I signed it and family members/friends have signed it.

I signed it, however I feel that Getty takes more out of the pie than most instances of infringement from our revenues. 

Working with agencies that offer better royalties are the only sustainable way for me to continue to work today, If I relied on Getty alone I would have thrown in the towel years ago as my revenues would continue to decline month by month. Hopefully they will realize that paying us a fair share goes a long way to make the business stable and more rewarding for both parties in the long term.

On a happy note my VideoBlocks income is only a couple of hundred dollars off from my iStock/Getty income combined in Sept.

Now that you sell in several places, are you still down from when you were exclusive, that is, say the average blended monthly income for 2015?

All Getty images from Getty appears in the search with watermarks now. I believe we've had this discussion before. Getty doesn't want Google to display their watermarked image on the image search with a size larger than a thumbnail. They want people to go to Getty Images to view big watermarked thumbnail images. They can opt out of that of giving Google high res watermark images, but they're not doing that. They want Google to index it so they can get traffic.

What they want from Google is to fundamentally change the design of the image search to not show anything more than a tiny thumbnail and force the user to go to the original website to see a high res watermarked image. This will cause a usability nightmare and the chance of it happening is extremely low. This lawsuit has been going on for 4 years and the market has changed so much. If they think they can strong arm Google with a petition, good luck. It's like us trying to sign a petition to strong arm Getty into deleting our portfolios or give us a better split. Almost zero chance of happening.

Quote from: Minsc on September 29, 2016, 14:02

All Getty images from Getty appears in the search with watermarks now.

Not so:

However, that applies to pages linked to from the front page.
Search isn't working at all for me.

You're right. Getty isn't doing their part to protect the images. People can easily just download it and use it on a website, but then again, maybe that's what Getty wants, so they can send lawyers after them and demand a high fee.

I'm really starting to believe that Getty want people to steal images from them. By not having watermarks, it make it really easy to pin to Pinterest or share a decent sized un-watermarked image on other social websites without knowing the source. Once someone downloads it and uses its on their website, Getty send the "enforcement" letters and demand large sums of money. They take advantage of people's ignorance of the stock photography market and the rights attached to it.

They've build a machine around sending these letters and they've gotten incredibly efficient at it. I'm sure this has become a good percentage of their revenue and they would hate to lose it. It's like a Venus Flytrap eating the unsuspecting insect nibble on the sweet nectar.

Sounds like you got it exactly right.  They collect money from our violated copyrights, but do we ever GET any of the money?

Do you even need to ask that question?

I honestly think they're pushing this issue because they're going to lose that billion-dollar lawsuit, ...

What lawsuit?

Getty offers the lowest royalties around, offers our images for free use on blogs, and sends threatening letters demanding hundreds or thousands of dollars in payment that bypass the image creator completely. They're such hypocrites it's ridiculous. I honestly think they're pushing this issue because they're going to lose that billion-dollar lawsuit, and they may have to shut down their extortion division, and there goes a huge source of income for them (but not us) that's made possible in large part by Google image scraping.

+

Getty's concerned about protecting us from copyright violations? Then where's the image creators' share of all the money Getty collects when it send out extortion letters?

+

Crooks don't pay us when they collect for our pictures. Extortion division is right. I'm not signing anything to help them steal more from me. Google helps me sell and people find my work more then Getty ever does. Search works for me.

Quote from: PixBoxx on September 26, 2016, 15:14

It's like when a government sells arms to a rogue dictatorship regime and then acts surprised when they fire their own weapons back at them later.

Nothing unusual. We all know at least one.

LMAO, well said bafan4u...
sold weapons to nicaragua, etc... endless list !!!
then came in to save the world . they're all probably locked-up in some infirmary playing virtual reality wargames
thank goodness for the world for that !!!  ... for now

Quote from: BD on October 01, 2016, 13:01

Quote from: Minsc on September 29, 2016, 14:02

What they want from Google is to fundamentally change the design of the image search to not show anything more than a tiny thumbnail and force the user to go to the original website to see a high res watermarked image. This will cause a usability nightmare and the chance of it happening is extremely low.

