Quote from: dirkr on February 08, 2017, 18:10

Quote from: langstrup on February 08, 2017, 15:59

I�m in - But got about 20% of my port deleted. Guess it�s fine if that can help up the overall quality

Are you happy that your images will now be available as unlimited downloads for $49 a month?

Nope im not. I�m checking up on the prices/terms within the next couple days, and if 49$ get�s unlimited downloads we�re out of there :-)

From their forum:

Q:    Will inclusion in Elements be mandatory? Selling unlimited subscriptions for $49 / month is insane, that's just undercutting all other markets and will only lead to further erosion of photographers income.

A:     At this stage, yes.

https://forums.envato.com/t/adjusting-our-focus-a-new-approach-for-photos-at-envato/73708/19?u=dirk-r

DICKR - Well that�s it then. I�m giving them 24 hours to answer our mail, and if they dont comply our specific terms we are deleting our account there :-)

Did the same when Depositphotos tried to be smart, and so did a lot of other pro�s. Now they only have crap images at Deposit 

maybe its good for people to know you work for envato, so they can take that into consideration when they read your comments.

Envato is a garbage company. It's been fairly obvious for years. Even some of the voices here that shamelessly defended them in the past, their loyalty rewarded by having their image portfolios deleted and a middle finger. This is why it's bad to support garbage companies, even if you're making a few bucks in the short term. I don't think there's anyone not part of the Envato employees and volunteers team defending them anymore.

What's really sad is that tons of people will come right back to whatever the next pile of crap they try to pull happens to be.

DICKR - Well that�s it then. I�m giving them 24 hours to answer our mail, and if they dont comply our specific terms we are deleting our account there :-)

Did the same when Depositphotos tried to be smart, and so did a lot of other pro�s. Now they only have crap images at Deposit 

Your images are so good! Please don't accept less. You deserve more. I deleted my port with DP as well...

Quote from: Daryl Ray on February 09, 2017, 17:09

Envato is a garbage company. It's been fairly obvious for years. Even some of the voices here that shamelessly defended them in the past, their loyalty rewarded by having their image portfolios deleted and a middle finger. This is why it's bad to support garbage companies, even if you're making a few bucks in the short term. I don't think there's anyone not part of the Envato employees and volunteers team defending them anymore.

What's really sad is that tons of people will come right back to whatever the next pile of crap they try to pull happens to be.

Anything specific that makes you think they're garbage? Aside from the recent PhotoDune thing of course, as I'm assuming you felt that way before that.

1. Their "niche" (with Videohive) is undercutting the leading stock videos sellers, devaluing stock videos in general in the process.

2. They are intentionally misleading potential new contributors by first stating flat out that "Our author fee to non-exclusive authors is 55% of the item price." then going on to show a pie chart that shows "net author earnings" are actually as low as 36%. Working with a company that feels comfortable to unnecessarily convolute the math this way is certainly suspect.

3. Their method of dealing with their own failures in the stock photo business is to kick most of their loyal contributors to the curb, regardless of the time and effort put forth by those contributors. Again, just evidence of their lack of care towards the ones creating and keywording the content that makes up their library.

We all know iStock is a terrible company. We should know by now that Envato isn't much better, by their behavior and lack of ethics. Contributing to them as an individual isn't going to end the world, of course, much like throwing your fast food trash out the car window into a pristine forest isn't going to either. But both show a lack of respect for the greater good, your fellow humans, and should be discouraged.

Yeah, yeah, I know some people make a few bucks there. So do people that rob old ladies on the street. Doesn't make a * difference in determining if these companies are good or bad for the industry as a whole.

Encourage and promote the good companies, and let the bad ones fail. This is our only power.

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on February 09, 2017, 18:10

Quote from: Daryl Ray on February 09, 2017, 17:09

Envato is a garbage company. It's been fairly obvious for years. Even some of the voices here that shamelessly defended them in the past, their loyalty rewarded by having their image portfolios deleted and a middle finger. This is why it's bad to support garbage companies, even if you're making a few bucks in the short term. I don't think there's anyone not part of the Envato employees and volunteers team defending them anymore.

