Does pushing a "generate" button makes you copyright owner?

Yes

US Copyright Office: "Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."

Can you register a copyright for protection of an AI image?

No. It must be created by a human.

as I said,I find it extremely difficult to think that an AI can be trained on the already generated renderings of other AIs,but ok,if Mat said it I can believe it!

Training AI with AI is a slippery slope kind of thing.

Adobe has said they used up to 5% AI images, which were individual reviewed and vetted, to train the Firefly lab. There's still debate on this, which I'd agree, that using AI to train AI is wrong. Not ethically wrong, but scientifically and system integrity kind of wrong.

I(we) would NEVER have sold rights to use my(our) photograhies to feed machine learning. Adobe forced me(us) by giving money, to infringe my(our) copyrights on MY(our) own images. It seems to me that no choice was offered to refuse this money. In this way, they can suggest a mutual understanding, in possible legal procedures, and claim to act ethically.

I'm not going to say I support how the agencies did this, but I have to answer, that you signed the contract, that allowed this use and you could have refused the money, but they still had the right to use your images. You made that choice when you agreed to the contract.

"I(we) would NEVER have sold rights to use my(our) photograhies to feed machine learning."

You Did.

If you think that's wrong and disagree, you and all those silent people, who aren't here according to you, should get together and file a claim against Adobe. Class action suit if there is any attorney who will see your side of the arguments, after reading the contract that you signed, when you offered to be a contributor to Adobe or Fotolia.

There you are. You signed a contract, now you disagree. Take it up with the courts.

The unwritten rule --- 1,000 images equaled $200 a month per site.  That person said you should get $.20 per image per month.

 Cannot remember who said but they were a microstock author (wrote a few books) as well. Their rule was pretty good at the time in the hey day of microstock.

The unwritten rules were for a select few, and most of them are BS. $2 RPI is one of them, that is quoted, but not for all. Yes, for some people, who had really good work and concepts and collections, maybe. But for everyone else, it was just, RPD and not big numbers.

Mostly under $1 downloads. Yes, averages, distort that, because for example, I could get one EL a month which was $28. But the bulk of the downloads were more around 50� on average and that was at 33 cents on AS or 36� on SS, less DLs but 50� on IS.

It's like saying, look at all the money Elvis, the Stones, or Taylor Swift make on streaming. (dead Elvis estate still make good money) I should become a musician and do streaming music. Not so fast. I have a friend who does that. Records session in Nashville or other major studios, posts to a number of his own sites and promotes and makes CDs and is streaming. His general earnings, he says, could fill the gas tank on his car, sometimes.

Microstock is no different. You buy the equipment or in my case already have it. You shoot, edit, upload, and sit back and wait for that commission money to come rolling in.  I have many, individual and good images. (the whole how many is also flawed, if I had 20 of every shoot, I'd have 20,000 images!) I usually upload one, maybe two. Number of images does not = # of dollars. 1,000 images, didn't = $2 RPI or any reasonably expected level of earnings. 1,000 really good images, suitable for stock, yes, maybe.

Yeah, truth is, everything was better until about 2012. Some people made more on referrals, than selling their images. Agencies, all of them, had levels and a reason to do better and make more. What most people tend to forget is, SS was the last one to give is the crappy, new improved, system. One by one, they dropped levels or adjusted them. They all dropped referrals, or limited the time, which ended all the oldest. All of them changed the searches to feature newer images. If there were things that favored older accounts, that benefit was taken away. I don't mind, fair equal surface for everyone.

But, every agency, except Adobe, cut commissions or ways to make more by working harder, and most eliminated just about all incentives. At the same time they introduced API sellers and partners, who got everything for less and we got a lower commission, for a lower value, which means, downloads dropped and value of what we did get, also dropped. Whether they call it connect or something else, we have been farmed out the back door, for pennies.

Hell yes, it was different and better. 

I understand this bulky text to mean that Alamy wants to defend itself against the injunction.
 
Depending on how I read the text, the sum mentioned here then relates either to
a) the costs for the preliminary injunction as requested or
b) the costs for the coming defense against the preliminary injunction.

From my point of view, it is completely unclear whether further unknown costs will be incurred by those affected if the action is lost.

Perhaps native English speakers can clarify this.

Seems to me, it's the defense costs:

"Alamy are currently defending the claims, and the imposed injunction provisions connected to the alleged infringement for which Alamy have been required to sweep for and remove images from your collection featuring the intellectual property.
 
We placed you on notice of these claims and demands and are writing to update you that costs are being incurred in defence of the claims."

Bild must be pretty hungry for any scraps, to keep going on with this, as the usual is: Cease and desist, Please Remove these Images. Which is a choice to tell them no, and fight, or comply and the whole ting goes away, along with the images. None-the-less, charging the artists for having uploaded an image, and claiming the artists have to pay for the defense? There's a new low for stock sites.

