to make random collages. Why? Are they trying to sell them?

The diamond one you give a link to is complete c**p but gets all sorts of 'Wow! Cool! You're so artistic' comments.

Kind of long but I pulled this off their terms of service.  Apparently it is not "cool" with them for their users to post watermarked and protected images.

"Polyvore does not endorse any User Submission or any opinion, recommendation, or advice expressed therein, and Polyvore expressly disclaims any and all liability in connection with User Submissions. Polyvore does not permit copyright infringing activities and infringement of intellectual property rights on its Website, and Polyvore will remove all Content and User Submissions if properly notified that such Content or User Submission infringes on another's intellectual property rights. Polyvore reserves the right to remove Content and User Submissions without prior notice. Polyvore will also terminate a User's access to its Website, if they are determined to be a repeat infringer. A repeat infringer is a User who has been notified of infringing activity more than twice and/or has had a User Submission removed from the Website more than twice. Polyvore also reserves the right to decide whether Content or a User Submission is appropriate and complies with these Terms of Service for violations other than copyright infringement and violations of intellectual property law, such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscene or defamatory material, or excessive length. Polyvore may remove such User Submissions and/or terminate a User's access for uploading such material in violation of these Terms of Service at any time, without prior notice and at its sole discretion.
It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The images referenced, made accessible or made available to you on these pages or by means of the Polyvore Service are protected by the copyright and trademark laws of the United States and other countries. You may need to obtain authorization of the owner of such materials before using them for any purpose other than viewing on the web. For authorizations to use an image, please contact the image owner as indicated on the source site, not Polyvore. Polyvore cannot give you authorization to use the copyrighted images. We cannot guarantee that the Polyvore Service will not locate unintended or objectionable content and Polyvore accepts no responsibility or liability for the content of any site included in any Polyvore item or set, or otherwise linked to by the Polyvore services, or for your use of such content. Polyvore reserves the right to remove any pictures or content without notice to you, any other user, or any third party.

We will review all claims of copyright infringement received and remove content deemed to have been posted or distributed in violation of any such laws. To make a claim, please provide us with the following:

A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or the person authorized to act on its behalf;
A description of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed;
A description of the infringing material and information reasonably sufficient to permit Polyvore to locate the material;
Your contact information, including your address, telephone number, and email;
A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and, under the pains and penalties of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.
Claims can be emailed to [email protected]"

Perhaps it is worth starting a thread in the istock forum?  It is a shame that they haven't sorted this out.  The amount of money they make from us, they should employ someone just to stop these sites stealing images.

I wrote to them and asked how they can grant use of collages made from images that were either taken from online store catalogs or off of image sale sites (complete with watermark).  Their terms of service state that a user must be at least thirteen years old.  I'll post their reply, if I get one
R

...The amount of money they make from us, they should employ someone just to stop these sites stealing images.

Istock implies that they will fight legal battles for exclusive photographers to protect the images. I can't get you the exact link & quote since IS is offline for maintenance.

Quote from: sharpshot on October 16, 2007, 15:46

...The amount of money they make from us, they should employ someone just to stop these sites stealing images.

Istock implies that they will fight legal battles for exclusive photographers to protect the images. I can't get you the exact link & quote since IS is offline for maintenance.

If that is true, then that is ironic, since it is the non-exclusives that pay more to IS for their "services".  You would think that "you get what you pay for", but in this case it might not be true.

Well, it's been almost two weeks.  Dreamstime got back to me and took care of the problem....Alex at 123RF got back to me and took care of the problem...and my inquiry at iStock has gone ignored.  The images are still there - here's couple with pirated vector illustrations

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=302190
http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=298854

So I'm at a loss - how do you convince your agent to protect it's digital assets and it's contributers?

I'll give it a try.  Thanks.

Sorry don't know anything further, but the revival of this post was a good reminder for me to get all of my images cleared off of Imageshack. I deleted everything off of my Flickr account a few weeks ago because I just got tired of finding stuff elsewhere even with full watermarks intact. Apparently the unwashed masses do not understand the concept of "no, you can't".

The imageshack stuff was kind of junk really, mostly for old forum posts, but still, ya know?

As far as their users reading and understanding TOS, well, did I mention unwashed masses?

On the link the OP supplied, there is at this writing a photo of a solitaire cut diamond with IS watermark. So apparently it is still going on.

check out this page

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/app

that is where you 'create'

it looks like polyvore graps images from everywhere on the net and then puts them in a 'database' for people to make collages with.  They then create links to where they got the images from so people can find the original and buy??? them if they were stock.  I am guessing this is what istock is thinking - that it is sort of free advertising.... or something.  In the same sort of way that they let people use their images for free in that blogging site.