Hello, I thought all of you might enjoy this https://youtu.be/Cpgu8UVrvaM   Would love to hear your opinions on this below! Thanks

Thank-you so much! Fixed the link sorry about that!

Love the video!

And I agree that Adobe is fantastic in the way they communicate with artists and the offer of getting a free creative cloud set for a year is very, very generous.

They do need to add better buyer tools. I think at this point buyers still cannot search my portfolio by keyword when they come to my site.

However my personal favorite is blackboxglobal.

It is really simple to just upload once and then let them distribute and they have a wonderfully alive and vibrant community in their facebook group.

The team spirit seems to be even stronger than what I remember from the old istock exclusive days.

I also think having a happily chirping producer community of 50 000 people creates a lot of positive vibes on the net. If they ever decide to also sell direct or maybe add a new stock media division with material for direct licensing, they are well set up to do that.

I hope Adobe improves the buying tools for their customers and then gets a lot more sales.

The more artist friendly sites should also be the most customer friendly sites. I believe that either you know how to be of service to people and can communicate well, or you can�t.

Love the video!

However my personal favorite is blackboxglobal.

No one of professional stock contributors will throw away 15% of their commission to give it to black box.
If you use tools like stocksubmitter it�s same easy, but you have your 15% with you.
Bb only for nobrainers, because �it�s easier�.

Nice vid by the way, i love having access to info like that!


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Thank-you for all the kind comments! I am just tryin to give people good information on this industry. No do do not have to be all Exclusive on Pond5, it started that way and then they changed it which only confused people and was a bod move. I will do my best to keep us all in the loop the best I can. I love BB as well and the 15% is a wash as you get a higher % from SS per download as you would on your own. Not for everyone but it is not a bad choice for stock in my opinion.  I did not include them as they are not a stock agency.

Quote from: Teraphim on November 09, 2019, 05:27

Quote from: cobalt on November 09, 2019, 02:41

Love the video!

However my personal favorite is blackboxglobal.

No one of professional stock contributors will throw away 15% of their commission to give it to black box.
If you use tools like stocksubmitter it�s same easy, but you have your 15% with you.
Bb only for nobrainers, because �it�s easier�.

This has been in my mind as well. Why pay that extra 15% for something that stock submitter does. Especially since it allows you to have control of your images.

Don't understand the bit about SS giving higher royalty through blackbox

Still a newbie but except giving away an extra 15% for someone that might never heard and describe / keyword correct any local or folklore content I upload, I don't get how people are excited that their files are "submitted to all major agencies" without control after all those stories and threads I have read here about "how can I pull my content off {agency}" problems. I don't believe that I produce that high quality that any client will ever ask exclusive rights and I will have to pull a file out of a marketplace, I simply want to have control over my files.

?

Quote from: jjneff on November 09, 2019, 20:55

I love BB as well and the 15% is a wash as you get a higher % from SS per download as you would on your own.

Since Blackbox is in Canada. Do they disclose the 10% that the IRS withholds for Canadians on Film Royalties? or have they found away around that?

That seems to be more like  23.5% rather than 15%

and Does the CRA withhold another 10% when Blackbox pays out to US residents?
31.2% if that's the case.

I can't answer the tax questions, BB gets a higher % than you on your own and passes that along to you so you get more per sale on ShuttterStock. Now keep in mind this service is not for everyone! If you want full control over your work then do not use BB! It is a huge time saver and you need to factor that in as well as time is money. To each their own on this.

But how do they get higher percentage? Do they have a special contract with SS?

I'm thinking of trying a test batch.  I like the revenue share (for co-productions) function.  Is there a payout minimum? 

I like the revenue share (for co-productions) function.  Is there a payout minimum?

The revenue sharing is the only reason I'd use BB. I wish agencies did this themselves.

And no, I got a $4.66 payout from them once.

They want the material to be exclusive, so you can remove a series and give it to them, however they prefer new material  obviously. They do not  encourage you to give up or close other portfolios, the way pond5 did.

I treat bb as an additional agency.

With 167 of mostly editorial clips I earned 633 dollars in 16 months. I am 100% certain I would have earned less if I had distributed  myself. They are not stellar clips.

They don�t just have their own royalty negotiations that an individual contributor cannot do, unless you are a stock machine, they also seem to get better rankings in search engines.