Is there some other motivation behind Bild going after Alamy, because they are owned by PA News now?

And with &order=nb_downloads  you can also see how many times your free images have been downloaded.

? am I missing something? That shows all downloads.  &order=nb_downloads

SS is still making changes to the new system, and there's still access to the Legacy system, thank goodness.

HOW DO I FIND AN IMAGE in the NEW Catalog Manager, if I want to review or edit. There's No Search? Is there a way to create new sets, or only in the legacy system?

I'm trying to find one of my own images and Catalog Manager was the easiest way in the past. Especially since I could update the metadata while I was looking.

@Pete if you throw a stone into the ocean you add volume to the water so the level rises,in an imperceptible way but it rises,if you do it in a bucket of water you can notice the difference.

even your cabinets and cupboards change,everything changes with time everything is constantly changing,the universe is also continually expanding.

but apart from these physics-related discussions,in my opinion however,if millions of images are removed it changes,and everyone notices it.

but anyway Pete,it's a purely theoretical discussion,because it isn't applied in reality anyway.

as far as I'm concerned I prefer to sell only on Adobe,I think it's the best thing to do.

See above, that's your choice.  👍 We are independent and we make our own choices.

My point was, and you agree with the math and physics, no one will notice, because hundreds of millions of images will not be removed. You may get 100 or 1,000 contributor accounts to agree, but not enough to make SS or IS to take notice or care. So any hypothetical about change or the future, is also what you say, not reality in any way.

SS "462,572,973 stock photos, vectors, and illustrations are available royalty-free for download." If 5,000 people remove 5,000 images, that's a pebble in the ocean. 25 million images gone, and 437,000,000 images still there.

Meanwhile, trying to go back on topic to AS Rank... 

Anyhoo...

Only thing I would take from "rankings" is:
a) if you are ranked "higher" - meaning your downloads are higher relative to everyone else - means specifically with the "adobe" crowd of customers - you are providing the content they want. (Just because it sells @ adobe doesn't mean it would necessarily sell as well elsewhere - the adobe crowd tends to have specific tastes/styles/etc).
b) if you are consistently ranked "high" - it probably means you are consistently doing something correctly that is in demand.
c) bragging rights to make yourself "feel" better if you see you are "doing better" than someone else...

Y E S

Is the rank supposed to show how many people are making $1,000 a month or more. I didn't quote the part that said less. But still, that's my question? More people used to make that $1,000 a month on some stock sites.

Rank is relative, and seems to be pretty stable. Yes, it's downloads not income. But for someone to watch their weekly rank, go up and down, they are just seeing the normal fluctuations based on demand and seasonal. The better people, lets just say Cobalt for example, will always be higher and stay in a general range of high and low, because they produce good work and have a large collection and have a diverse portfolio.

I have 1,000 more downloads now than I did months back, and my lifetime rank has made an insignificant change. Less that 200 on the Adobe scale. I'll assume that everyone else, around my range, has also increased 1,000 downloads in the same time and their rank had barely changed. What's to see? 



It's Monday, I have no video, I upload when I'm in the mood, which might be one a week, or more when I have a better idea.

I care more about search position and page, than "Hey how am I doing, compared to the next person." My Rank is like views or exposure. There's no pay or benefit.

For anyone who may be interested.

So glad I didn't post that. I saw what happened last month.

I'll look tomorrow for what ESP says about earnings. Thanks!

what a great idea !  latest from wirestock: "Great news! We�ve launched the Wirestock Marketplace. To boost its promotion, we�ll include 5% of your unsold content in our free collection. "   "By offering your content for free, you gain unmatched exposure, potentially increasing your sales and overall platform visibility."

dont they know unmatched exposure leads to skin cancer?

As soon as I saw they had put the rejections into "Personal", I deleted all of those files. Then they said, I could have still sold those on my own.  Now they want to add mine to a free collection? HA! I'm glad i deleted them all.

When someone tells me how I can eat Free downloads for lunch or have a sip of free exposure while I watch the Sunset, I might consider their plan. I guess I'm just to stuck up, to live in the glory of Free Exposure or potential sales and better platform visibility... maybe.

WS Personal Collection?

I made an error before, Marketplace is the normal distribution, where we pick which agencies to receive our images. We Pick, it's not all or none like some others.



But I'm still not paying for that right to upload, some AI and 15% if I get downloads.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on April 11, 2024, 20:16

You're right, you have a choice.

