After more than 5 years being contributor and according to their site still among the top 50 authors,sold more than xx.000$, became top 20 authors of the month with an item that was trending,port size with more than 14k items, today I received mail from PD:

"As part of our library-wide assessment of photos on PhotoDune, we've done a review of your portfolio. Unfortunately, the sample we looked through resulted in a very high number of photos that did not meet our new library standards.Over the coming weeks we'll be removing your PhotoDune portfolio as part of our clean up process"

Guess they need images from the moon with signed property release form!
I'll survive without Envato but one day if I go to the moon I'll be happy to upload more images from space

Wish you all the best and see you in the next life ENVATO!

Yup, me too, although I didn't do as well, I think I was in the top few hundred.  I'm glad I didn't spend any time trying to figure out their new system.

Quote from: pancaketom on February 07, 2017, 00:42
Yup, me too, although I didn't do as well, I think I was in the top few hundred.  I'm glad I didn't spend any time trying to figure out their new system.

Oh great,  I've gotten some stuff from Envato but based on the reference they looked like Spam so I deleted unread.  Wonder if I'm in or out. 

If you've been booted, can you tell by looking at your profile page?  My hard drive died and I lost my password so I haven't been able to login.  Wondering if it's worth the hassle to try and get back on the site.  I'd at least like to know if I'm still a member!

As far as I could tell there was no notice on the site, just the e-mail. Maybe they are booting everyone to change the TOS a ton?

I was going to change all my image prices to $100 or more, but it wasn't immediately obvious how to do that.

Me too! What a ingratitude! Bljaaaah! 

Twice, my images were in their "Bundle" and whole other badges! Badges, what a shits!

This  clearly show what we are for them (all agencies), and that we need our contributor site whole the time...

Lol, looks like their CEO will be searching for a new job quite soon.

Quote from: seawhisper on February 07, 2017, 22:49
Lol, looks like their CEO will be searching for a new job quite soon.

Haha, not likely. PhotoDune was always their worst earner (and 3D), earning practically nothing compared to ThemeForest.

Awesome, I've had "featured image" badge, "image of the week" badge, above 4.5 rating and now I am kicked out
I remeber 4-5 years ago I used to have $30/month with 500 images, recently I've had normally $10-$15/month with over 5000 images.
I hope their customers will find my images somewhere else, in some descent agency

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on February 07, 2017, 22:57

Quote from: seawhisper on February 07, 2017, 22:49
Lol, looks like their CEO will be searching for a new job quite soon.

Haha, not likely. PhotoDune was always their worst earner (and 3D), earning practically nothing compared to ThemeForest.

Well I have a feeling they are going to have hard times ahead. Still reading all the comments under their announcement is quite an entertaintment.

First the EU-Vat platform bull.sh.it than the "we are a american company" relaunch and now they kicking there best contributors.
I think they have massive problems with the tax authorities.

Lets hope all crumby agencies go into oblivion

Add me to the list.  I was a good seller there with several badges also, but got the boot like everyone else. 

When you read the possible reasons for being dumped, there are the low quality ones like lighting, commercial value, etc., but they also list too many similars.  Having seen who their top sellers were (pretty much the same as other sites) they all had lots of similars.  I know I did.  They never told us NOT to upload similars, and eagerly accepted them all.

So who's at fault here?  Even DT kept contributors on when they started no similars policy.  They just changed acceptance criteria going forward.   And we know how successful that policy was for them. 

My guess, Envato are getting out of microstock altogether.  Maybe learning they couldn't force us into paying their taxes on their share of earnings took the fun out of it for them.

Quote from: r2d2 on February 07, 2017, 23:33
I think they have massive problems with the tax authorities.

No... They have just run out of space on their HDD...

Quote from: LDV81 on February 08, 2017, 03:53

Quote from: r2d2 on February 07, 2017, 23:33
I think they have massive problems with the tax authorities.

No... They have just run out of space on their HDD...

I believe you're right.  I think they underestimated the difference in all the resources microstock requires, compared to their other marketplaces.  Not just storage but providing good search capabilities for large volumes of assets, and of course all the reviewers required by a large and growing collection.  They had no concept of the scale they would face, and now they're backing off.  Dropping so much content will reduce their expenses; question is whether it won't also wipe out their income from this market.

Quote from: seawhisper on February 07, 2017, 23:09
Well I have a feeling they are going to have hard times ahead. Still reading all the comments under their announcement is quite an entertaintment.

The thing is that PhotoDune is not significant for Envato as a company at all, so they can afford to experiment.

The top author on PhotoDune makes around $1,000 per month. Guess what the top ThemeForest author makes? A whopping $372,000 per month.

ThemeForest is at least 300 times (probably 500-1000) more valuable than PhotoDune. They could shut down PhotoDune today and not blink, but instead they are trying to create something else so they don't compete directly with the other microstock agencies.

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on February 08, 2017, 16:03
ThemeForest is at least 300 times (probably 500-1000) more valuable than PhotoDune. They could shut down PhotoDune today and not blink, but instead they are trying to create something else so they don't compete directly with the other microstock agencies.

Or perhaps they realised that their management of PhotoDune has been a total failure, but prefer not to admit it openly by closing it completely.

Quote from: outoftheblue on February 08, 2017, 16:54
Or perhaps they realised that their management of PhotoDune has been a total failure, but prefer not to admit it openly by closing it completely.

Well, that is also true, and there is much to improve with search and reviewers. They failed doing the microstock volume way, so now they want to try something else.

That it's not a significant financial loss makes it a lot easier to just shut down and try something else.

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on February 08, 2017, 17:01

Quote from: outoftheblue on February 08, 2017, 16:54
Or perhaps they realised that their management of PhotoDune has been a total failure, but prefer not to admit it openly by closing it completely.

Well, that is also true, and there is much to improve with search and reviewers. They failed doing the microstock volume way, so now they want to try something else.

That it's not a significant financial loss makes it a lot easier to just shut down and try something else.

Yes it would make more sense to close it down completely and start again than go through this farce...or just shut it down

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

Quote from: langstrup on February 08, 2017, 20:59
I´m in - But got about 20% of my port deleted. Guess it´s fine if that can help up the overall quality

Nice port I can see you are bang "on trend"

I also got dumped.

bang on trend - indeed, great portfolio, although i have never high fived in the office like that, no matter how big the achievement, lol

Quote from: langstrup on February 08, 2017, 20:59
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?

Quote from: Microstockphoto on February 08, 2017, 23:05
bang on trend - indeed, great portfolio, although i have never high fived in the office like that, no matter how big the achievement, lol

Haha true that! But it´s a business so gotta shoot what sells right 

Quote from: dirkr on February 08, 2017, 23:10

Quote from: langstrup on February 08, 2017, 20:59
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 :-)