Author Topic: Help-looking for list of negatives stock events (Read 5104 times)

rene · « **on:** June 24, 2014, 21:28 »

It is almost 7 years I am a part microstock world. In the beginning I was enthusiastic but with years it changed.
Today my relation with sites is closer to hate than love. The problem is that with time I forgot why I don't like agencies... Sometimes when I discuss with people and want to be very factual I lack of arguments.
For example I deleted my portfolio from Fotolia and I think it was related to the event when Bobby Deal was banned. What it was?
The only date I remember is September 2010 and iStock beginning of the end.
Is there any place where we can find this kind information? Different events related to sock agencies?
Thanks
BTW, In the title I put "negative" events as I don't think there were positives ones...

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #1 on:** June 25, 2014, 01:00 »

I don't know that anyone has a complete list of all the nasty stuff, but there is some I've covered in blog posts (in reverse chronological order) - and there are links in those posts (to Sean Locke's blog covering Getty giving him the boot, for example):

http://www.digitalbristles.com/first-and-last-warning/

http://www.digitalbristles.com/we-still-need-fair-trade/

http://www.digitalbristles.com/beware-the-ides-of-march/

http://www.digitalbristles.com/we-need-fair-trade/

http://www.digitalbristles.com/leaving-istock-sadly/

http://www.digitalbristles.com/time-of-turmoil/

Uncle Pete · « **Reply #2 on:** June 25, 2014, 12:48 »

Sad reading, but well done and interesting Jo Ann.

Here's a timeline:

Microstock concept created - about 2003:

The pioneer of microstock photography was Bruce Livingstone, who created iStockphoto, originally a free stock photo site that quickly became an industry phenomenon. Many other sites sprang up in the years after iStockphoto's inception. Shutterstock is founded in 2003 by entrepreneur Jon Oringer.

2006, things start to go downhill:

Livingstone sold iStockphoto to Getty Images in February 2006 for 50 million US dollars. Larger, reasonably successful new entries into the market are Fotolia, 123RF, Dreamstime and Bigstock.

2007: Digital cameras become affordable and everyone who buys A DSLR becomes a professional, overnight sensation. People are making money taking snapshots and getting paid a quarter a download and more.

2008: Agencies start cutting commissions, breaking promises, altering pay tables and achievement levels, retracting artist favorable benefits like referral bonus. Microstock is declared "Unsustainable". Supply and demand for creative images has just reached the tipping point. There are now millions of new photos created each month.

2009: Depositphotos is founded, investing heavily in bribing artists for their works, by paying 25c a file up front. Need and greed, millions of images are uploaded by desperate artists, making DP the first new site to be a success since about 2005. This is done by smart understanding of Microstock, good programming and systematically copying every possible plan and system from the established agencies, while selling for even less.

The race to the bottom accelerates, agencies have tens of millions of images to offer, artists have been reduced to the smallest commission while their slice of the pie, shrinks as millions more new images are uploaded and entered into the market, by still more competition, including imaging factories.

2014: Here we are, still going downhill like a speeding locomotive, with no brakes. Oh don't worry, buyers and agencies are doing just fine...

Ed · « **Reply #3 on:** June 25, 2014, 20:27 »

Quote from: rene on June 24, 2014, 21:28

It is almost 7 years I am a part microstock world. In the beginning I was enthusiastic but with years it changed.
Today my relation with sites is closer to hate than love. The problem is that with time I forgot why I don't like agencies... Sometimes when I discuss with people and want to be very factual I lack of arguments.
For example I deleted my portfolio from Fotolia and I think it was related to the event when Bobby Deal was banned. What it was?
The only date I remember is September 2010 and iStock beginning of the end.
Is there any place where we can find this kind information? Different events related to sock agencies?
Thanks
BTW, In the title I put "negative" events as I don't think there were positives ones...

I think many of those events are better left to each person's business experience rather than speculation and rumor. There were many things/events that went on behind the scenes at different agencies (and there continue to be behind the scene deals) - many of these events are suppressed by confidentiality agreements (some still active and others expired) that are better left to be discussed under the discretion of the parties involved than to be speculated upon.

