Did Digital Railroad Screw You? Part 2

Once again I find myself asking where’s the outrage? Where’s the call for accountability? Is everyone so set financially that it doesn’t matter that you lost $500 or $600 or $1000 or more? If it was my money gone I would be like a pitbull to get to the bottom of what happened. Someone please explain this silence to me.

Nothing will change unless people demand that change. Just moving on to another online venture isn’t the answer. There are people who took your money and as of right now, have gotten away with it. Doesn’t that make your blood boil? Well it should!

One photographer, David Robin, is trying to get legal help behind a call for accountability. But like every other situation, the more people calling for something to happen, the more chance it will. Maybe no one gets their money back. Maybe only some people do. But don’t you want to know how you were ripped off?

Has anyone asked Evan Nisselson or Charles Mauzy to account for the money? I will guarantee anonymity to anyone who wants to tell their story or share insider information. I am asking everyone who has a story to tell, or knows someone who does, to write to me. It’s about time that people stopped taking this shit lying down. Otherwise it will happen again and again.

Did Digital Railroad screw you? What are you doing about it?

I was talking to photographer David Robin at PDN’s Photo Annual party last month and the talk turned to Digital Railroad. We both wondered exactly what had happened to bring it down, and why it shut down so quickly, instead of filing for bankruptcy. David lost a nominal amount of money, but we both wondered about the thousands of photographers and thousands upon thousands of dollars lost.

Where did the money go? Does anyone know? Does anyone want to find out? If a company that was basically operating with a fiduciary responsibility to photographers can disappear without official accountability, what’s to say Getty can’t do the same? I know several photographers who lost money and images back when Corbis bought Sygma, so this isn’t the first time photographers have been taken. But why do these things get swept under the rug, with the principals walking away with everything?

I’d be very interested in hearing stories, comments, opinions, inside information (your anonymity will be strictly guaranteed), or any other comments about the Digital Railroad situation.

Right now there are many more questions than answers. I will be trying to do some reporting on this in a future blog posting, but I’d like to hear from the photo community.

Photographers, the ball is in your court.