TXPhotog wrote:
Dave, you've been around for a long time on the Internet.  Think back to the early days of the forums, before listing sites like that existed.  Even then there would be posts by guys flogging the services of one or more models; sometimes they even admitted to it, sometimes they did not.  I could even name you names of people still active who did that in the mid-90s.

What the large listing services did was facilitate it, organize it, foster it - try to make it acceptable and normal.  It burgeoned with that kind of institutional support, but they didn't create it.  Even without them it would still exist.  It even exists here, where it is outlawed.

Hell, I can barely remember what happened last week.

But, essentially I think you're right.  The big data bases made it so anyone could be a manager simply by clicking a few check boxes.  In my area, photographers seem to list themselves as managers more often than not.  I don't think that would be the case if it hadn't been for the data bases.

Dave Krueger wrote:
The big data bases made it so anyone could be a manager simply by clicking a few check boxes.

Or doing nothing at all! A model I shot with last month linked to me as her manager and asked me to upload for her (apparently she isn't computer savvy), hasn't delisted me yet. I haven't heard from her in over a month, I haven't unlinked myself because she never approved the images I chose. The one useful thing I learned: Other Place managers do not receive the model's normal email from the system.

But, I know of at least one photographer in Houston who is managing a bunch of models by signing up for OMP/MM/etc. accounts as the model using free email addresses, and then claiming adamantly on his profile that he *isn't* a manager. No surprise: the models have nothing but his shots and his three companies in their credits after six months of being on the sites.

Can't do much about the sluggos, unfortunately. I even looked into reporting the one I found to the TDLR and the web form is far too intimidating--I'd rather leave an anonymous tip, they seem to only respond to official complaints.