What's really sad is that tons of people will come right back to whatever the next pile of crap they try to pull happens to be.

Anything specific that makes you think they're garbage? Aside from the recent PhotoDune thing of course, as I'm assuming you felt that way before that.

1. Their "niche" (with Videohive) is undercutting the leading stock videos sellers, devaluing stock videos in general in the process.

2. They are intentionally misleading potential new contributors by first stating flat out that "Our author fee to non-exclusive authors is 55% of the item price." then going on to show a pie chart that shows "net author earnings" are actually as low as 36%. Working with a company that feels comfortable to unnecessarily convolute the math this way is certainly suspect.

3. Their method of dealing with their own failures in the stock photo business is to kick most of their loyal contributors to the curb, regardless of the time and effort put forth by those contributors. Again, just evidence of their lack of care towards the ones creating and keywording the content that makes up their library.

We all know iStock is a terrible company. We should know by now that Envato isn't much better, by their behavior and lack of ethics. Contributing to them as an individual isn't going to end the world, of course, much like throwing your fast food trash out the car window into a pristine forest isn't going to either. But both show a lack of respect for the greater good, your fellow humans, and should be discouraged.

Yeah, yeah, I know some people make a few bucks there. So do people that rob old ladies on the street. Doesn't make a * difference in determining if these companies are good or bad for the industry as a whole.

Encourage and promote the good companies, and let the bad ones fail. This is our only power.

1. They've been around for ten years and it's not like there's been a massive rush at SS or iS to drop HD files to $8. The market is big enough for multiple sites to exist at multiple price points. 

2. The list price is the price that the item is sold for. The item price is the list price, minus the buyer's fee. It's not the clearest structure, but it's not exactly hidden either. The fact the pie chart shows $36 from a $100 sale demonstrates that. 'Confusing' would probably be more accurate than 'misleading', but all the information is there.

3. Maybe a valid point, but maybe a fresh start is what they needed. Their experiment with Unstock showed that a different approach could result in a massive increase in revenue per image, both for Envato and for the authors.

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on February 09, 2017, 18:10

Quote from: Daryl Ray on February 09, 2017, 17:09

Envato is a garbage company. It's been fairly obvious for years. Even some of the voices here that shamelessly defended them in the past, their loyalty rewarded by having their image portfolios deleted and a middle finger. This is why it's bad to support garbage companies, even if you're making a few bucks in the short term. I don't think there's anyone not part of the Envato employees and volunteers team defending them anymore.

What's really sad is that tons of people will come right back to whatever the next pile of crap they try to pull happens to be.

Anything specific that makes you think they're garbage? Aside from the recent PhotoDune thing of course, as I'm assuming you felt that way before that.

1. Their "niche" (with Videohive) is undercutting the leading stock videos sellers, devaluing stock videos in general in the process.

2. They are intentionally misleading potential new contributors by first stating flat out that "Our author fee to non-exclusive authors is 55% of the item price." then going on to show a pie chart that shows "net author earnings" are actually as low as 36%. Working with a company that feels comfortable to unnecessarily convolute the math this way is certainly suspect.

3. Their method of dealing with their own failures in the stock photo business is to kick most of their loyal contributors to the curb, regardless of the time and effort put forth by those contributors. Again, just evidence of their lack of care towards the ones creating and keywording the content that makes up their library.

We all know iStock is a terrible company. We should know by now that Envato isn't much better, by their behavior and lack of ethics. Contributing to them as an individual isn't going to end the world, of course, much like throwing your fast food trash out the car window into a pristine forest isn't going to either. But both show a lack of respect for the greater good, your fellow humans, and should be discouraged.