When I do a search for websites all I see in the search results is a short link and brief description of the website. I don't see a huge preview of the page when I click on the link. It takes me straight to the website when I click on the link. This hasn't caused me any usability nightmare. Why should it be different for images? Further, they are currently allowing users to click on an image and see the full resolution image even if the image is only displayed as a small size on the website (Any website, like if someone licenses your image and then puts it onto their website. However, it doesn't take you to the website. They show you the image in their search engine). There was a discussion on these changes when they happened in 2013 here: http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/google-images-we-are-so-screwed/

Other search engines have implemented these changes as well, but that doesn't make it right. I'm not saying Getty doesn't have selfish reasons, just that I agree that search engines have started to become more than search engines (for example by displaying images at high resolution instead of how they appear on the website).

Because mobile traffic makes up close to 60% of all web searches and most of us are data plans. This number will continue to increase. And since mobile phones have retina displays or 1080p displays, you can't simply show a tiny thumbnail anymore and force the user to go to another website. It must be a decent size resolution picture that doesn't look like crap. And I don't want any search engine to take me to any website that eats up data. If I'm interested in the source, I'll click on the provided link to the source.

Shutterstock, FT has seen increased exposure and downloads over the last few years. And I see their images rank very high on all the image searches. Many agencies are benefiting from this. Getty is the only one complaining because the world doesn't want to stand still for the status quo. The search engines are not going to roll back usability or technology for one company.

Its when you do the search, click on the image, click on "view image," then hit the + symbol that you see the full size image. The website is not displaying it like this so why is google images? This makes super easy fast access to this size of imagery (just a few clicks) without visiting the website (where they can't even get that size anyway). This is, I believe, what people are talking about.

"Shutterstock, FT has seen increased exposure and downloads over the last few years. And I see their images rank very high on all the image searches. Many agencies are benefiting from this." You have no data, and more importantly, a way of proving cause and effect. For instance, their increased exposure and downloads could be for completely unrelated changes (increased marketing, etc.).

"The search engines are not going to roll back usability or technology for one company." Maybe, but who is watching Google to make sure they don't cross lines from search engine to something more? Increasing usability could mean, as in this case, disregarding the protection of copyright.

I don't like Getty either and think they are hypocrites. I think Google has no right to show images larger than they appear on the websites.

Quote from: BD on October 01, 2016, 16:10

I think Google has no right to show images larger than they appear on the websites.

i was thinking, in some sites it provides you to opt out on * your images  being searchable by 3rd parties*.
would it work if getty, ss, etc provide us with this option?
then those of us who is not good with google motives, can choose not to be searchable by google.

would that work as a prevention???  i think flickr provides their portfolio holders with this...
so opt out will mean only those in flickr can find your images.  i assume that means
google can't find it then.

am i correct???

Google will still be showing all of your images that people have licensed and placed on their websites (this is actually where the large unwatermarked sizes usually come from). Customers don't always know to downsize their image for the web. By this I mean that the customer might place it on the website and it will look like a regular web-sized version (like the customer intended), but google will pick up and display your full size/resolution in the manner I described in my last post because the customer just uploaded the full size without first downsizing to the appropriate size (but whatever website/etc. they are using "places" it in the website in a smaller size appropriate for the page). The customer did not intend it to be displayed in full size because on their website it is not displayed that way, but Google is still able to pull the full size image. The customer does not even realize this has happened. Does that make sense?

FYI this is the manner I described in my last post: Its when you do the search, click on the image, click on "view image," then hit the + symbol that you see the full size image. The website is not displaying it like this so why is google images? This makes super easy fast access to this size of imagery (just a few clicks) without visiting the website (which isn't displaying the image at that size).