For what it's worth, I believe Bobby is the one that told Fotolia where to go and removed his portfolio from their site because of their business practices...and I know there were other photographers that did the same at the same time. The best thing to do to get the complete story is to contact Bobby himself.

gbalex · « **Reply #4 on:** June 25, 2014, 22:57 »

Quote from: rene on June 24, 2014, 21:28

It is almost 7 years I am a part microstock world. In the beginning I was enthusiastic but with years it changed.
Today my relation with sites is closer to hate than love. The problem is that with time I forgot why I don't like agencies... Sometimes when I discuss with people and want to be very factual I lack of arguments.
For example I deleted my portfolio from Fotolia and I think it was related to the event when Bobby Deal was banned. What it was?
The only date I remember is September 2010 and iStock beginning of the end.
Is there any place where we can find this kind information? Different events related to sock agencies?
Thanks
BTW, In the title I put "negative" events as I don't think there were positives ones...

http://tinyurl.com/owg724t

Quote from: photoshow on November 02, 2009, 19:30

Quote from: dirkr on October 23, 2009, 07:27
Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on October 23, 2009, 06:40
Hmmm. I wonder why would they risk alienating a lot of their existing contributors to go after what appears to be a fairly small group of new contributors?

And the fact that maybe only a small percentage of that small group will bite.

Why the would risk alienating ther existing contributors?
That's simple.
Because they have done time and time again in the past without any noticeable impact on their bottom line. Sure, there will be some ranting and complains in the forums, maybe even a few contributors may leave, but after a few weeks it's back to business as usual...

That's why they'll do it.

SOP for Fotolia is if you complain loudly about the way they treat you as a contributor they delete your account and deny you any further referral earnings even when you still have 2 years of referral earnings left from referring top contributors to them.

Fair and honest treatment of the contributor base has never been part of the company credo. I spent many hours consulting (for free) back and forth with Oleg when he was first launching FT and in my personal opinion in the end as in the beginning he never showed any true concern for anything other then his own profit position in the operation. The contributors are simply a means to an end for him and that end is personal profit. Of course we all get into business with profit as the goal but in the case of FT it would seem to be the only true aspiration of the company. I expect that were I to sit down and extrapolate my potential earnings at FT over the past year had I not been railroaded off the site for standing up for contributor rights that I have lost out on $12,000 or more in royalty and referral earnings that would have come as the result of the elevated ranking which I was denied in the last ranking fiasco. Fotolia has a long and well documented track history of mistreating their contributor base yet the staus quo is maintained there. This change will no doubt go forward as has every other change in the history of the agency. In the end a handful will suffer the closing of their accounts and involuntary deleting of their portfolios and after a short time the roar will quiet and it will be business as usual at Fotolia until they announce their next scheme meant to further trample the rights of their contributor base.

gbalex · « **Reply #5 on:** June 25, 2014, 23:32 »

At shutterstock the downward slide for many contributors started when Jon brought in outside venture capitol investors, prior to the IPO the first thing they did was make changes that would enable them to manipulate the search.

The wide perception is that Jon is in control of Shutterstock, when that is no longer the case. He gave up a large portion of control when he invited Insight Venture Partners into shutterstock as investors.

Take a good look at Insight Venture Partners and how much SSTK stock has been granted at a cost of $0. They break themselves up into multiple companies to hide just how much of the company they own. http://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1305473.htm

Take a look at how many options they grant themselves as well as more options granted at the cost of $0 for the new executive team members which they placed within shutterstock. Note how many shares these key stake holders have subsequently sold. We are no longer dealing with single owners at many of these sites. We are dealing with the wallstreet crowd and all that comes with their influence and inside manipulations to drive stock prices up. http://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1549346.htm

Insight Venture Partners
PDF Document Creating a Successful IPO

http://tinyurl.com/mubpw4m

Re the Above Document reports that Insight Venture Partners worked closely with Jon, to recruit a new executive team at Shutterstock, in particular the President, CFO, CTO, VPCD and other mid-level managers. http://www.insightpartners.com/assets/Uploads/SuccessStory/Shutterstock.pdf

Shutterstock Team At Insight Venture Partners: Jeff Lieberman, Jeff Horing, Hilary Gosher, Cian Cotter

