September 2009

istock announced that as of yesterday it would be legally guaranteeing all sales, blowing the 'unique' offering from vivozoom out of the water. Details of the guarantee on this istockphoto forum post and more discussion on it at microstockdiaries. The legal cover will pay for up to $10,000 in damages and for and additional 100 credits users can purchase up to $250,000 of cover.

When I first read the original release I thought "yeah..." not all that exciting is it, and stuck it in with all the 'end of month news stories'. But then I'm NOT a frequent photo buyer am I. There are plenty of people out there who choose to pay micro prices over finding something free because of the comfort that buying gives them. Draw a parallel with the corporate worlds take up of "paid" open source software - having the support of someone else to point the finger at when things go bad is a nice place to be.

As istock take pains to point out problems arising from the content of their collection are very rare, but just a day after reading the release I read the following post on a local website (well as local as you get here in Queensland) http://www.thedaily.com.au/story/2009/09/16/builder-claims-chriss-home-as-its-own-design. While in this case istockphoto might not be at fault there are a lot of risk averse non-professional buyers in microstock who will find the offer of some protection if the file they buy turns out to contain protected IP very attractive.