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Sometimes the non-direct approaches work. I published this yesterday as a humorous aside on the industry:
http://www.backyardsilver.com/2016/01/a-stock-photographers-year/
and mentioned it in a post on the Microstock Group. I’ve had 600 page views so far and a lot have clicked through to the image on my symbiostock site and quite a number have read articles about Symzio and have followed those links. Hopefully we will get people being impressed with what they see.Steve
I checked my own Paypal account as I rarely look at individual transactions. The amount of the fee on a large transaction – my $35 sale seems reasonable at $1.32, but on my $0.99 sale, I only get around $0.64 as you mention. Until there is a more cost effective payment system, I think we are stuck with your logic.
Licensed today for $150+ on stock agency. Extended RF at $49.99 on #symzio https://t.co/dnRJFl2GnN #graphicdesign pic.twitter.com/Dw5Dkyf8VM
— Steve Heap (@steheap) January 6, 2016
I’ve just installed the free version – seems to work very well and gives lots of options including logging the searches that people make.
Steve
Hi George – what is your facebook page – I’ll go along and like it
Dawn
Could you write a short explanation on how we can pin images to your pinterest boards in a way that boosts Symzio? Is there an easy way to do that?Steve
Wrote a blog post about using social media to boost the search engine rankings of our stock sites and Symzio:
http://www.backyardsilver.com/2016/01/trying-to-boost-my-stock-site-using-social-media/Steve
As you say, the manufacturer would be OK with this being in an excavation company ad, and a real competitor to them would never use it as they would want to use their own trucks. Everything in every photo has a designer – if you look at this one:
http://www.symzio.com/stock-photo/young-caucasian-baby-girl-opening-presents-xmas-1
The truck is a very distinctive design and I am sure the manufacturer would recognize it, but it was accepted by Shutterstock as commercial. All these agencies (and Symzio) are trying to do is to minimize risk (which is already pretty small for these sorts of image) and I think the real truth is that there is so little case law that no-one really knows where the boundary is.
I’m more of the view that you state that you do not have a property release, but you don’t specifically mark it as editorial.
Steve
Found one of my images on Inc.com and posted to new Facebook page linking back to Symzio as the source of the original image. Interesting that they bought it from Getty, which probably cost them a fair amount of money!
So they are not saying it is “safe to use for commercial work” – rather they are saying what it doesn’t do – ie it doesn’t infringe on copyright, right of privacy etc. and that appropriate releases have been obtained. In our case, I think we are on the right lines if we state that we will notify the buyer if model and or property releases have been obtained and we will also make commercially reasonable efforts to identify images that can only be used for editorial work. I think the “no warranty clause” should be in the terms of the license somewhere.
Steve
iStock:
Warranty of Non-Infringement. Except with respect to content identified as “editorial use only,” your use of the content in accordance with this agreement and in the form delivered by iStock will not infringe on any copyright, moral right, trademark or other intellectual property right and will not violate any right of privacy or right of publicity; and all necessary model and/or property releases for use of the content in the manner authorized by this agreement have been obtained.
“Editorial Use Only” Warranty Disclaimer. For content identified as “editorial use only,” iStock warrants that the content will not infringe on any copyright or moral right of the artist, but it does not grant any right or make any warranty with regard to the use of names, people, trademarks, trade dress, logos, registered, unregistered or copyrighted audio, designs, works of art or architecture depicted or contained in the content. In such cases, you are solely responsible for determining whether release(s) is/are required in connection with your proposed use of the content identified as “editorial use only,” and you are solely responsible for obtaining such release(s). You acknowledge that no releases are generally obtained for content identified as “editorial use only,” and that some jurisdictions provide legal protection against a person’s image, likeness or property being used for commercial purposes when they have not provided a release.
Shutterstock is very careful in its warranties:
Shutterstock warrants and represents that:
Shutterstock’s contributors have granted Shutterstock all necessary rights in and to the Visual Content to grant the rights set forth in Part I as applicable.
Visual Content in its original unaltered form and used in full compliance with these TOS and applicable law, will not: i) infringe any copyright, trademark or other intellectual property right; ii) violate any third parties’ rights of privacy or publicity; iii) violate any US law, statute, ordinance, or regulation; or iv) be defamatory, libelous, pornographic or obscene.
While Shutterstock makes commercially reasonable efforts to ensure the accuracy of keywords and descriptions, as well as the integrity of Visual Content designated “Editorial Use Only”, SHUTTERSTOCK MAKES NO WARRANTIES AND/OR REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING ANY: I) KEYWORD, TITLES OR DESCRIPTIONS; II) AUDIO IN FOOTAGE; OR III) VISUAL CONTENT DESIGNATED “EDITORIAL USE ONLY”. For the sake of clarity, Shutterstock will not indemnify or have any liability in respect of any claims arising from inaccurate keyword, titles or descriptions, any audio in Footage, or the use of Visual Content designated Editorial Use Only.I think I tried that, but on the Symbiostock product pages I tried it didn’t display the image. Hence I went to the facebook plugin on my own site and I use that now.
Just one thing in what Robin said. We are never saying that something is safe to use for commercial use – I doubt any other agency says that. We don’t control the use at the end of the day and so a model being used in an advert for escort agencies could be pretty unhappy. ALL we are really saying is “here is an image, I took it and have copyright, and either I have or I do not have releases.” All the rest is guidance, but not a guarantee.
This guy is very knowledgeable – I have his book, which is surprisingly interesting reading!
http://www.danheller.com/model-release-primer.html
Just a quick response on that RF question – we never say that something can be used for any use – with an RF license we are offering them the ability to use it in any number of projects – as long as the use is acceptable based on our stated availability of releases.
One last point – I doubt if many people actually know what the words “commercial use” mean. It does not make that the person using the image expects to make some money – newspapers expect to make money and they use editorial images all the time. I tried to explain it in my blog post:
http://www.backyardsilver.com/2015/07/rf-versus-rm-versus-editorial-versus-commercial/
RF is a type of license – it allows the user to use the image in any number of projects. It says nothing about the type of image though. RF licenses can be editorial or commercial (ie they don’t have releases for editorial and either have them or don’t need them for commercial usage). People do get it into their minds that RF=commercial, but that is just an internet based misunderstanding.
Steve
