Vox integration? How can this be OK?

If you scroll down a bit in this New Features roundup, there's apparently a way Vox users can put watermarked images into their blogs at no charge.


I couldn't see anything here about this new marketing tool and honestly I don't know how it would create sales for us.


Is this something other than misuse of our content with no royalty paid?

Since we've nailed other people for doing this kind of hotlinking, I can't imagine it would be sanctioned, but it seems to blatently promo'ed to be a side step.

Can't say that I'm a fan of that.

Surely, the fact that they describe it as "affordable" rather than "free" indicates that payment will be required, so we still get royalties, but they have just made it easy easy for people to make the purchase. If so, that'd be a great thing...

Hmmm. Reading it again, it doesn't say anything about watermarked images. It could be a way for them to easily buy. Hopefully, we'll get official word that it is an official thang for purchasing imagery.

According to a post
by Mena Trott on Vox, this is a deal that was worked out with
iStockphoto (rather than an interface they created without iStock's
knowledge).

She doesn't say anything about the images being free, nor does the "new features" page that jsnover linked to, but this guy says they're free.



And in fact, the reason I posted about this originally in the
micropayment group is because I noticed on someone's personal Vox blog
that he had a picture that looked like a stock photo. (I didn't
think he was the type to set up a well lit shot of his laptop
keyboard.) Clicking on the image, I got an enlarged picture and
could see that it had an iStockphoto watermark in the lower right hand
corner. Clicking the image just calls up the jpg itself, but
clicking
the link underneath the image brought me to this page.
Since the image on his blog has an iStock watermark (and not the
standard one with the X across it shown here, but instead one that is is in the
corner and out of the way), I'm assuming he didn't pay for it. I
would think that if he paid for it, it wouldn't be watermarked.

So
it does look to be free, as far as I can tell. My question is
whether iStock photographers gain or lose from this? Does the
publicity outweight the costs of having our images used for free? Or
even if the images aren't paid for (which I would like to learn more
about, obviously), would a download from Vox count as a download on
iStock, thereby increasing the "rank" of the photo when the images are
filtered in order of number of downloads? I can't quite figure
out how this is a good thing for us, so I am hoping that someone
explains this...

But this blog says "if you don't mind the watermark..." and shows a photo. That was the page I saw (after luminouslens posted in the micropayments forum) that suggested this couldn't be legit.

That's not good at all. If I wanted to give my images away they'd be on Flickr.

I withdraw my statement above, having read some of these other linked posts. This is either:
a) a blatant abuse of a hole in their implementation, or
b) an apparent massive change in practice.

I have sent a support ticket asking for official comment in this thread on this issue.

Essentially, these appear to be subtle iStockphoto ads that people are inserting into their blog posts because they like the images. However, in contrast to the usual iStockphoto ads from the affiliate program, any image in the iStockphoto collection can be used as the "ad". In the current license agreement we give iStockphoto permission to use our images in marketing, I believe, but this seems way beyond what anyone would have imagined when we signed that. How is this much different (apart from the hyperlink) from people stealing watermarked images and using them on other sites? Seems likely most people who click through will simply steal the thumbnail, rather than buying a copy of the image. After all, that's what they saw on the previous site they came from. The announcement of the feature even describes stealing images off the net via google image search as being what people were doing before (which is true) without mentioning that buying from iStockphoto would be not just more convenient but would also meet your obligations to the original artist under copyright.

Finally, on one of the linked pages it seemed that due to isolation on white the iStockphoto logo was almost invisible...

Morover, as the watermark is at a different position as on the comp you get here, the watermark can very easily be removed by combining these two files...

please istock, keep your suppliers informed on this kind of issue!!

So, what's the deal-e-o on this one? Is this official or not? Anyone experience how it works?

Hold your fire everyone, I think official word is coming soon as this thread was locked and is now open again.

(Edited on 2006-07-13 07:37:28 by stayorgo)

Hope that means an announcement is coming

Was really hoping for something by now.

(( crickets ))

Ok, this blog makes it sound like they are purchasing, since he specifically mentions large and medium sizes. However, that would be in contrast with the idea that there is a watermark on there.

Also, aside from the borrow/buy thing, it sounds like this is a partnership of some kind from what he said about working with the site.

It's funny, because it seems like iStock may not be sure itself here

Well, this one says the images are free. Obviously, someone here knows what is going on...

They must be preparing a rather large announcement for us, but it's odd to allow the feature to go live BEFORE they explain it, and make us all guess about while they finish the document,