I often find my bb material before clips from my individual portfolio.

However, I will always also send to ny own ports.

For those who complain about the 15%...many of us in photos also work with distributors like cavan, eyeem, westend or even stocksy that distributes via adobe.

But there you anyway get just 50% and with distribution costs, I might just be getting 10% of what the buyer actually paid.

Also pond5 distributes via partners and they take 60%. On a distribution sale you have no idea what your real royalty is.

So distribution via bb is much cheaper than pond5 partner deals.

On vimeo I have clips via bb and also pond5. if both have the same royalty with vimeo then I will get a lot more with bb.

I feel that is a problem and hope in the future it can be addressed, at least let us know what sites accepted our clips.

Another issue I have with BB is when my clips get reviewed, it says "online" in my admin panel.  But, online where?  Which agencies took the clips?  Which agencies rejected any? 

And if some were rejected, what was the reason?  Perhaps it was something that could be fixed simply and resubmitted, but I don't know what the issue was or from where the rejection came from.

That's a big concern.  Especially with Shutterstock's recent rejection of photo releases over penmanship and correctable minutia.  I wouldn't want to left in the dark if old releases need replacement. 

Quote from: trek on November 10, 2019, 21:00

I like the revenue share (for co-productions) function.  Is there a payout minimum?

The revenue sharing is the only reason I'd use BB. I wish agencies did this themselves.

And no, I got a $4.66 payout from them once.

+1 revenue sharing is great, I'm using BB when I film stuff with friends and colleagues to make it fair for everybody. I'm also using it to do metadata for others when I'm in between shoots. I definitely see BB as an additional agency with good returns, and I keep my own work on my personal portfolios.

Like it or not you earn more on BB through SS then you do on SS alone they are just not sharing that! Feel free to ask others as well.

Like it or not you earn more on BB through SS then you do on SS alone they are just not sharing that! Feel free to ask others as well.

How you earn more if commissions are fixed and you pay additional 15%? How much exactly you receive for hd and for 4K?

I know someone who negotiated 40% at SS.  So I do believe SS offers higher commission rates under certain conditions.

If I had known this was an option (and I had a good library to negotiate with), I would have tried to get more than the standard 30%.

Oh well.

Yes they have a different contract with them.

The business model Is probably good at the moment but noone can be sure that this kind of contract will be alive forever...
For this reason I say "no thanks" to BB.
In couple of years It could happen to see royalties going down and down without any chance to opt out.

Finally: it's rare but It happens to receive an exclusive request. I got one few months ago, I was payed near to 1k for eight months exclusivity. And I could not sign the contract without having full control of my production.
Just Do your choice

Well i'm also suspicious about the claim that they are getting more, but even telling some numbers won't really make justice in this question, as video commisions are all over the place at SS anyways. In my experience a HD sale can yield anything from 1.5 USD to 140. Maybe most of them seem to be in the 18-25 range with all kind off different numbers but really it seems to me that it can be anything

And Shutterstock doesn't even show if a sale was HD or 4K. I just know that i've had commissions over 100USD even for clips that are not available in 4k

For 4K you receive around 54$ at shutterstock.
For hd/4K you can receive from 1,5$ and up to 300$
Bb is for newbies that don�t want to bother themselves.
If you work professionally � you wouldn�t pay someone additional 15% and you want control. That�s all.

I would not call it exclusive. You can not duplicate files on other sites, you are free to say upload to Getty if you wish as they do not submit to them.

Hey, They do not submit to StoryBlocks after their stunt.

Thanks for sharing the video, very interesting... I upload to Pond 5, SS and Adobe. To me adobe is the most friendly to upload and use, and in the beginning (I started on micro video ending 2017) Adobe was better than SS, whit a rate of 200 $ at month (a bit more a bit less) but since 7 or 8 months Adobe has decrease a lot my sales, today is dificult to make more to 100, when the number of files uploaded has been increased (2.000 clips today)... I dont know why, maybe the Fotalia ending, who knows...

I dont know why, maybe the Fotalia ending, who knows...

I can't speak as to why sales are lower for you now, but Stock sales has far exceeded Fotolia for some time.  Trust me - I have watched it for a few years. 

Decrease is very noticeable, something happened in June and never recovered...