they have locked down submissions for everyone and are going to remove portfolios. only high quality content will be allowed. they will stop reviewing and give approved authors control over content and pricing. this project will take 12 months to complete,

ow and they will start offering subscriptions for buyers

Just received the email. Not sure what to think about it. On one hand, I'm glad that there are efforts to stop uncontrollable influx of new low-quality content. On the other hand, Envato has fallen from 7% of my income in 2012 to mere 2% this year. Am I really going to invest time into curating the portfolio at Envato myself? Probably not.
And also... they only want to keep high-quality content and they are going to sell it through cheap subscriptions. How genious. Keep the best, sell it cheap, and even let contributors themselves do the curating work under the threat of closing their account. I don't like


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That has always been their game. Wanting the best with bells and whistles then giving it away for pennies. Why I stopped working with them.

they have locked down submissions for everyone and are going to remove portfolios. only high quality content will be allowed. they will stop reviewing and give approved authors control over content and pricing. this project will take 12 months to complete,

ow and they will start offering subscriptions for buyers

That's quite an intriguing thing to do the day after they accepted me as a contributor. Sounds like they are best forgotten.

After getting rid of a lot of contributors by making the tax situation unclear, this will probably get rid of a lot of buyers.  Just look how badly GLStockImages did when they stopped new submissions.

I haven't taken a lot of notice of what's going in on this site, only to go in and get a pay out from time to time.  I have just been and had a look and of about 140$ earnt in the last 30 days about 40$ was deducted in tax and 77$ deducted in fees leaving me with 23$ !!   I'm sure it didn't used to be like that.  Has something changed.  I think I used to average about 70$ a month before not 23 !!

stock site suicide 

After getting rid of a lot of contributors by making the tax situation unclear, this will probably get rid of a lot of buyers.  Just look how badly GLStockImages did when they stopped new submissions.

Yes.  And they've never recovered.  Once the buyers leave, they don't come back.

I haven't taken a lot of notice of what's going in on this site, only to go in and get a pay out from time to time.  I have just been and had a look and of about 140$ earnt in the last 30 days about 40$ was deducted in tax and 77$ deducted in fees leaving me with 23$ !!   I'm sure it didn't used to be like that.  Has something changed.  I think I used to average about 70$ a month before not 23 !!

It's because you haven't filled out the tax forms. Same forms you have to fill out at Shutterstock, Dreamstime etc.

They are withholding 30% US tax and if you are non-exclusive your normal rate would be 36%.

The big problem here is that they probably withheld 30% tax from 80% of the sale price (BEFORE author fees) which of course is what everyone is pissed off at.

Simple solution is to fill out the tax forms and hope you're from a 0% tax treaty country.

Are sales there really worth the effort of sorting it out?

Not in my experience.  I stopped uploading there a couple of years ago due to weird rejections and low sales.   Be glad they saved you the bother.

yes it still works - with web uloader too - "should I stay or should I go???!!"

So much positive answers on the Envato forum that at last they seem fake��

Hey All,

Thanks for taking the time to comment.  I just wanted to let you know that we're reading all your comments.  We're responding to questions and thoughts from our official post (https://forums.envato.com/t/adjusting-our-focus-a-new-approach-for-photos-at-envato/).  We'd love to have your input into the discussion there and we'll do our best to answer any questions you might have.

Thanks,

James.

Why not here?

Hey All,

Thanks for taking the time to comment.  I just wanted to let you know that we're reading all your comments.  We're responding to questions and thoughts ....

Good. You are very welcome.

...and since you are reading: when do you give up the shady "Marketplace" concept and get a real Agency with a transparent tax paradigm?

$29 currently, going up to the regular price of $49 at some point. The revenue split is 50% to Envato and 50% to authors, although there's some kind of modifier based on the value of the item... so you'll get less for a photo than a website template.

So it's impossible to say what you'll get per photo until it's been running a while and there's some historical data from contributors. The more they download the less you'll get, but they do have something slightly different that might stop people downloading millions of files a month... each item needs to be registered for a specific use. So you can't just download stuff for fun and use it in any old thing. If you do, then you don't have a valid license to use it. Sure, that's open to abuse and there's no real way to check, and I'm sure it will be abused by a minority of subscribers... but I'd like to think the majority of buyers play by the rules. Otherwise none of us would ever get any extended license sales.

But yeah, whether it's going to be profitable for contributors remains to be seen. If it's a reasonable addition to sales in addition to marketplace earnings then happy days. Time will tell.

All that's going to happen is Envanto is going to yield an exclusive, limited, much smaller collection whereby buyers with simple needs who need small sizes will simply defect. It's my personal belief that envanto want's a very exclusive buyer base who is willing to pay more in some cases, yet they are trying to keep some buyers with that horrible subs plan....unlimited downloads for $49.....WOW.  The good news is that many of their buyers will defect to another micro.  So as they push out contributors they also push out buyers.  Nice move Envanto.

Can people opt out of it?

Quote from: Pauws99 on November 23, 2016, 15:56

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on November 23, 2016, 06:44

Couple of bits...

https://forums.envato.com/t/switch-to-single-resolution-for-photos/74586

https://forums.envato.com/t/envato-elements-update-future-plans/72682

It seems to be going down very well with customers...............

well, they have to pay more instead of less, good for us but of course a buyer is going to moan. we should tell the buyer to consider the photographer as well. or are we now backing the buyer in saying that our images are not worth more than 1 dollar, *

No they don't have to pay more they can go somewhere else which they probably will

Serious question:
Why do I get $4 sales on files that cost $5, $2.4 sales on files that cost $3, etc...  And that's before you deduct your shady fees and taxes..

1. 20% so called buyer fee. 80% of list price remains.
2a. 55% author fee if non-exclusive after that.
2b. 12.5%-37.5% author fee if exclusive.
3. U.S. tax if from a non-treaty country, a country with >0% tax treaty or if you haven't filled out the forms.

I have just uploaded 47 images on Photodune (by ftp and then on the site) without any problem

That's a good sign. You may be a among the small selected group of high quality content contributors.

They used to give a top authors list. I last looked a few months ago I was just hanging on 100-ish position. I'm not too sure I could make it.