Arizona Shoots wrote:
Good luck with that. You do realize they're based in Europe, right?

I was on the site for 7 years and was one of their top selling artists.  Laws exist in other countries too genius.  And this thread is about inviting anyone else who was abused by their platform to share information.  If that's not you, then take a hike dude

Model MoRina wrote:
I signed up for a DMCA service that has been very successful in finding and getting pirated content taken down. And when they can't get it removed they at least get it de-listed from google. I researched several before signing on to one, because the thought of having to pay for something like this makes me sick to my stomach. The one that gave me the most bang for the buck is Ceartas. Been with them about 18 months or so. I believe I have an affiliate code still active with them so if you are interested feel free to message me. It gives you a discount off your first payment. Way cheaper than a lawyer!

Good luck either way.

DCMAs are cool and I appreciate you sharing that information, it may be something I'll have to look into.  But if a company...one that I worked closely with...emailing directly back and forth weekly if not daily.  I felt absolutely betrayed when they began breaking bad and refused to address the theft of my content by other users (one competing store and another who ..it turns out...was my biggest buyer)

Robert  Neil wrote:
I have been selling there for years, I am unaware of any theft of my work, but maybe it is getting stolen...how/where did you find your stolen work?

Don't expect an answer from the original poster as he has, as they say, left the building.

There was a rather wild number of posts in different threads that he made all at once (about everything under the sun).  Included in that barrage were a few that were, to be fairly polite, somewhat jaw dropping...

I have no idea as to whether that was a deliberate farewell barrage on his part or whether he was quickly barred from the site as a result of some of his more extreme final comments.  Either way, he's gone.

D L Photo wrote:
I was on the site for 7 years and was one of their top selling artists.  Laws exist in other countries too genius.  And this thread is about inviting anyone else who was abused by their platform to share information.  If that's not you, then take a hike dude

Thank you for acknowledging the brilliance that is me, however it looks like you're the one who "took a hike dude".

TJ Photo wrote:
What I've been told by the seller I work with is that the site takes an excessive cut of sales despite doing very little in the way of service and restricting the way material is promoted.

I would wonder what your cut your 'seller' is taking. I believe BentBox is 35%, but you can set your own prices to accommodate it. They built the platform and handle the payments. Have you ever dug into the percent that micro stock was taking? I believe that I know which seller you are referring to. I see some dramatically unrealistic pricing on some of their boxes. I question their pricing strategy.

I have almost 900 sets/boxes of my work up there. Some boxes get no attention/sales while some models are popular and gain instant sales. A big percent of my content was created for other purposes and had already generated profit in print or past web sales. Since they were just sitting in my library there was little downside to working with BentBox. It has not generated enough to fund many extensive shoots with the purpose of feeding more content, but it does pay for the occasional shoot with selected models.

I have had some bumps along the road with them and am far from an apologist for BentBox, but currently I don't know of a better platform for photographers to make individual sales without taking the time and resources to develop an independent audience. With the amount of free content out there now, I don't see how spending effort and resources to develop traffic for an individual sales site would ever generate a profit. With new age verification laws coming into place both in the US and Europe I've seen views drop drastically, so I'm not sure what the future holds for any content sales sites.