Yeah, yeah, I know some people make a few bucks there. So do people that rob old ladies on the street. Doesn't make a * difference in determining if these companies are good or bad for the industry as a whole.

Encourage and promote the good companies, and let the bad ones fail. This is our only power.

I was thinking exactly like you until last May and I always refused to upload to agencies that pay less than $25 commission to artists.
Now things have dramatically changed: Pond 5 has introduced their bloody membership plan where excellent files are given away for almost nothing. 200.000 files wisely chosen cover almost every subject and what is more, without garbage and without repetitions.
Artists non participating have been squeezed out by P5, as they have pushed participating ones to the top of the search engine, so it is impossible to get any sales or even any views. Sales in the marketplace area of P5 are disappearing very quickly and even some of the participating artists are feeling the pain, in spite of being rid of the competition of non participating.
Sales of footage in other agencies have gone down, as customers move more and more to the all you can eat buffet of P5 membership.
Very soon SS and FT will have to respond by offering similar prices. The new normal for price of footage is going to be single digit in 2017.
P5 has started the race to the bottom, while we could have enjoyed another 3-4 years of decent prices in the video stock market. The only hope is that will widen the market a bit by attracting a few bloggers.
In other words, thanks to P5 membership, footage market is going to be very similar to still images very soon and Envato/Videohive is very well positioned.
At the moment, rather than uploading new files in P5, where I get absolutely no visibility, I am rather concentrating in uploading my portfolio everywhere, even for $1 for file

mantis,  dont put any weight on comments from people working for an agency, they wont be critical of their employer, regardless if the work is voluntary or not

any agency rep is going to give a positive spin on whatever crap the agency comes out with

Quote from: Daryl Ray on February 20, 2017, 06:29

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on February 09, 2017, 18:10

Quote from: Daryl Ray on February 09, 2017, 17:09

Envato is a garbage company. It's been fairly obvious for years. Even some of the voices here that shamelessly defended them in the past, their loyalty rewarded by having their image portfolios deleted and a middle finger. This is why it's bad to support garbage companies, even if you're making a few bucks in the short term. I don't think there's anyone not part of the Envato employees and volunteers team defending them anymore.

What's really sad is that tons of people will come right back to whatever the next pile of crap they try to pull happens to be.

Anything specific that makes you think they're garbage? Aside from the recent PhotoDune thing of course, as I'm assuming you felt that way before that.

1. Their "niche" (with Videohive) is undercutting the leading stock videos sellers, devaluing stock videos in general in the process.

2. They are intentionally misleading potential new contributors by first stating flat out that "Our author fee to non-exclusive authors is 55% of the item price." then going on to show a pie chart that shows "net author earnings" are actually as low as 36%. Working with a company that feels comfortable to unnecessarily convolute the math this way is certainly suspect.

3. Their method of dealing with their own failures in the stock photo business is to kick most of their loyal contributors to the curb, regardless of the time and effort put forth by those contributors. Again, just evidence of their lack of care towards the ones creating and keywording the content that makes up their library.

We all know iStock is a terrible company. We should know by now that Envato isn't much better, by their behavior and lack of ethics. Contributing to them as an individual isn't going to end the world, of course, much like throwing your fast food trash out the car window into a pristine forest isn't going to either. But both show a lack of respect for the greater good, your fellow humans, and should be discouraged.

Yeah, yeah, I know some people make a few bucks there. So do people that rob old ladies on the street. Doesn't make a * difference in determining if these companies are good or bad for the industry as a whole.

Encourage and promote the good companies, and let the bad ones fail. This is our only power.

1. They've been around for ten years and it's not like there's been a massive rush at SS or iS to drop HD files to $8. The market is big enough for multiple sites to exist at multiple price points. 

2. The list price is the price that the item is sold for. The item price is the list price, minus the buyer's fee. It's not the clearest structure, but it's not exactly hidden either. The fact the pie chart shows $36 from a $100 sale demonstrates that. 'Confusing' would probably be more accurate than 'misleading', but all the information is there.