"Yes, you must pay taxes on any income generated from your hobby, even if it�s just a few dollars. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) considers any income earned from a hobby as taxable income. Therefore, you�ll need to report it on your tax return and pay taxes on it. However, there�s a key difference: taxpayers with hobby income (not considered business income) can avoid self-employment taxes. If you incurred any hobby-related expenses, you might be able to deduct them as well. "

If someone wants to avoid self-employment taxes, they can just declare just income. If you want to deduct expenses, which I believe would be to my benefit, so I do, then you file a Schedule C. But income is income, no matter what, if you are a US resident, and you must pay income taxes.

What would I even deduct? I'm not sure what your circumstances are, but for me as someone who's not actively engaging in asset production, I have no idea what I could even deduct. I sold my dSLR in 2020 or 2021 and haven't looked back. My laptop is worth around 1k, and I have no expenses except for a microstock stats service to sometimes check which types of assets are selling.

So, for me, since I don't deduct anything, I use Sch E. Nobody is talking about "not paying income taxes" at all, I don't know why you felt the need to mention that.

The OP was talking about avoiding personal income taxes. That's where this started.

Question for contributors in the US.
When filing taxes to IRS is this a legal way -> form 1040 -> Schedule 1 (line 6 royalties) + Schedule E (income line 4 royalties)?
All my 1099MISC forms do say Royalties box 4.
I want to simplify things, and it seems like if I file Schedule C (profit and loss), it will require me to pay self-employment tax, and I can't think of any deductions that would lower my net income.

Yes, you do have unusual circumstances, where you are not shooting, don't have the DSLR and are just collecting residual income. True it wouldn't make sense for you to try to add deductions like expenses, when you don't have them. Also this is not "passive income" as it is commissions.

Anyone who is active and owns equipment or travels, or owns a computer, pays for cards and batteries or lenses, would most likely benefit from using the Schedule C. Aside from the depreciation which is spread out over time, pretty much any of us, could write off expenses.

It's a choice. One has many more potential benefits for most of us, than the other. Paying in to Medicare and Social Security has distant benefits, that's also a choice. Have the money now or get something back after age 62.

But still, the choice of which form, depends on the circumstances.

My expenses last year were $2161 and depreciation on equipment was $653. That is, $2,814 that I don't have to pay income taxes on, and $365 less in personal income taxes. Of course I'm filing a schedule C.  I'll use my refund for something stupid, but I'm happy to get some of my own money back, because I choose to fill out one extra form, with details, every year.

Unfortunately, I - and other contributors - have noticed that RPD is also declining at AS. In my case, it's down 16% compared to one or two years ago. It has to be said clearly that AS still has the greatest fairness among the larger agencies. But they also operate for their own benefit - not ours.

No matter how you do it, there is always a catch.

RPD is dropping? Now I have to look. I generally only watch income. Too bad it's so difficult to extract historical data from AS.

2023 RPD $.97 (more income every year, than the year before)
2022 RPD $.97
2021 RPD $.98
2020 RPD $.76

2024 RPD $.77 but it's only April. I'll give it some time. The holiday season at the end of the year is my best time.

oh ... sniffle ... please stop ... whimper. Memory lapse?

In an open forum, we should  always have the choice to agree or disagree with whatever views, others may have. Also, we should always protect someone else�s freedom to do the same, whether it be in our favor or not.

Insults, indignation and conspiracy theory, the signatures of the politics of contempt. I didn't expect you to be a follow of the Donald Trump school.

Memory? Sure thing, I remember:

Peter has clearly found his meds 😳 ... pssst Lower the dose.

Where do you start. The Bermuda triangle is a fact. The cause isn't but I subscribe to the underground or underwater mass gas releases experiments that were done which can be found on utube. ... It doesn't explain the various planes that went missing due to instrument failure specifically the compass but many things can cause a compass to fail.

... which brings us to the ignorance of the skeptics self proclaimed or otherwise. I did state at the beginning of the thread ... don't bother. Your ridiculous cliche of "the burden of proof falls to the ones making claims" is the usual trollop trotted out by lazy and idle people. You are the one hurling claims lol. Crack on Peter please prove your claim. You can't though can you because skeptics can never provide any meat to their bone. Its all "nonsense" they cry without any research or any proof what so ever. Lazy. And they never attempt to investigate themselves. They barely bother to research what's out there. One thing is a fact. No one employs skeptics when embarking on a venture do they. Pay them good money to work against you lol.

Many of those interviews are available on utube. Of course all that research had to be done for free according to Peter. Because if you take that research and put the salient points in a book jacket and sell it, it automatically makes you a fraud. Oops. and the lectures these fraudsters attend are also scambait. 

Peter is giving away his stock photos for free everyone btw. Just dm him that's right isn't it Peter lol.

Shame you ranted off Peter. Why is anyone's guess but that's you isn't it. What rank did you get to Pete ... I'm curious...

So kind, fair, understanding, open minded and polite. Yeah I remember.