When I opened the topic of IPTC-related metadata first in the Shutterstock Contributors Italy group on Facebook, then in the Stock Coalition group, about three weeks ago, not many people knew. Many were surprised. I have done a lot of research before and yes, it turns out that all agencies remove copyright information from metadata, which is not legal. There is a fine of around 2500 euros for each copy sold with ripped metadata. So if they sell 1000 copies of an image, they have to pay around 2,500,000 mil. only for that image. And I'm not joking. We are right to open an endless lawsuit against agencies that do not respect copyright.

FIRSTLY, THE INFOSOC DIRECTIVE (EUROPEAN DIRECTIVE 2001/29 / EC):

It has long been known that this law prohibits the removal of any copyright metadata (including both watermark and IPTC / Exif / Xmp / other embedded metadata) from any digital media. This has however it has been largely ignored because in Europe, member countries are required to pass their own national laws to support and sanction the violation of European directives. The EC is pursuing some nations for not implementing this directive, but the dust has not subsided yet.
Despite this lack of sanctions in many Member States, the directive stands as European law. The relevant clause (Article 7) reads:

1. Member States shall provide for adequate legal protection against any person knowingly performing without authority any of the following acts:
(a) the removal or alteration of any electronic rights-management information;
(b) the distribution, importation for distribution, broadcasting, communication or making available to the public of works or other subject-matter protected under this Directive or under Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC from which electronic rights-management information has been removed or altered without authority,
if such person knows, or has reasonable grounds to know, that by so doing he is inducing, enabling, facilitating or concealing an infringement of any copyright or any rights related to copyright as provided by law, or of the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC.
2. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression �rights-management information� means any information provided by rightholders which identifies the work or other subject-matter referred to in this Directive or covered by the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC, the author or any other rightholder, or information about the terms and conditions of use of the work or other subject-matter, and any numbers or codes that represent such information.

SECONDLY, THE DMCA (DIGITAL MILLENIUM COPYRIGHT ACT):

From wikipedia: [the DMCA] criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.
The DMCA is almost universally recognised online, and many agencies are familiar with DMCA takedown requests (it was the addition of an automated platform for handling them released by Dreamstime).
The relevant clause in the DMCA (Section 1202(b)) reads:
REMOVAL OR ALTERATION OF COPYRIGHT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION No
person shall, without the authority of the copyright owner or the law �
(1) intentionally remove or alter any copyright management information,
(2) distribute or import for distribution copyright management information knowing that the copyright management information has been removed or altered without authority of the copyright owner or the law, or
(3) distribute, import for distribution, or publicly perform works, copies of works, or phonorecords, knowing that copyright management information has been removed or altered without authority of the copyright owner or the law, knowing, or, with respect to civil remedies under section 1203, having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement of any right under this title.

Then, read here http://www.metnews.com/articles/2018/dmca062118.htm
what says The Ninth Circuit about DMCA�s restriction against metadata removal.
IS VIOLATION of 17 U.S.C. Section 1202(b) the removal or alteration of copyright management information (CMI) from a work. Is likely to encourage future infringement of the work.

The very serious agencies about this are Depositphotos which is not ripping metadata (all the photos downloaded by them show all the metadata I entered in the IPTC fields) and Dreamstime, which in the copyright field specifies your Dreamstime username and their agency. Getty image and AdobeStock partially removes it, from 10 images 3 or 4 keep the metadata.

SO, IT'S TIME THAT ALL CONTRIBUTORS KNOW THAT WE HAVE TO FIGHT AGAINST THIS AND WE HAVE TO OBTAIN FROM ALL AGENCIES THE OUR RIGHT: THEY DON'T HAVE TO TOUCH THE METADATA IN OUR FILES!

As long as there are contributors ok with �I would rather make pennies than nothing at all�, nothing will change. Contributors with big portfolios say they will �just stop uploading�, as if the sites care, rather than taking their business elsewhere, because after all, still taking the agency�s money is better than nothing at all. Every couple of months, a noob comes up with this idea. Check the threads here about it. It�s a great idea, but unless you have a boatload of money to do something concrete, you are just spinning your wheels. It takes money.