3. Maybe a valid point, but maybe a fresh start is what they needed. Their experiment with Unstock showed that a different approach could result in a massive increase in revenue per image, both for Envato and for the authors.

Ok, here's my thoughts again, with further clarification from a Videohive staff member's input applied:

1. They have been around for 10 years and still their only "niche" (with Videohive) is undercutting the leading stock videos sellers, devaluing stock videos in general in the process. For example, Pond5 HAS introduced a membership program to counter the lowball companies like Envato. And while no, Pond5 does not favor those member clips, it's a clear response to the value of video being driven down.

2. They are intentionally misleading confusing potential new contributors by first stating flat out that "Our author fee to non-exclusive authors is 55% of the item price." then going on to show a pie chart that shows "net author earnings" are actually as low as 36%. Working with a company that feels comfortable to unnecessarily convolute the math this way is certainly suspect.

3. Their method of dealing with their own failures in the stock photo business is to kick most of their loyal contributors to the curb, regardless of the time and effort put forth by those contributors. Again, just evidence of their lack of care towards the ones creating and keywording the content that makes up their library. This may result in a massive increase in revenue per image, for Envato, because unless you've been under a rock for the last 10 or so years, the stock companies (especially the less reputable ones) ALWAYS WITHOUT EXCEPTION tilt the scales only further in their favor, not ours. Because we let them and defend them without deeper thought.

There are good companies and there are bad. Some of us didn't educate ourselves before submitting to the bad companies in the first place, got into bed with them, and then become complacent seeing pennies pouring in from lowball sales or 15% commissions and became too stubborn to consider how this is affecting the market as a whole. Good for you. But being a PR rep for them and trying to dupe less savoy new contributors into buying into their BS, that's gonna make it necessary for me to continue to reply to that nonsense and clarify. For whatever little good that can do.

They do give e $$$ to buy cameras and travel, but not directly. They send me decent sums of money every month for my sales, with which I use to buy cameras and travel.

When it comes to Pond5 introducing subscriptions... isn't it more likely that they've introduced subscriptions in response to other sites introducing subscriptions? Just a thought.

While on the subject of Pond5... my sales have been steadily increasing, before and after the subscriptions were introduced (apart from a bit of a lull in December and January - to be expected). I don't think that would be possible if the search results had been rigged to make sure I was near the bottom every time. 

On this point: "ALWAYS WITHOUT EXCEPTION tilt the scales only further in their favor, not ours."

The item prices and commision rates have increased at least twice since VideoHive has been running. Neither of them have ever dropped. If they're implementing changes without dropping prices or reducing commissions, then it stands to reason that any changes that benefit Envato, will also benefit Envato authors. Not individuals, or groups, but the entire author community as a whole.

Like a change in search results for example... some people are going to lose out. Some people are going to win. But it should bring a few more sales in total. If it doesn't, then they'd probably change it back.   

And on this point: "we expect this to result in Shangri-La for everyone".

Well, for starters, people always interpret those statements incorrectly. They never say it will result in Shanri-La for everyone... they usually say that it might result in Shangri-La for the community as a whole, or overall sales, or total revenue... or something like that. Not everyone is automatically going to benefit.

But still... this 'canned response' is based on a one year test that did result in Shangri-La for all included in the test. That makes me optimistic. If they were announcing a cut in prices or commissions, then not so much. 

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on February 20, 2017, 19:50

The item prices and commision rates have increased at least twice since VideoHive has been running.

So they "raised" their prices, two times even, to get allll the way up to $8? And they "raised" artist share waaaay up to 36%? Wow, super impressive. I stand corrected.

Price and commissions were even lower in the past, and people still submitted there? I'd say that's unbelievable, but then I'd be the naive one to become shocked by how poorly some contributors value themselves.

