But why do there seem to be so many more refunds than on other sites? I don't think the others do any more vetting of buyers, or do they use better systems for checking payments?  Something seems to be amiss anyway.

Maybe indirectly... like their model is not in the best interests of VideoBlocks, so that could result in them getting rid of it, lowering commissions, not marketing it as much as they could etc... which would then result in it not being in the best interests of contributors. But currently... easy enough upload, regular sales, not the worst prices, and the best commission rate going? Seems to be in my best interests to upload there.

I don't agree that the model is necessarily any worse than the standard subs model,  where the agency and contributor are in competition.  The agency only makes a profit if the buyer doesn't use his allocated sub downloads, the buyer only makes a profit if he does.

Doesn't videoblocks own much of the content and not pay royalties on that?

I would actually be a bit happier if they also took a small percentage (like 5%) to keep them motivated to up-sell subscribers on our content and dissuade them from reproducing premium content in their sub offering.

Businesses will always act in their best interest and they could be tempted to try and duplicate decent content from our portfolios in their collection under the current model.

Forgot that non subscribers can also but items at a higher price. Good point.

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on October 26, 2017, 00:09

I don't agree that the model is necessarily any worse than the standard subs model,  where the agency and contributor are in competition.  The agency only makes a profit if the buyer doesn't use his allocated sub downloads, the buyer only makes a profit if he does.

Doesn't videoblocks own much of the content and not pay royalties on that?

Yes.  They have a wholly owned section whereby paid subscribers can download clips at no extra cost. If they don't find what they want, they can go into the contributor clip pool and purchase from there, but at $49 for HD (as opposed to $79).  Contributors keep most of that $49 (taxes, etc.).

I've unfortunately had some this month too. All 4K. I've asked videoblocks how they can verify that my files won't be mistreated as there email suggests the person has destroyed the file. My argument is how can they say this when the file was bought fraudulently? Obviously they will end up on file sharing websites for free. Videoblocks need to do something ASAP as this is a serious violation on our behalf.

This got me wondering too.....
Wouldn't it be amazing if someone could produce a unique code for each sale of the file, kind of hidden in the .mov container (or such like) each sale had a unique code that if was bought fraudulently or misused - we as the copyright holders could type in that unique code and make that file self destruct. Surly in this day and age a good coder could create such a thing? Or am I wishful thinking?

I just got email with refund information. I think this might be a scam. It's happening more often lately. There shouldn't be such thing as a full refund - customers see what they buy, they can download free preview. Is Storyblocks the only website where they give full refund after somebody downloading full quality clip? Shouldn't there be a rule that after downloading HQ *.mov there are no refunds or that customer can download compressed mp4 file before getting hq mov file?

Quote from: RAW on October 28, 2017, 12:49

So far this month I have had more refunds than sales.
How can they take the word of someone using a stolen credit card that they will delete the file? Why are they even talking to the person?

This is messed up.

Who said they're talking to the credit card thieves? There's no word of anything.

The bank, or VISA/Mastercard etc. just tells VB - sorry, stolen card. Money goes back.

It's not a refund if it's credit card fraud. Two completely different things!

They mentioned that the customer had 'deleted' the file.

It does not matter what you call it. It is still a refund and when you get more 'refunds' than sales in a month there is something wrong somewhere.

Quote from: RAW on October 28, 2017, 14:30

They mentioned that the customer had 'deleted' the file.

It does not matter what you call it. It is still a refund and when you get more 'refunds' than sales in a month there is something wrong somewhere.

Of course it matters what you call it. They are two VERY different things.

A refund is a customer ASKING for their money back, because they're not satisfied with the clip. Or they lie, and want to get it for free.

Credit card fraud is stolen numbers and the money is taken back by the bank.

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Anyway, yes, the result for you might be the same, but they are two very different things. A refund can be perfectly legitimate. Maybe your clip didn't look good enough at full resolution, or maybe they just bought too many.

You DON'T see exactly what you get before you buy when it comes to footage. I'm sure that all of know that almost any clip looks good in small resolution, but fullscreen is another story.

You don't see the noise for example.

You are assuming that the 'customer' is telling the truth.

The message (I got it 5 min ago) says nothing about the customer deleting the file:
"The customer no longer has access to the file and this sale has been removed from your sales history. "

For me it looks suspicious.

It would seem that soon there will be collections of all of our stolen content from Videoblocks out there. Videoblocks needs to get out in front of this, publicly announce exactly what happened and what they plan to do about it. They know the countries of origins of these criminals, they have their Ip's, they alone would be able to compile a concise list of all the stolen content to compare to when matching collections become available on any pirate site. They have more financial resources than any of us individually could possibly have, more access to lawyers and investigators, plus it's ultimately their fault. Videoblocks needs to start working with the authorities in any and all locations, stop downplaying and lying to their contributors, and maybe even turn this in to a positive by heading a proactive effort to find and prosecute those that steal and redistribute product they are responsible for protecting and failed so miserably at doing so. That, or keep doing nothing and watch as those of us with any sense put them in the "never again" category with iStock and Envato.