Dreamstime Surpasses 25 Million Images
Dreamstime announced on Thursday that it has already surpassed 25 million uploaded images with a photo by Inga Dudkina. 
Together with this new milestone, the leading community in stock photography is opening an additional office at 180 Sansome St. in San Francisco. The new office will provide the company an expanded presence in the Silicon Valley. Dreamstime has more than 15 million unique monthly visitors and hundreds of thousands of new images uploaded weekly.
“Passing 25 million images in our library is an important milestone which speaks to the wide range of subject matter covered by our photographers and proves our market position as a trusted stock imagery source. We have received well above 43 million image submissions, yet have only accepted a percentage of those as being up to our standards. Our strict editing protocol allows us to offer a high-end library where customers know they are getting legal, quality images,” said Serban Enache, the company’s CEO and co-founder. “Our community continues to grow at a rapid pace; our monthly registering userbase has increased 150% over last year. Designers and artists can rely on our extensive library to find that perfect image for any project.”
Dreamstime has recently launched Dreamstime Companion, a mobile app that lets stock photographers submit images directly from their smartphones and offer them for sale. With the launch of the mobile app, the number of photographers joining tripled last year. Last March of this year, Dreamstime also released a WordPress plugin which allows users to access and embed high quality images into their sites.
What to shoot for Stocksy? Check their Lookbook
Stocksy has published a Lookbook for applicants on Pinterest where they can find photo ideas and inspirations they can use for their images. This year, Stocksy is looking for new talents that will help them expand their collection with new topics and original ideas. Be ready those artists who are located outside United States because Stocksy is specifically looking for you to expand their range of ethnicities and cultures. You can always check out their Lookbook for great photo ideas and you can also check out this 50 Trends in Photography to Watch Out in 2014 so you will know what to shoot this year.
RevoStock’s Battle Against Patent Troll
On February 28, two years ago, Revostock founder Craig Lillard read on his inbox what must be the worst email he had ever received. The subject of the line simply said, “Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against RevoStock.” He just stared at his computer in disbelief, thinking that the lawsuit was very far beyond than anything he could have imagined.
Craig solely founded RevoStock in December 2005, the first microstock multimedia community focused on video related media. Craig worked hard for Revostock to make it look like a large company despite it being self-funded and without any outside investors. Little did he know that his efforts would draw the attention of a “Patent Troll.”
What is a Patent Troll?
According to Craig, Patent Trolls “are companies that own or acquire broad software patents. Then they use these patents to sue companies that may or may not be infringing on the patent in hopes of receiving a settlement or ‘license agreement. In most cases, the troll does not make a product or utilize the patent. They just sue those who do.”
“Normally, when you are accused of a crime, you are innocent until proven guilty. I quickly learned that when you are sued by a
Patent Troll, you are guilty unless you can afford to show you are innocent. I have never in my life experienced such a feeling of injustice.”
The lawsuit has caused stress, pain and anxiety to Craig, to his family and to his business. The last two years has been the most difficult years of his entire life.
Read the entire story here to know what were the effects of the Patent Troll lawsuit on RevoStock, how it affected the users and the payments and how RevoStock survived the dilemma.
Bonus! Watch this video for a funny compilation of dreary stock photos you’ve ever seen.
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Other Microstock News
- Imaging Industry Exits. Taylor Davidson compiled 111 acquisitions and IPOs in the Imaging Industry from 2004 to today.
- iStock's New Sort Features. iStock has made some changes on the Most Popular Search sort feature. It now provides 3 options, they can sort popular images by year, by month or all time.
