How secure are our images here

[Marb]

After finding out to my horror that SS images have been hacked by thieves, all our portfolio stolen for life, I would like to know how secure are images are with Alamy. Do they have good measures to stop thieves stealing ?

 

I will now put my tin hat on and wait for the few microstock cynics here to point the finger and laugh saying "I told you so"

 

[Steve F]

Hi Marb,

No idea how secure Alamy is. Was this however, a genuine hack of Shutterstock, or was it people trawling Google for thumbnails and trying to sell them on? If it's thumbnails, then they can do that with Alamy too, but I can't see many people wanting a watermarked thumbnail that will look pixelly at any decent size.

[Marb]

It's a site called Foundstock that has popped up. They have found a loop in the Facebook site which gives high res previews with no watermark. As I now will not be submitting anymore images to them, I want to know how secure things are here before I submit anymore editorial work.

[Marb]

8 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

Like this? 

 

https://www.hackjungle.com/news/get-any-pictures-for-free-from-shutterstock-with-this-hack

 

Looks like an ongoing problem as that link is from 2016

 

SS don't really care as they have known about this for a while. Oh well, you live and learn and from now on I won't trust them. 

[NYCat]

And it says..."Remember anyway to use copyright pictures you suppose to pay the author." 

Gee, how reassuring. 

 

Paulette

[Jill Morgan]

What I find fascinating is that people aren't hiding their identity in any way.  Setting themselves up for a lawsuit making it so easy to find them.  They are openly stealing and offering software to steal.  This will backlash on one of these people one day.

 

Jill

[Russell]

I have posted a warning that the site owners are promoting criminal activity and that anyone following the advice is also breaking copyright law. Suggest that if they had a few dozen such comments it might scare some of them off.

[fotoDogue]

All it really does is show how to hot link an image, supposedly, for a Facebook Ad. The images only seem to be 1000 pixels wide rather than the "High Resolution" this site claims they are. Of course it's an infringement, but If other agencies really cared, they'd have Youtube, which hosts this video and has quite a few videos on lifting images from several agencies, remove them.

 

Truth is, nothing is completely secure on the net and the highest risk is when an image is licensed for web use.

If it makes you feel any better, I don't see any videos about "How to Download Free Images" from Alamy.

[Rick Lewis]

Let's be honest.  Nothing is truly secure on the Internet.  The culprit here may have their servers located in a country that has no interest in protecting intellectual rights.  There are many.    They certainly will market them in those countries as well.  I read an article not too long ago about the blatant misuse of copyrighted material in advertising in an eastern European country.  The ads were even running on the government run transit system.  The article went on to say the infringed party found he/she could do nothing about it.

 

I reported to Alamy a website that was taking zoomed images, watermark and all, and offering them as a free download.  They looked into it but found the company to be based in Panama.  (presumably the servers as well).  They said they could do nothing about it.

 

Alamy has stated they use encryption but only on certain parts of their website, but is it enough?  Where is @wiskerke when you need him?

[wiskerke]

There has once been a hack here or at least quite some images have been stolen.

Not sure how or where to search for a report of that. Could have been only a mail to people involved.

 

wim

[Marb]

14 hours ago, geogphotos said:

 

And if their contributors really cared what happened to their images they wouldn't have them on Shutterstock to start with. 

 

 

 

 

 

I knew you would get it in somehow 😏

[Niels Quist]

Nothing is really secure nowadays. But using microstock is to believe in homoeopathy.

[Bill Brooks]

8 hours ago, Marb said:

I knew you would get it in somehow 😏

 

He always does Marb, don’t worry about it, and keep asking questions. Don’t be driven off the forum.

Just do not mention the name of other agencies or any euphemisms for them. To do so is against the forum rules and to game the forum.

[spacecadet]

7 minutes ago, Bill Brooks said:

He always does Marb, don’t worry about it, and keep asking questions. Don’t be driven off the forum.

 

On 07/12/2017 at 12:59, Marb said:

I will now put my tin hat on and wait for the few microstock cynics here to point the finger and laugh saying "I told you so"

..and maybe quit the needling yourself as well?

[Marb]

On 08/12/2017 at 16:57, Bill Brooks said:

 

He always does Marb, don’t worry about it, and keep asking questions. Don’t be driven off the forum.

Just do not mention the name of other agencies or any euphemisms for them. To do so is against the forum rules and to game the forum.

Thanks, nice to have some friendly people here. Asking questions interpreted as “needling” is somewhat bizzare. 

[imageplotter]

23 minutes ago, Marb said:

Thanks, nice to have some friendly people here. Asking questions interpreted as “needling” is somewhat bizzare. 

