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Messages - jamesbenet
1
« on: May 24, 2022, 04:18 »
Very sad day, my guess is they will operate it as an independent business but start to cut commissions and restrict exclusive royalties to tiers in order to extract the highest possible profit. Say goodbye to the way things are now... The black hole swallows another star. I am wondering if uploading exclusive content on Pond5 still makes sense going forward? 
2
« on: May 24, 2022, 04:14 »
Yes, I see the erosion of sales at SS as a relentless and unstoppable force. Shareholder returns and buybacks will mean less for the artists and more for financial engineering. Whatever happened to the notion of keeping your suppliers happy?
3
« on: October 06, 2021, 13:06 »
No surprise here, it fits in the stages of decline for stock companies. The mistakes iStock did are being replicated almost as a mirrored copy. Frankly I don't mind it much as a forum where there can be no dissent is barely useful.
4
« on: September 06, 2021, 14:43 »
My non exclusive sales have been better than 2019 and 20 but out of all the new uploads which are exclusive only a couple of sales in a year. I still think exclusivity is good in the long term but it will be costly while it picks up.
5
« on: February 06, 2021, 15:37 »
Thanks for the generosity but as I need at least After Effects, ME and Protoshop, the single app coupon I got will go unused. Maybe a better way to go at this is for us CC full paid subscribers could get a lower price for the suite like a set %. I bet many are in the same boat on this issue. 
6
« on: May 26, 2020, 15:57 »
And they rejecting 9 out of 10 video uploads really doesn't help you even dream of going up another tier. This is iStock 2.0 as the thread states with an even more perfected coldness by simply obliterating contributors by a thousand blows day by day. The only solution is software that bypasses agencies and licenses contributor work by p2p letting all the little contributor island portfolios be connected. I think this is coming with blockchain in the coming years including dustributed video hosting at a low price.
7
« on: May 18, 2020, 05:02 »
Does anyone know how I can access the metadata from my audio files? I have about 250 audio files that will need a new home and I have no info saved from them. Thank you! ----------------- Update: Managed to get most of it but not the keywords as they are not visible. Titles and descriptions yes!  Now I need to re-keyword everything!
8
« on: April 15, 2020, 05:20 »
Here is another SBA site that is not the Government: https://www.sba.com/funding-a-business/government-small-business-loans/ppp/1099-independent-contractors/seems it is a 1% loan based on your last year's 1099 form. It can be forgiven but it has several locks and guidelines in how it can be spent. I think they made it extremely difficult by design. You can also be prosecuted for fraud if you spend it outside of the norms they establish. So if you use it for regular living expenses that is not allowed? I believe they are expecting you to pay for office space, business expenses, and mortgage/ rent. I will wait for more info but it is not encouraging. My income has dropped to 30% of last year which is really troubling and could be for the next 2 years. Seems to me it is a pipe dream to continue in microstock as this is imploding by the day.
9
« on: February 07, 2020, 03:47 »
No, the rejections are ridiculous lately. I have worked on TV and Film projects for nearly 20 years and my footage had a 99.7% acceptance rate as I denoise, shoot at 10bit and always stabilize if needed when not on a tripod or dolly. Lately SS has been rejecting 70% of all submissions. It is their loss at the end of the day as AS and P5 have continued to have my footage at 100% approval. My guess is that the rejections are random or made by evolving deep learning AI.
10
« on: November 08, 2019, 06:04 »
I see bulk submissions of video factories passing right through, could be just my impression but my guess is they don't want to anger their big money makers. It may also be some kind of AI doing it and randomly shooting down submissions. Lets see if this corrects on it's own.
All rejected footage accepted elsewhere with no issues, hmmm!
11
« on: November 07, 2019, 19:39 »
After a nearly spotless record of acceptance at shutterstock in video I an now getting 4 out of 5 rejected for ridiculous reasons like noise and artifacts when the footage is clean and denoised even when shot at ISO 100 in daytime on a GH5 at 10bits. My workflow has not changed and all of the rejected have been accepted with no issues at Pond5 and AS. My guess is SS is going to start rejecting most non factory submissions. 16 years of producing footage and now boom SS acceptance wall.
I really find it disheartening after allnthe work I put in creating and processing these videos. I have never had a refund and sell thousands of clips a year on all sites combined.
Anyone noticed something similar in video?
12
« on: August 08, 2019, 04:24 »
The marketplace was great for most contributors and got footage to clients at a lower price than other sites while giving us a fair comission. I feel a huge opportunity is wasted and our time to upload and keyword content which I count in the hundreds of hours is now useless. Feel betrayed and forced to join a program that will pay pennies. How is that good for contributors? It may be good for SB as an Amazon Prime like business model and for buyers with a buffet of content for peanuts, but for us it is a path to insolvency in an already harsh market.
13
« on: July 19, 2019, 15:24 »
My Pond5 sales have tanked 60% since the exclusivity announcement. Something definately has changed. SS is also much slower than normal in video. Have we reached critical mass? 
14
« on: July 09, 2019, 18:49 »
It all sounds good until you see that it is mostly a free for all that will get lower price per clip as more artists join. The pilot program produced good results probably because the sample size was small. If a few thousand join then expect pennies per clip as the pie is split more and more. The only way this could work is by limiting the clip number like SS and other subscriptions work. Want more you pay more and while some will use their full numbers, most clients will download much less than what their plan produced making it workable. In the pricing table below you can see that a 5 limit is set at the $19 level but becomes a buffet at the two other packages which may mean pennies/download. I want to see more numbers and projections from SB that really show what you can expect. They should have kept the old model and gotten a cut of 50% then all would be good without hiding the marketplace.