Completely agree. I don't upload any more at iStock for months. They must raise the commission rate for non-exclusive contributors. I cannot accept to sell my images for two cents. About this idea I agree with Cathy, is an utopia, impossible to realize.

Hello everybody, I have completed my application on September 17 and I sent 100 photos and videos as asked. I have sent 25 exclusive footage and, 30 exclusive photos. The rest were non-exclusive photos because I have asked how is working and got the answer that yes, I can send non-exclusive content, but, in case of approval, this content will be deleted by the reviewers. I have tried to send various photos and footage, even if my specialty is food, I have sent lifestyle, conceptual, animals and travel. I choose some of my best content. I am pretty active on socials, specially with my Facebook page. With all this, on October 12 I have received the negative answer:
"Thank you for your interest in Stocksy. After reviewing your work, we don�t feel there is a fit at this time.
As you can imagine, we get a lot of applications and it�s always a difficult decision, but we only have room for a small group of contributors.
We wish you the best in your future endeavours and thank you for taking the time to apply and share your work with us.
We hope you have a great day,"
I strongly believe they rejected me because my photos doesn't tell a story. Portfolio must tell a story and has to have a beginning related to the end, everything in the same style. In my portfolio the story lacks and is pretty messy. Also I have sent some exclusive images which were part of non-exclusive series. This was wrong too, but I didn't know. I try to reorder my ideas and my portfolio and I will try again. But I want to tell you that is hard to reach what they want, I strongly believe that only an editor can have enough eye to order portfolio and public image in order to match with Stocksy.

Hello Mat, any news about the issue I have reported? Is really annoying that we cannot fast edit an image and we have to search one by one inside the portfolio in order to find it. Thanks,

@zsoofija I don't have an eta at this time. I'll be sure to provide information when I have it.

@eZeePics...duly noted. I've shared your comments with the development team.

All the best,

Mat

Hello Mat and hello all!
I have an only suggestion regarding the Adobe Stock portfolio. I strongly need the search by ID inside the private area of my portfolio. This is a "MUST" when someone has a large portfolio and needs to make changes fast to any image. If I find an image which not sells well and I want to optimize keywords for example, I don't have many chances of search inside my portfolio, not all the times you can find fast an image ordering by Upload date, Sells or Visits. I can find it by ID only typing the ID inside the search box (but already I am in the buyer area) and, once found, I cannot edit it, at least you don't add an Edit button under the image which works when you are logged in. As Fotolia has: "This is one of your files, you can index it". Searching an image in order to modify the metadata can be frustrating and a waste of time!
I hope Adobe will resolve this issue as soon as possible because I'm not alone, I spoke with a lot of contributors and they need this search by ID too!

I'd like to read more about Registration of Copyright in Italy. I didn't find a Guide in Italian, I took that one in English but the part of copyright registration regards U.S. It would be great if you could make one in Italian. 

been with ss since mid 2011 have 2,200 images and up by 50% compared to last year's June...

I'm with Shutterstock since 2007...I have started from hobby, in fact more than half of my port is not very professional....old images....I'm actually cleaning my port, deleting and substitute a lot of images but I'm doing it in small steps....I'm working for stocks full time more serious since about one year. Actually I have 1993 images and videos and my sales increased a lot. But I'm not a Pro Seller. I had long periods when I didn't upload nothing.  Now I'm trying to upload at least 50 each week. Almost all I upload is accepted lastly, I have only the last batches of editorial refused in 70% but after I opened a ticket and asked re-examination and the images were approved. My last BME was March 2014. April almost the same like March, it wasn't BME for a very small difference. In May and June the sales decreased a bit, not very much, but I have noticed a decrease. Anyway I strongly believe that, if someone uploads constantly and good stuff, the sales are coming. The June decrease is also because of DPC I think and also the summer.
I read somewhere in the posts about Shutterstock something about a software of rationing sales at Shutterstock. I don't remember who mentioned it. I personally don't believe that such software exists is against the interests of the company. I like Shutterstock and never had issues with them, they are very nice and available always and they helped me each time I needed help for things I didn't understand well.

