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Author Topic: BigStock Selling HD Videos for $0.15 !!  (Read 86504 times)

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« Reply #25 on: November 13, 2014, 03:07 »
0
« Last Edit: November 13, 2014, 03:10 by lucagavagna »


« Reply #26 on: November 13, 2014, 03:35 »
+3
It certainly needs some clarifying, SS footage sales have been going so well and for really good prices, why would they do this?

« Reply #27 on: November 13, 2014, 04:05 »
+1
why would they do this?

Because the SS stock price depends upon maintaining and growing the number of subscribers. Even potentially in the face of smaller revenues per user.

Suppose one quarter they announced that subscriber growth had slowed. It would be seen as the inevitable beginning of the end of their run.

« Reply #28 on: November 13, 2014, 05:14 »
+4
If my videos from SS appear there I will certainly cancel my Bigstock account. My 200 videos on Shutterstock earn me several times more monthly than my 7500 images on BS, so it wont be much of a loss.
I really don't understand this. Return per download for videos on Shutterstock is growing nicely, and volume of sales too. Sometimes I get video commissions like  80-150 USD...

« Reply #29 on: November 13, 2014, 05:23 »
+6
Wow, we do need some answers quick on this one.  How could anyone make money with those prices?  It wouldn't be worth uploading and buyers wouldn't use a site with no content.  They are probably too small and too late to sell video anyway.  Pond5 can't sell many stills and the microstock sites that have left it too late to get in to video can't get buyers.  Selling out like this wont work and it just makes me wonder what on earth SS are trying to achieve with BigStock?  Don't they see that things like this tarnish SS?

« Reply #30 on: November 13, 2014, 05:45 »
+3
i contacted support to kill all my files at bigstock. This guys..  >:(

MxR

« Reply #31 on: November 13, 2014, 05:56 »
+12
Everyone speaks well of shutter but it was they who killed the price of the photos.

 Now they want to kill the video.

« Reply #32 on: November 13, 2014, 05:58 »
0
Checked, and my videos are not there.

We should find out where do they get the content from. And do the content owners know about this?

« Reply #33 on: November 13, 2014, 07:07 »
0
At this price point BigStock may be the owner of these videos. Without owning them outright I don't see anyway they could sell video files for 15 cents. Maybe that is the direction stock is going????

« Reply #34 on: November 13, 2014, 09:20 »
+2
Lol.

I've never pulled my portfolio from any agency, not from iStock with their shenanigans, not from FT or DP. I just stopped uploading. But now I'm at a point that I don't even care anymore and BS might be the first to lose my portfolio. Not a big blow to them (especially since I stopped uploading there a year ago), but I'll feel like I did something.

« Reply #35 on: November 13, 2014, 10:09 »
+9
If my videos  get pipelined over to Bigstock with those prices I will have no choice but to pull them from SS. That leaves only p5 who makes me any money, forcing me to reconsider video exclusivity with Istock.

« Reply #36 on: November 13, 2014, 10:27 »
+8
This is Shutterstock doings, not Bigstock. There is no Bigstock per se anymore. Bigstock is under Shutterstock management and is the experimental playground for Shuttestock. I dont have my account at Bigstock anymore so i dont worry about Bigstock as itself. But this definitely has strongly shaken my trust in Shutterstock. Especially now that you can only pull your port with a 90 days delay, they can do anything they want to you for at least 90 days. And, given that they are the largest source of income for most of us, they may screw us up anytime now and most of us can still do nothing about it.

« Reply #37 on: November 13, 2014, 10:44 »
+7
If my videos  get pipelined over to Bigstock with those prices I will have no choice but to pull them from SS. That leaves only p5 who makes me any money, forcing me to reconsider video exclusivity with Istock.

In case SS is reading this, I agree wholeheartedly. I will only deal with agencies that have a future for their contributors.  >:( >:( >:(
If you're not already pulling out of BigStock, I'd jump to it.

fritz

  • I love Tom and Jerry music

« Reply #38 on: November 13, 2014, 10:55 »
+5
We need urgent explanation from SS! ASAP

« Reply #39 on: November 13, 2014, 11:04 »
0
Should we post this to SS forum?


« Reply #41 on: November 13, 2014, 11:19 »
+25
I don't get why a casual buyer would be offered 1,000 downloads a month?

« Reply #42 on: November 13, 2014, 11:23 »
+13
Our apologies for any confusion. As many of you know, Bigstock is oriented towards the consumer market and independent creatives and the needs of that audience are different than traditional stock footage customers (think of enthusiastic YouTube creators vs. professional video editors). Bigstock is developing a small collection of videos to test how first-time and casual footage customers respond to different entry-level products. The contributors who are participating have all opted-in and all of the content is being appropriately licensed with their consent. The collection will be limited and these early packages represent some initial efforts to test and generate interest in footage among non-traditional buyers. We will continue to work with participating contributors as we learn more about this new market.

