Not to Sound Insensitive, But... Hahahahahahahahaha

So let me get this straight: You sold your image(s) to one or more stock-service image site(s). "The Man" properly and legitimately licensed that photo, distributed it, and now you've got your widdle knickers all in a twist because you're not "cashing in"?

Ha! Cry me a river.

Photographers Peeved Their Photos Were Quietly Used in Windows 10

"“This is just an illustration of a major problem for photographers, with a lack of consideration for their work,” French photographer Benjamin Genieys tells The Journalist. “I guess this is even more difficult to understand from a big company as Microsoft is. I checked on 500px and I just have anonymous buyers for this picture. I sold 2 licences between December 2014 and March 2015 ($35 and $85).”

Wait. It's a huge problem for photographers, that photographers are putting their images in micro stock sites and allowing the image to be anonymously lisence for $35 and $85?

Well, when I was about 5 I went to a place like Hogwarts, except it was real - where they taught me the magic of literacy.

To be fair, when I was a wee lady I made the mistake of spec work in graphic design. Tough lesson. I also learned about watermarks and low res files instead of trying to be nice and give the client a preview of the actual product.

Hundreds if not thousands of articles are written regularly about how to avoid having your creative materials used for little to no money, or stolen. If these people were professional photographers... Seems like they'd kind of know already.

Personally - even as an enthusiast, what I feel are my best shots are on an external HDD and copied to another but never online. They could be trash compared to others but it's "my" best work as I see it and if my "good" work prompts someone to ask, I'll let them see, but never download or print.

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ejronin said:

... Wait. It's a huge problem for photographers, that photographers are putting their images in micro stock sites and allowing the image to be anonymously lisence for $35 and $85?

Click to expand...

Huge problem. I mean really, really huuuge. Which is an order of magnitude bigger than, say, Really, Really Big; which is pretty damn big. Clearly bigger than any other problem facing photographers. That's right: Any of them. Any problem you could name. Go ahead and try. Nope. Sorry, this problem is bigger. Biggest EVER. In the history of photography. That's how big this problem is. It's BIG. It's sooo big it makes me say, "Wow... This is a big problem."

I got nuthin'. :hopelessness:

Photographers are usually not familiar with Intellectual Property law so some might be surprised how easy it is to lose control of images. One of the many money generating tactics of social media is bulk transfer of images to micro-stock companies. Reading the terms of use of Facebook for example might be an eyeopener. Anything posted becomes property of FB which is why it is impossible to delete an account content. It can be turned off to you but the data, images, posts and videos you post gives them blanket license to use or sell as they see fit.If you upload a high res image file, it is highly compressed for display on FB and not suitable for printing large. But the original file in high resolution is still on their servers and might have commercial value.

Facebook terms of service section 2 paragraph 1.
You grant them a license to use your work, but they don't take ownership. You have to give them a license to use the work or they wouldn't be able to host your images. It is a typical license for this type of use. I am not going to argue how they make money on it, but no, you don't give up ownership, and once the images are deleted and off of their servers, they lose the license.

I am not a lawyer, and this is not intended to be legal advise. Read the terms of service. If you don't understand it, ask a lawyer. That is what I did.

The point is, the photo is not deleted, even if you remove it from your page. This has been at trial, and the plaintants lost. Your posts are not deleted but they can be removed from public view. Yes, you grant them license, they do not own it, they own license to it and can sell subordinate licenses. I lost revenue from one image I had licensed each year to a cruise line for their cruise catalogs. It was not for a lot but did received a few hundred every year they used it until they bought a license from a stock company that markets the FB images. I had uploaded an image, which appeared small and low res as normal but the original file uploaded was large enough for the print catalog use. So they use the image, and pay me nothing. This is not unusual so the few times I post images they are all degraded intentionally.
I am pretty familiar with IP law, having been in dozens of suits in the recording industry in my 25 years as a studio owner/producer and recording engineer. Being the person/company that produced major records, whenever there was a case that was related to the record, I was named in the cases. Never lost one that went to court, most are known to be groundless nuisance cases but a few big ones that did go to trial became national headlines. Copyright and license law is essentially the same with photography and songwriting. The case of FB that involved that terms of service agreement was when a deleted account owner tried to have stored data removed from the databases even though the account had been deleted from public view and her view. FB won. The US government had a stake in it also, they do not want their access to that data on individuals to disappear either. If it is on the servers, the license granted is in force even if the public account is not visible.