I don't think we can speak only about number of images in portfolio. Is not very significant. I can have 10000 images in a portfolio and sell 2000 each month but on the other side I can have a portfolio with only 5000 images and sell 4000 a month. Is just an example more or less. The potential of each image counts. Portfolios with high percent of selling images cannot be compared with portfolios with low percent of selling images. To have an idea about we need an equation of parameters where the download rate/image plays an important role. Or maybe the Sell Through Rate parameter that shows exactly how attractive is a portfolio. Is just my humble opinion.

Quote from: borg on June 24, 2014, 09:36

So conclusion is that is better to calculate average monthly earnings from the poll (without extremes, no matter of size of portfolios) and then to divide with 5 to hide true averages on a first sight?

RPI is typical relative measure, based on many similar statistics in economy...
And also don't forget, we are searching for average ability of some agency to sell some average photo, no matter what is a type of that image, size of portfolio, niche of agency etc...
At the end, all our portfolios are just average after we sum all of them...

Got pounded myself today! I am going to just take a break before I smash my camera! 

 

Totally agree with Dennis. 

Is all ok, I still get 100% acceptance

I have 100% acceptance rate at Shutterstock lately. I can understand before what they will refuse if I submit and I'm trying to avoid that. Sometimes I get wrong, but if I make a count my rejections in the past 6 months are limited to 9-10 images.

I think many times perfectly fine and technically correct images are rejected just "because SS doesn't want those type or style of images."

So many of the contributors see these random rejections that, frankly are wrong (rejected for out of focus when the images are technically superior in focus and clarity to many of the images in the current library), but the REAL reason for rejection is SS just doesn't want THOSE images.

FT does this all the time, and if you ask anyone around here they will tell you that is just what FT does because they don't want any landscape images, or whatever type of images don't fit their CURRENT needs.

The problem is contributors spend time capturing and processing images to the best of their abilities, paying careful attention to issues of noise, focus and color balance only to have that plate of cookies rejected for something like "focus issues" when in reality SS just doesn't think they need any more images of a plate of cookies (landscapes, cookies, or whatever random image fits the bill at the time.)

I think (just my opinion) that the "kind" of images SS wants right now is highly produced "typical" stock images, the kind Yuri Arcurs used to provide. Images with a lot of production, technically complex lighting setups, models, makeup artists, full-on high production "lifestyle" type of stuff. That is the kind of stuff that will maintain the "photo buyer" income levels that the upper management is looking to "sell" to the CEO and stockholders.

As much as Yuri tried to turn microstock into a business, which required a staff and paid models, and over time turned into a full-blown enterprise, most of us small time contributors can't compete on that scale, nor can we produce images with that "style" in a cost-effective manner.

So, (again just my opinion) as time marches on microstock needs to be more and more like stock photography used to be in the old days. Where the stock houses told the photographers what kinds of images to shoot and worked in partnership with a broad spectrum of photographers.

The higher ups at SS still want to work off the whole "crowd source" model, they just want to dictate what the "crowd" provides, and that just doesn't work [period].

My personal experience: Shutterstock never refuses me flowers or landscapes ( I don't send many, I shoot mainly food) but, if are well done they take all my pictures. Fotolia too. Is not that "they don't need them". They need them, but the quality must be exceptional and very nice and rare compositions. The problem here is almost all the people shoot in the same manner, doesn't matter they are in focus, but when you see the same stuff to all contributors everyday you start to reject, is normal. I think many contributors make a main mistake: create what others create and try to copy the bestsellers. The stock agencies look a lot to originality, creativity. I believe this is important and what I try to do now is remove all these bad images from my portfolio, I don't care if I will cut a lot, I care about the look of my port.