Quote from: cobalt on September 20, 2023, 07:56

For all the frustration being directed at Adobe for not asking nicely first and making it an optin instead of opt out...please keep in mind that Midjourney has scraped the entire internet and is happily creating content with the help of all our images. And they did not pay us 1 cent.

Yeah, but
1. it still remains to be seen whether what they did was even legal.
2. They did not shout "We are doing this fair and ethnically" and then screw us over from the top of the roofs. (So that every customer could hear and believe it)

Just because one company decided to treat us even worse, doesn't make what Adobe is doing right or should take away our right and reason to complain. You would not defend  how Amazon is paying and treating their employers just because, somewhere out there, there is a company that treats their employes even worse or defend a father who beats his child once a day, because somewhere there is a father who beats his child three times a day.
But some people here seem to think we should even be thankful to Adobe for treating us like crap, just because others treat us even worse.

I agree with that one hundred percent!

@goober:

at least we agree on something:Istock.

people complain about Adobe and then contribute on Istock for a paltry 15% as non-exclusive,and I can guarantee you that I have sold many vectors on Istock at 15% when it should be 20%,It makes me think that perhaps the customer purchased the raster version of the vector,but I have serious doubts about this.

I created with my hands without taking inspiration from anyone and without stealing any ideas,content that I sold up to 30 times a day on Istock,yes,the same illustration sold 1 to 30 times a day,every day.

so Istock earned tens of thousands of dollars thanks to my work,I have been a contributor with them for 5 years,and do you know what the thanks were?

At the first problem that arose,instead of trying to contact me and ask for clarification regarding an issue that apparently they didn't understand due to the lack of knowledge of the creative software of those who make these decisions,instead of talking to me,they sent an email that effectively communicated that years of work and thousands of contents would be destroyed in one click.

so yes I support Adobe,because it is the best agency out there,and it is also the most present on this forum.

so if you also want to close with Adobe,where should you contribute?

Then you also have your reasons,perhaps there could have been an opt-out,but Adobe is still the best agency,it is perhaps not perfect but the most honest.

then why do you have to leave the forum?
we are here for a constructive exchange of opinions,trying to understand something in this strange world of microstock. Sometimes I will be right and other times wrong,like everyone else here,no one is always right,we all have our ideas.

I can only address a few points now. Why will I leave this forum? I just won't be back. I'm not earning much anymore from stock art. There was a time when I earned hundreds of thousands each year. Now it's a couple of thou for leaving my pieces in place. I had my stock on AS because they were paying around a dollar each sale. Now it's down around 30c to 55c. I was happy just to leave it there and pick up some cash each year.

I left Istock because management there treated us very poorly. I will leave AS because I think that using our content for "training", and I'm yet to get a definitive definition of what that involved, seems to be a violation of goodwill. I want to work with companies and people that will collaborate for the good of the whole. If this "training" is in fact code for using parts of our images forever through AI then that's a massive violation of goodwill. If "training" is not using our images forever then I'm happy for Mat from Adobe to explain it to me. Send me a message Mat.

I'm sure there will be a twilight period between hand produced art and AI produced art. So you'll all rock on for another 10 years.

Overall I've had it with bad Leaders. Leaders who tell you they are working for your good but in reality they are pushing an agenda that suits the interests of a small group. All I can do is move away from them even if it's just to preserve sanity.

If you try Firefly, you won't feel so positive about its abilities. DALL-E 2 (what Shutterstock subscribers get to use) is worse, but Firefly is only just above that.

There's a lot of buzz about a lot of AI-related stuff at the moment, and although Adobe has used PR relentlessly since March to help boost its stock price, the situation isn't (IMO) as simple as you suggest.

An analyst commenting on the inclusion of Firefly beta in Adobe Express a couple of months ago talked about Adobe wanting to paint itself as one of the AI "winners" versus "losers". Investors had been worried that if AI made images and did designs, no one would be buying Adobe's creative product subscriptions any more. Hence Adobe's hoopla about how AI was going to grow their business instead of eliminating it.

This is a short blurb from today wondering if the run-up in the stock price has gone as far as it can

https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/09/20/adobe-stocks-ai-lift-is-wearing-thin-time-to-buy-t/

+1 It's super annoying on the phone

Can we please, please, lose the blue notification bar?  Every time on my phone I have to dismiss it to see my sales total.

For the love of Pete, LOSE THE BLUE BAR!!!! ARRRGH!

It�s gone!