Well of course it's going to be $1 increments on a base price of $6. That's a 17% increase. If Shutterstock did the same then it would be $92 instead of $79. A $13 increase might work on a $79 clip, but it's going to be a tough pill to swallow on a $6 clip.

And yes, it's waaay up to 36%... but you do realise that that's more than Shutterstock and much more than iStock? And if you're exclusive then it's 50% to 70%, so it's not exactly bleeding contributors dry.

I hear this a lot... about people poorly valuing themselves. Personally I think it's nonsense... some made up stance that people have which doesn't really correlate that well with the world of stock footage and stock photography.  If I 'valued myself better' (i.e. didn't upload anything to VideoHive) then I'd make about $2,250 less a month.

Stock is a business and not an art. Yes, you use the medium of art, and the principles that go with it, to create an end product... but it's a business selling that product. And as with any business, the main thing is usually the bottom line. People rarely sell stock for fun. I'm not that concerned if I'm getting $5 a clip, or $99 a clip... or I'm getting 15% a sale or 70% sale, as long as my net earnings are pretty much where I want them to be. 50% on a $100 sale is lovely, but 50% on 20 $8 sales is even better.

The way I see it, there's room for both types of agencies in the market. Film, tv and advertising people are happy to pay the $79, as that's what they've always paid, and that's what they can afford. Youtube people aren't happy to pay $79 as they're not doing films, tv and advertising, and they need large amounts of content that is affordable. Sure, both sites will sell to whoever wants to buy their stuff, but I think there are two distinct types of buyers. VideoHive caters to one of those types.

I'm happy to cater to both, as that increases my overall profits. Bank managers, landlords and off-license staff don't care about what percentage you get, or how much a clip sells for... they care about cold, hard, filthy dollars.

If you want to value yourself, then you're probably best setting up a photography studio, only taking high-end clients who can see the magnificent brilliance within your work, and having a gallery where you can spend the days explaining to your visitors how you feel the white background of the tomato represents the eternal struggle between fruit and vegetable, a void if you will... and also the purity of its essence as the one true king of foodstuffs. Maybe you could sell prints for $1000 a go?

What you need to understand is that this is an industry that has minimal barriers to entry, where a decent enough camera, combined with a bit of common sense, business savvy, and an eye for a decent shot is pretty much all you need to get started. Combine that with time and more common sense and more business savvy accrued over that time... and it'll probably result in at least a reasonable amount of money coming in every month. It's no longer the domain of the elite photographer, slaving away in their darkroom, with their full format cameras... endlessly telling anyone who will listen about how their parents had old film cameras and you found them so fascinating etc etc. 

The business savvy and common sense parts are pretty 'static' commodities, with a long shelf life, but everything else is getting cheaper, quicker, better... so why shouldn't the output from that work also be cheaper?

Even when the photographers who value their work are living on park benches from stubbornly sticking to their lofty sense of self-importance.... I imagine that their cardboard sign will say "can you please spare $50 for a cup of tea" when all the other homeless dudes will say "can you please spare $2 for a cup of tea".

But still, those who have a decent camera, time, common sense and business savvy are still relatively thin on the ground, surprisingly... so there's still hope for those that do have those attributes. You'll be fine for now Daryl, don't worry, but I'm sure we can start a Kickstarter to help out the poor impoverished photographers and keep the ancient art of 'tomatoes on white backgrounds' and 'businessmen shaking hands' alive.   

And to be fair... isn't everything that I'm saying probably the same kind of thing that RF people were telling RM people about ten years ago? Surely everybody here is undervaluing their work and contributing to the downfall of stock, by uploading to any of the micro agencies? If you're happy to go with micro over macro, then isn't it slightly hypocritical to diss people who are going with nano over micro?

Well said SSF.

The most important attribute you can have working in almost any industry is the ability to accept and adapt to change, and open your eyes to the world around you.

[...]

If you don't adapt you will be the last guy selling physical CDs for $19.99...

I am adapting. I am working on an exit strategy from stock.