Jeff Lieberman Board Director At Shutterstock, Inc.
Independent Director at Shutterstock, Inc. and a Managing Director at Insight Venture Management LLC. He is on the Board of Directors at Cvent, Inc., Shutterstock, Inc., Call24, Inc., HauteLook, Inc., Karmaloop, Inc., Ecova, Inc., Mimecast Ltd., and Tongal, Inc.
http://people.equilar.com/bio/jeffrey-lieberman-cvent--inc./salary/530332#.U6hBt7FRdeA

Insight Venture Partners Tech Support
Mentored and worked closely with shutterstocks existing technology development team prior to James Chou CTO joining Shutterstock

James Chou CTO
Chief Technology Officer at Shutterstock, Inc.
Insight Venture Partners Introduced James Chou to Shutterstock from Insight’s network
http://people.equilar.com/bio/james-chou-shutterstock--inc./salary/800789#.U6hB8LFRdeA

Thilo Semmelbauer President
President and Chief Operating Officer at Shutterstock, Inc.
http://people.equilar.com/bio/thilo-semmelbauer-shutterstock--inc./salary/723350#.U6hCVrFRdeA

Timothy E. Bixby CFO
Chief Financial Officer at Shutterstock, Inc.
http://people.equilar.com/bio/timothy-bixby-shutterstock--inc./salary/27954#.U6hCp7FRdeA

David Fraga VPCD
Vice President, Corporate Development at Shutterstock
Previously an Insight Venture Partners Employee - Analyst at Insight Venture Partners
http://tinyurl.com/q4xdd6k

Recent INSIGHT VENTURE MANAGEMENT's SSTK stock sales sales. http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/Stock/SSTK/insideractions

Shares Sold

Date Name Shares Sold @ $85
06/12/2014 INSIGHT VENTURE MANAGEMENT LLC 127,285
06/12/2014 INSIGHT VENTURE MANAGEMENT LLC 750,000
06/12/2014 INSIGHT VENTURE MANAGEMENT LLC 333,331
06/12/2014 INSIGHT VENTURE MANAGEMENT LLC 92,654
06/12/2014 INSIGHT VENTURE MANAGEMENT LLC 17,993
06/12/2014 INSIGHT VENTURE MANAGEMENT LLC 306,022
Total Shares 1,627,285
Value $138,319,225

Shares Sold

For Insight Venture Partners alone in its various renditions, as of June 2014 the total shares sold totals over 12,301,132 shares. There could also be more out there that I've overlooked.

Date SSTK Sold
6/12/2014 1,627,285
2/27/2014 2,174,421
1/21/2014 405,568
1/16/2014 2,703,784
9/25/2013 3,220,000
5/21/2013 2,170,074

Total Shares Sold 12,301,132

http://www.secform4.com/filings/1549346/000114036114025822.htm
http://www.secform4.com/filings/1549346/000114036113022555.htm
http://www.secform4.com/filings/1549346/000114036114010620.htm
http://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1549346.htm

http://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1549346.htm
Date Name Shares Value
2013-09-25 INSIGHT VENTURE 3,220,000 $193,200,000

2014-06-12 Insight Holdings Group, LLC
1,500,000 $25.25 $37,875,000

2014-01-21 Insight Holdings Group, LLC
405,568 $35.5 $14,397,664

2014-01-16 Insight Holdings Group, LLC
2,703,784 $35.5 $95,984,332

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #6 on:** June 26, 2014, 03:04 »

Good info, GBalex, if not particularly pleasant to see.

rene · « **Reply #7 on:** June 29, 2014, 08:09 »

Thank you all for info.
Jo Ann, congratulation, you have very nice and instructive website.

gbalex · « **Reply #8 on:** June 30, 2014, 09:16 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on June 26, 2014, 03:04

Good info, GBalex, if not particularly pleasant to see.

I agree, it is not pleasant, however it helps to know who you are dealing with when making long term business decisions.

Note I updated the shares sold totals. Insight Venture Partners uses various names and I excluded sales from all key insider executives.

For Insight Venture Partners alone in its various renditions, as of June 2014 the total shares sold totals over 12,301,132 shares. There could also be more out there that I've overlooked.

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Author Topic: Help-looking for list of negatives stock events (Read 5104 times)

rene

Jo Ann Snover

Uncle Pete

Ed

gbalex

gbalex

BaldricksTrousers

rene

gbalex

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