Shutterstock Photographer Forum :: View topic

JFREEMAN · Joined: 17 Feb 2005 Posts: 25 Location: SO-CAL

Those are extremely vintage disney looking... did you actually create these yourself??? or did you hack up some images and make them. i can definately see a possible lawsuit there if a designer had used any of those. I have been submitting here for about 3 months and have had absolutely no problems with anyone. this is the best stock site i have ever been a part of.

StuartE · Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 1:34 am

I have two daughters, one nearly five, one nearly three - we have to shop for birthday presents for their friends, as well as for them, which means I get to see a lot of kids toys and merchandise - those really look like the kind of versions of cartoon characters you find on chinese/taiwan merchandise where they are attempting to avoid the copyright on well know cartoons, both disney and otherwise... small shape and colour changes, etc - if you'd submitted a lot of these, I'm not at all surprised you got tagged for doing it - I've been pinged on a batch of skier photo's where I hadn't even noticed the copyright insignia on his wet suit... it was just 'tribal' style patterning... so something as blatant as these is likely to ring some alarm bells...

Lines have to be drawn somewhere, Cristi - it's just a pity that you got caught by it, if you were genuinely innocent of any intent to try and upload any copyright materials - regardless of the likeness to disney characters, someone must have drawn them - if so, they'd have copyright on them, too - or if you did it yourself, then you've copied way too closely to disney characters... I don't blame admin for suspending you, it's a fine line either way...

Cheers,
Stuart

cristi_m · Joined: 07 Apr 2005 Posts: 61

Laurens · Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 42 Location: The Netherlands

cristi_m · Joined: 07 Apr 2005 Posts: 61

andresr · Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 4:21 am

It seems you took the images from disney and made merges with them. If thats the case I understand what Shutterstock did with your account. Copying a character is copyright infringement. If you drew them yourself, you were still copying a character that is obviously copyrighted. Maybe a warning as soon as you uploaded your first pic would have been nice but now I understand both points of view. That was almost like submitting someone elses images .......

Tim · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 458 Location: UK

Due to the levels of stress the team are under in order to review our images and cut down the queue, seeing this batch I'm not particularly surprised you were banned.

We were all told on the forums to clean up our acts if we were doing the naughties.

You tried to submit a picture resembling mickey mouse. THE logo of disney. If approved, this could have resulted in a MAJOR law suit. This is a clear copyright infingement in my opinion and I guess that the SS team decided that if you're willing to do that, SS don't want to represent you.

Even if you didn't think of this, I guess you could still be considered a liability by the team. I know it's harsh but maybe In the future you'll be able to rejoin, once the smoke has cleared.

cristi_m · Joined: 07 Apr 2005 Posts: 61

i see that almost everyone around has a lot of sympathy and understanding for the review team and none for a freshman like me

and i understand your 'logic': ss is paying you, not me so don't bother any more to bring 'logical' arguments because for me its clear: i was and asset for ss when my pics where downloaded and i referred new users to them i became a liability when the reviewers team (under heavily stress levels) found my pics, and instead of warning me just decided to delete my account

maybe tomorrow will happen to you (or maybe the majority around never makes mistakes) and be sure you'll be just a liability at that moment

screenfx · Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 171 Location: Colorado

Looks pretty blatant to me. Also consider that Disney is one of the more protective companies where copyright infringement is concerned. Disney is one of my clients at my day job so I know how strict they can be.

Sometimes it's not the number of crimes you commit, but the level of the crime that counts.

joe32780 · Joined: 04 Apr 2005 Posts: 52 Location: Titusville, FL

Personally, I'd like to see a little leniency on the part of SS, if indeed this was a fist offence....but.......WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?.....this couldn't be any more blatant! If you didn't know that those would be a problem, you don't need to be shooting stock.

HJahangiri · Joined: 02 Apr 2005 Posts: 327

What these photos look like to me is plywood character cutouts in a park that may be infringing on Disney (and other) copyrights/trademarks, themselves.

I have heard of Disney suing daycares for painting Disney characters (or reasonable facsimiles of their characters) on their outer walls, so you definitely don't want to mess with Disney. But it looks to me like you took some pictures of possibly infringing objects, not Disney objects. And since the characters here clearly aren't Disney originals, but appear to be poor "derivative" copies, I'm wondering if your photos shouldn't come under "evidentiary" (I'm kidding, there is no such category HERE) instead of earning you a lifetime ban.

They certainly can't be used as stock, and SS was right not to accept them. But given what they appear to be photos OF, the consequences of uploading them seem harsh, to me.

HJahangiri · Joined: 02 Apr 2005 Posts: 327

smileyjoanne · Joined: 23 Dec 2004 Posts: 76 Location: Australia

Yikes! I mean, c'mon - they're just pics of posts in a park! (I hope for the sake of the people who made them that Disney doesn't see them!) Seems pretty harsh to me, shutterstock is usually a lot more lenient, I think it would seem more appropriate to send out a warning before shutting off your account - permanently.

I think it's bad that they terminated your account if you have active refferals, without allowing you to gain the rewards from recruiting them. How many pics of these did you submit in one go?... My only thought is that you flooded a reviewer with them who got irritated about it.... It's really out of character (if you don't mind the pun) for shutterstock.

Disney can be pretty nasty when it comes to copyright though. They're horrible with the lawsuits etc

I'm really sorry you cant join in because this place really is a wonderful place to be.... Go beg with Jon :)

Cheers
Joanne

LuvThatVert:) · Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2005 8:36 am

History on "Disney sues day care centers" and
Early history of intellectual property.

from: http://web.umr.edu/~econ/publish/edge02.pdf
In early 1990s, Disney has taken several
day care centers to court for showing Disney videos
without a proper license. Also, it even threatened to several
day care centers that had painted Disney characters
on the walls. Surely, Disney was simply exercising its
legal rights and it must actively protect its trademarks...
==============
from: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04018/262431.stm
Benjamin Franklin ... postmaster general of British North America ...Ben helped create our intellectual property law. He said, "As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others, we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously." His generation created patent and copyright laws that divided the benefit of new things between the creators and the community...

...Ben created one of the first magazines in the colonies and was involved in bitter competition with another magazine owned by the postmaster of Philadelphia. The rival used his power to Ben's disadvantage until Ben got his job. From this experience, Ben learned that a common carrier should be neutral about whose content it was carrying. Since then, the post office, the telephone companies, the railroads, the broadcasters, the airlines and other regulated carriers are all required to follow rules originated by Franklin....

...Ben has been called the patron saint of advertising because he pioneered the concept as a publisher in Philadelphia, advertising ideas as well as products....