15
« on: January 27, 2019, 21:56 »
Good catch!
Also you get this pop up that basically scares you to see the marketplace results when you select it on the left column, It makes it even more difficult for making potential buyers search.
I have contacted VB with my concerns as a complete lack of sales is pushing me to stop uploading and re examine the future if it continues.
16
« on: December 21, 2018, 19:02 »
From a high of 900/mo now just one single $35 sale. How quick VB fell to the lowest earners is troubling. All they had was price was lower now at the same price buyers stay on the big 4. Sad news to end the year.
17
« on: November 05, 2018, 17:02 »
The keywording Adobe tool needs to include copy and paste of blocks of keywords (Preferably in a box field). Right now it is one by one which is slow and painful. Fotolia has this before upload and this needs to be implemented before and after upload to streamline contributor file preparation and maintenance. Thank you!
18
« on: October 13, 2018, 18:57 »
Just got my first $39.50 commission from a $79 sale. Seems things are finally moving along with the announced changes. 
19
« on: August 06, 2018, 15:46 »
17% down compared to May or June. Until Getty/ iStock reports I won't know the whole picture but it seems to be the usual summer slowdown.
Lots of $1.5 video sales on SS which is very troubling. I find it hard to believe so many websites are using video backdrops like that. My guess is someone is gaming the system and getting videos on the cheap.
20
« on: July 19, 2018, 20:31 »
I think I qualify for the Video part CC as I have met the requirements, have not received a message yet, so maybe in the next few days? I already bought my Adobe CC Yearly plan so It would be great if I can save the code for renewal next year. Thank you for giving us contributors this perk, since many of us are loyal Adobe customers it is just one more reason to stick with the platform.
21
« on: July 16, 2018, 16:13 »
I echo your sentiments John, I believe if they said 70% or even 65% instead of 50% this could have gone much better. As the commission now stands to be $24.50 for HD then it falls into the lesser pay brackets of other sites. The sales have been reduced drastically from a year ago and now the cut makes it even less inviting to upload. I've never sold a 4k clip there and never have had a non-subscription member buy a clip either. Used to have a couple of dozen sales a month and this July so far is just 1 sale which is probably the lowest in 3 years. They need to get us above the bottom of the barrel commissions to work out the lower sales and do not necessarily believe sales will flood in after the changes have been made. We all knew the business model was due to change, but this is quite drastic without a gradual approach. My letter to them.
Hello,
As a videoblocks artist with thousands of high quality clips here I am saddened by your news! You are now going to be one of the lowest earners per clip sale instead of the highest. This will force me to not give you certain content due to the low pricing return! A much better move would be to stay the leader for artist is to be at 75% instead of 50%. I have been in this industry for years and this is a mistake! You should have also lowered your 4k price to $150.00. You see the value is in the buyer getting a great price for subscribing to your service and the artist getting a great return a win win in this industry. Now you are lower and offer less features you will not be able to compete with Getty, Adobe and Pond5, shutterstock unless you stand out. What made you stand out is how you treated the artist! Sorry to see this go out the window.
John
CraftedShutter
22
« on: June 20, 2018, 20:11 »
So about 5 days ago something changed in the Adobe Stock site and the Ordering keywords dialogue box in our portfolios is now behaving badly. The area for selecting and writing triggers the move and drag on the mouse instead of the text select cursor.
This should only be after the text box not within. This makes it extremely frustrating to order and fix the relevance on keywords. The image attached shows the area that is not working properly in Red. Note I tried all sorts of browsers from Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Explorer/edge and all have the problems.
Please Fix this as it was before just 5 days ago, it seems to be a problem with the cursor area script being broken in some update.
Thank you!
23
« on: May 07, 2018, 21:51 »
Just got another $1.50 license. This really sucks!  seen 2 or three of these recently.
24
« on: March 06, 2018, 18:57 »
Got a new email today, it Seems Artbeats Owned Collection will now be most stock sites. Funny how they rejected Microstock artists left and right and they ended up with us undesirables anyway.  see below, let the dilution begin: ________________________________________________________ For almost 30 years, the Artbeats name has been synonymous with high quality footage and service. Now that our office and website are closed, we are happy to announce that you will still be able to find Artbeats-owned footage from this list of hand-curated resellers. Be sure and check them out! Artbeats footage now available through these resellers: Pond5 A multi-media market place for footage, music, images and more. Our clips are listed under the name ArtbeatsExpress. Here is a direct link. Adobe Stock Artbeats footage is easy to acquire within AfterEffects, Premier and Photoshop. Click here for direct link. Getty Images A full service content provider and a suggested reseller for large volume licenses. Click here to find our footage on Getty Shutterstock To find Artbeats footage at this multi-media marketplace, click here. Newscom We have entrusted Newscom to match our values, customer service, research services and custom licensing. If you like us, you will love Newscom! Newscom will carry the most complete set of the Artbeats-owned footage available. You will find them at newscom.com. Dissolve Footage distributor servicing high-end advertising and production markets. Click here to explore. Overflight Stock Highly recommended for custom service. They will find and license Artbeats' aerials to fit your project. www.overflightstock.comAmana Our full service provider in Japan. Click here to find Artbeats footage.
25
« on: February 28, 2018, 02:10 »
I'm not updating Premiere or After Effects. Agencies should really get together and have a workflow for PC users who are probably the majority of their contributors. Is h.264 maximum quality as good as PJPEG? I have never seen this as the case while transcoding.
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