iStockphoto sends takedown notice to Awkward Stock Photos

Awkward Stock Photos ‘Where awkward stock photos finally have a purpose’ is a site that publishes, well, awkward stock photos. It has now received a take-down notice from iStockphoto via the blogging platform Tumblr . iStockphoto does not want the low res images to be shown and demanded that the pictures be taken down immediately. As a result all photos, also those from other sources are being taken off. The site now looks like this:

The site allowed users to submit stock photos and published them in low resolution and, unlike Pilfered magazine , it provides a clear link back to the source. The owners of the site claim to have sent tens of thousands of links back to the source of the ackward stock photos. This was the initial reaction on the site:

The Tumblr overlords have informed us that iStockPhoto has its panties in a bunch and this blog is in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. We can’t exactly argue that point, other than this isn’t a money-making endeavor and every photo links back to its source, which, if our analytics have anything to say about it, has allowed tens of thousands of eyeballs get back to see these artists’ works over the past couple of weeks. Maybe someone even decided to buy something.

As a result of the take-down notice the site is no using external links instead of the low-res files. Some commentators have suggested to put the images in separate iframes and several options are being considered.