Michal on behalf of Bigstock

And how do you stop "traditional buyers" from using this opportunity?

Even if you want to provide a cheaper option for different audienece, why should vidos be cheaper than still images?


« Reply #43 on: November 13, 2014, 11:25 »
+15
This undercuts every other site and all contributors.  If your goal is to destroy the market for video this is a fine plan.
There are 30,303 videos as of today.
« Last Edit: November 13, 2014, 11:35 by tickstock »

« Reply #44 on: November 13, 2014, 11:35 »
+7
SS/Bigstock, this is a BAD direction to go. 

You have a lot of goodwill with video contributors but this is the first step towards destroying that.  And it's a BIG step!  Please reconsider. 

« Reply #45 on: November 13, 2014, 11:36 »
+12
I ditched BigStock and I don't contribute video anywhere, but this sort of half-answer bothers me a lot.

1) Cheap, high volume subscription pricing would appear to risk siphoning off buyers of higher quality content (as low priced photo subscriptions siphoned off buyers from macro agencies back when Shutterstock opened its doors). Granted, SS quality has increased massively since the beginning, but why wouldn't the same trajectory happen with video?

2) The fact that some contributors are OK with selling their work at very low prices (not just this BigStock video, but things like Fotolia's awful DPC) doesn't make it a good thing for contributors overall. What one group does has an effect on the whole contributor community, not just on the people willingly submitting.

3) I think that it's possible you won't increase the market for clips by cutting the price - there are all sorts of reasons to use photos or illustrations vs. video on lots of web sites, and price is only one part of the story. What that then means is you start conditioning the existing pool of buyers to expect lower prices.

High volume/low price can work - that's what allowed Shutterstock to be such a success. But low volume/low price is just awful for contributors - which is where subscriptions just about everywhere else have ended up. The other agencies want to have what SS does but they can't get the volume up.

It seems to me that SS might want to test things out at BigStock so that they can see if they can develop a market while avoiding having any impact on existing video sales at SS. The evolution of microstock from the traditional agencies - of which SS was a major part - suggests that this idea of keeping different parts separate so one doesn't affect the other is naive.

Just because it's "appropriately" licensed and contributors volunteered, doesn't make it a good thing for contributors as a whole.

« Reply #46 on: November 13, 2014, 12:01 »
+19
Our apologies for any confusion. As many of you know, Bigstock is oriented towards the consumer market and independent creatives and the needs of that audience are different than traditional stock footage customers (think of enthusiastic YouTube creators vs. professional video editors). Bigstock is developing a small collection of videos to test how first-time and casual footage customers respond to different entry-level products. The contributors who are participating have all opted-in and all of the content is being appropriately licensed with their consent. The collection will be limited and these early packages represent some initial efforts to test and generate interest in footage among non-traditional buyers. We will continue to work with participating contributors as we learn more about this new market.

Michal on behalf of Bigstock

Michal, there is nothing "casual" or "entry-level" about the video collection offered. They are mostly high quality clips, including complex CGI shots. It is the exact same material that "traditional stock footage customers" buy, but at a fraction of the cost. A massive price drop like this can be highly destructive to the marketplace. As a Shutterstock video/image contributor and Bigstock image contributor, I urge your company to realize the damage you are risking to both your profitability and your contributors' income, and immediately stop this experiment.

I urge other video contributors to contact Shutterstock and Bigstock and ask them to stop this massive price-drop experiment before it damages the market and our income.

Contributor support at Shutterstock: [email protected]
Email for Bigstock: [email protected]

« Reply #47 on: November 13, 2014, 12:07 »
+5
Crap.  I just started uploading a few pix after 3 years.  I should just delete everything.  I don't do video, but if the people making the decisions are that dense, what is next for the rest of the agency?

« Reply #48 on: November 13, 2014, 12:11 »
+16
I just emailed this to Bigstock and Shutterstock, I encourage others to write to them as well:

As an image and video contributor on Shutterstock and image contributor on Bigstock, I'm strongly against the massive price drop that Bigstock is offering on video clips. These are quality clips that are offered for a fair price on other sites but sell for only pennies on Bigstock. This can only have an extremely damaging effect on the market and contributor income, as buyers who find out about it will naturally buy on Bigstock instead of Shutterstock. You are creating a race to the bottom that greatly devalues the work of contributors. If this experiment continues and the market price of video clips plummets, you will destroy the industry, as it won't be economically feasible for contributors to create quality video clips in exchange for pennies. Please immediately stop this terribly damaging and short-sighted experiment.

« Reply #49 on: November 13, 2014, 12:15 »
+3
Not a video contributor, but... I had stopped uploading to Bigstock after introduction of subs there a year ago. Now I think it is time to pull what's still there. It's not like I will particularly miss those two beers per year.


 

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