Lovely, crisp images, by the way.

[Marb]

21 minutes ago, imageplotter said:

Lovely, crisp images, by the way.

Thanks. Nice to get some positive feedback. Sadly I wish the sales were the same but they dried up months ago. keeping uploading but to no avail.

[Betty LaRue]

2 hours ago, Marb said:

Thanks. Nice to get some positive feedback. Sadly I wish the sales were the same but they dried up months ago. keeping uploading but to no avail.

Marb, I don’t mean this to be critical in any way, shape or form. And yes, your images are lovely....well shot. But looking at them I think your brain is still seeing the world in microstock style for the most part.  I only looked at the first page today but have gone deeper in the past. 

I don’t think you have quite grasped what sells well at Alamy.

I do think you will get it eventually because you work hard and you know your craft well.  It’s more content. 

I liken it to this.  I put on makeup the same way every time I go out. I may use new products from time to time, but application is the same. If I should get a makeover at some shop, and was taught to do my makeup a whole new different way, even so my instinct would be to do it the old way and I’d have to fight that.

I think that’s where you are. I would suggest you immerse yourself looking at other ports until it clicks.

Betty

 

[Marb]

1 hour ago, Betty LaRue said:

Marb, I don’t mean this to be critical in any way, shape or form. And yes, your images are lovely....well shot. But looking at them I think your brain is still seeing the world in microstock style for the most part.  I only looked at the first page today but have gone deeper in the past. 

I don’t think you have quite grasped what sells well at Alamy.

I do think you will get it eventually because you work hard and you know your craft well.  It’s more content. 

I liken it to this.  I put on makeup the same way every time I go out. I may use new products from time to time, but application is the same. If I should get a makeover at some shop, and was taught to do my makeup a whole new different way, even so my instinct would be to do it the old way and I’d have to fight that.

I think that’s where you are. I would suggest you immerse yourself looking at other ports until it clicks.

Betty

 

I see where you are coming from but I see not much difference in microstock and Alamy images on this site. And I will have to say that I have a lot of editorial images here of late. I see poeple in i ages at Alamy and see the same type of shots on microstock sites, which also sell editorial. My point is I used to sell more images here when I had less in my port than now.

[spacecadet]

16 minutes ago, Marb said:

I see where you are coming from but I see not much difference in microstock and Alamy images on this site. And I will have to say that I have a lot of editorial images here of late. I see poeple in i ages at Alamy and see the same type of shots on microstock sites, which also sell editorial. My point is I used to sell more images here when I had less in my port than now.

You've been told this before. When someone who has been submitting and selling for a decade here suggests most of your images are MS style, it's good advice. You may not see it, but then you don't have a 10-year sales record, do you?

Less than 10% of my sales this year could remotely be described in that way. The rest are secondary editorial. It's a fact. Incidentally very few have people in them.

[Marb]

39 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

You've been told this before. When someone who has been submitting and selling for a decade here suggests most of your images are MS style, it's good advice. You may not see it, but then you don't have a 10-year sales record, do you?

Less than 10% of my sales this year could remotely be described in that way. The rest are secondary editorial. It's a fact. Incidentally very few have people in them.

Well I just looked at your first page and to me they all could be at home on any microstock site. Rather than trying to make this out to be a dark Art, only available to enlightened long term contributors, why not just admit sales here are diminishing. Again, I have sold far more i,ages here when I had a LOT LESS images in my port.

[spacecadet]

But my sales are not diminishing. I've had my two BMEs and I'm 50% up on last year. It's not a dark art, but you do need to be aiming at the right target.

I haven't commented on your images, what I've said isn't based on seeing them, and I don't know what you've been looking at but my first page is pure secondary editorial. Perhaps you need to check your definitions but tit-for-tat doesn't do anything for your argument.

BTW does MS take unreleased images, as all of mine are?

[Marb]

I think whatever I say here will be criticised no matter what as clearly I am not being made welcome by being driven away as mentioned by another member a few posts ago.

[Stokie]

2 hours ago, Marb said:

I think whatever I say here will be criticised no matter what as clearly I am not being made welcome by being driven away as mentioned by another member a few posts ago.

 

You are not being driven away.

Seasoned, professional stock photographers have been giving you advice as to how to increase sales, yet you seem to ignore that advice and would rather moan about lack of sales here, but state how wonderful your sales are on microstocks sites.

Either take their advice, or stick to microstock.

 

John.

[Marb]

Well I keep stipulating that I do have the type of images that should sell hereas again, I see no difference in micro images to Alamy in most cases, even people here who tell me that my images are not suitable for Alamy.