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Last official release quotation from Stockxpert/Jupiter Media to Stockxpert contributors:

Soon you will be receiving an e-mail and sitemail about the Stockxpert on Photos.com program, an exciting new venture to sell your images through one of the most popular brands in stock photography. Small, medium, and large images will be available through subscription only, and you will earn $.30 per download. XL and XXL images will only be available as PPD. You will earn 30% per download with prices ranging between $49.95 and $299.95 per image.

As we move forward with more of these programs, we need to deliver the highest quality and most consistent product to customers and business partners. This means that as of July 30 we will no longer offer opt-in/out, and as of August 4, all SXP images will be included in our PPD, partner and licensing, extended licensing, and subscription efforts.

So, I deleted my Stockxpert gallery (http://www.stockxpert.com/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=hilaryaq) Sunday 3rd August, around 12 noon, sad, but better than the alternative of seeing my photos printed on 100,000 calendars/mugs/t-shirts etc for .30 cent to me (see article below).

I have put together some scary quotes taken from photos.com terms of use, where all Stockxpert contributors agree to share their images if they do not remove their images from stockxpert.com before August 4th 2008, starting below:

“The Image(s) shall remain the sole and exclusive property of JUPITERIMAGES, or its licensors.”

The EXCLUSIVE property of JUPITER IMAGES.. I don’t think so! And the term ‘licensors’, while it might refer to Stockxpert contributors, could equally refer to the Stockxpert.com web site as a licence provider.

This differs from the Stockxpert.com terms of use:

On Stockxpert.com terms of use, the significant words exclusive property are not appearing, it’s just property, and we are referred to as ‘image providers’, which correctly leaves no room for interpretation, so it is totally clear that the contributors to the site, are correctly being referred to as the owners of the image.

Back to photos.com, they instruct downloaders in their terms of use, to put a ‘copyright © [insert current year] Jupiterimages Corporation’ credit with each image used, it’s not like we, the actual copyright holders care, right?

Is that not an infringement on our copyright ownership of the image? It should be our name or business name listed as the copyright owner, NOT Jupiter Media!!

And this seems to be the most contentious issue, taken directly from photos.com terms of use:

You May: Use the Image(s) on product packaging or in any items for personal use or resale, including book covers, calendars, consumer merchandise (T-shirts, posters, art, etc.)

Which is in DIRECT conflict to the terms of use we agreed to on stockxpert.com!

Also odd, for each image, there is a stamp ‘photos.com’ across it, with no mention anywhere I can see of the copyright holders name/username, as if the copyright holder, doesn’t exist, surely the copyright owner should be listed clearly with each image.

Stockxpert contributors are perhaps now beginning to realise the bleak situation as it stands, some have begun to remove their images from the web site, others are demanding a third party licencing opt out clause, under threat of image removal at a later date, however, Stockxpert/Jupiter Media may be happy to lose 50% of contributors in order to keep 50% which will create this new photos.com market, and currently the number of contributors that have come out against the move may not be a significant loss to Jupiter Images considering the entire stockxpert.com library consists of 1.7 million images, even the threat of removal of 21,000 of those images, only amounts to a loss of 1% of their total image count, so we shall have to see how many more will come out of the woodwork and slam this latest move to undercut extended licensing, among the other issues above.

I’m going to try and keep track of other stockxpert.com contributors that have already deleted their galleries due to the removal of an opt-in/out for third party licensing and sub-licensing from July 30th 2008 below (Note- screenshots are taken from google cache which may be a few weeks old, so actual number of photos may be higher than listed):

Username: carlinco
No of photos: 526
High Scorer: 7th Largest contributor of video on stockxpert.com
Url: http://www.stockxpert.com/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=carlinco

Username: compaan
No of photos: 37
Url: http://www.stockxpert.com/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=compaan

Username: demimage
No of photos: 82 (Only 58 in the image below due to google cache delay)
Url: http://www.stockxpert.com/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=demimage

Username: hilaryaq
No of photos: 178
Url: http://www.stockxpert.com/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=hilaryaq

Username: Hofmeester
No of photos: 758 (only 587 in screenshot)
Url: http://www.stockxpert.com/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=Hofmeester

Username: nubephoto
No of photos: 176
Url: http://www.stockxpert.com/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=nubephoto

Username: parrypix
No of photos: 10
Url: http://www.stockxpert.com/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=parrypix

Username: randomway
No of photos: 94
Url: http://www.stockxpert.com/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=randomway

Username: Roman_I
No of photos: 151
Url: http://www.stockxpert.com/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=Roman_I

Username: TIMURA
No of photos: 204
Url: http://www.stockxpert.com/browse.phtml?f=profile&l=TIMURA

To read about the success of this protest just click here for follow up info!

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