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Messages - Elenathewise
Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 36
1
« on: January 07, 2025, 08:37 »
I am image exclusive, although my thousands of videos are not in Getty neither in Shutterstock (although they are in P5 that is part of SS now).
I have long not been contributing stills as the profit is not there anymore, but I still do video from time to time. Depending on what's next I might take action with my stills or even provide videos again if any of those two dinosaurs improve conditions which I am 99% sure will not happen.
In any case merged or not creative photography is already dead in the next years as Gemini , OPEN AI and others improve day after day. Video will take a little longer as it is much more complex and processor intensive, but both companies know the writing is on the wall, and they will try to suck what's left of the orange juice dry while they can.
Strictly speaking, an AI cannot generate new content. It can only recombine elements it has been trained on. The results are often awful and ridiculous. No matter how advanced the AI is, it'll spit out a combination of what's fed to it. If Getty or the rest of them will make it unprofitable for creative to create and submit new images (which is actually the case now already), all they will be left with is an old library of content that can only be recombined in a limited way. Well good luck selling that to your customers. I am seeing funniest things with AI generated stuff. Being a microstock contributor since 2005 I know very well faces of popular models and many individual contributors style. Now I am seeing the same elements in generated images... it's the same stuff only weird looking. AI is not really new. Netflix uses it to create movies and shows, and they are all a salad of past hits, and none of them work, no matter how much money or star power they throw into it. My point is, you cannot replace the creators. You can coast for a while on existing content, feeding it into AI, generating variations, fine. But then it will be over, and you will need new content, but the creators will quit the industry. Nobody works for nothing. Not paying the creators fairly is like chopping the branch you're sitting on. Maybe someone on the business side will clue in?...
2
« on: October 27, 2021, 08:30 »
I got the email, too. Not happy about the lack of details. I think it's fair to assume that this is not driven by altruistic "how can we pay the contributors more and take less profit ourselves?" thought. ....
3
« on: October 03, 2016, 13:23 »
Same here. Negative total balance. Hope it's just a bug and not them taking back the money for some "accounting error" reason... that happened before.
4
« on: July 15, 2016, 20:38 »
Doing microstock since 2005, 15000 images in portfolio. 60% down from normal earnings this July. June wasn't stellar either but this is special.
5
« on: July 12, 2016, 17:15 »
yes, you see the surge in ss stocks right now???
someone is in sight to make a quick kill after creating an unrealistic perception that
ss stock is a good buy when in fact it is overprice
based on their persistent IT problem, glitch-ridden performance and contributors dissatisfaction ...
you too would want to be in a position for a profit taking after
the gullible people sweep in to buy
and you quickly sell off to get . out.
Short the stock:)
6
« on: April 27, 2016, 16:11 »
Just got a sale reported for today... whoa... whatishappening...
7
« on: April 27, 2016, 12:09 »
I don't see any sales reported today on Istock - last sale I see is from yesterday. I usually have around 10 sales per day... Did sales stop or reporting is broken? Anyone else seeing this?
8
« on: March 24, 2016, 18:00 »
Just take a look at this (from 2015) to understand what kind of people are running 500px now. Really no surprises here.
http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2015/05/23/co-founder-ex-ceo-500px-trial-errors-lessons-learned/
I love this comment from Andy Yang: "Its not beneficial to rehash that time." Like - "I stabbed the guy who hired me in the back and robbed him of his company, but hey who wants to talk about that?"
Thanks, that was interesting. I actually didn't know about all the conflict and turnover. It seems to me that nothing salvageable was left, and I wonder why new investment came in. Sounds like they should have just shuttered it.
If someone wanted to pick up the pieces and head in a new direction, they should have made that clear in the email to contributors. Instead, it was just - starting now, you will get a lot less, take it or leave it. Nothing about marketing plans or future possibilities, no apologies, no candor, no hope. After reading that, who's going to spend the time uploading hundreds of photos?
New investment came in from China. Visual China Group. https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2016/03/tech-startup-500px-creating-high-value-jobs-in-ontario.html ... I am deleting my stuff at the end of the month.
10
« on: March 22, 2016, 15:40 »
Does the artist get a share of that?
With all those huge images without a professional watermark...at 500 dollars a piece...nice little income stream.
I very much doubt the artsist shares any of that. That actually explains huge image previews and no watermark and their resistance to change it. Tempt the thief to steal, then make him pay - "nice" business model! That also explains why they want people to go exclusive - easier to demand payments from thieves, since you don't have to prove it's been stolen from them. I like when things make sense. Even though I really dislike these "things".
Your thinking this is intentional? Chasing the legal fees instead of selling?
Is there that much money in that?
Maybe I should remove more files, this sounds scary.
Ill definitely wait until they have a professional full frame watermark before uploading again.
And no exclusive images, not if my royalty rate can be changed so abruptly with 10 days notice.
If it makes them more money, why wouldn't it be intentional. I have no data on this, but Jo Ann above mentioned that most of their revenue seems to come from that.
11
« on: March 22, 2016, 13:51 »
Does the artist get a share of that?
With all those huge images without a professional watermark...at 500 dollars a piece...nice little income stream.
I very much doubt the artsist shares any of that. That actually explains huge image previews and no watermark and their resistance to change it. Tempt the thief to steal, then make him pay - "nice" business model! That also explains why they want people to go exclusive - easier to demand payments from thieves, since you don't have to prove it's been stolen from them. I like when things make sense. Even though I really dislike these "things".
12
« on: March 21, 2016, 21:41 »
So I wouldn't blame Thompson. He's just the messenger.
He's a messenger that usually doesn't deliver good news. Kind of like the people that deliver eviction notices.
Well, that's usually the messenger's job. And they get shot for it sometimes. He's a little more than a puppet in this whole debacle.
I'm reporting what I'm seeing across Silicon Valley. Startups and post-startup companies are making some tough decision. There have been a lot of layoffs, cutbacks, pivots and an aggressive push for more revenue. Our company has made some cuts as well. With the nearly impossible funding environment, these companies are pushing for 'sustainability'. That's the buzzword these days. The other option is laying off people and 500PX would rather screw the contributors than their employees.
The could also manage the company better to be 'sustainable'. Why not move to cheaper offices (they are downtown Toronto) or why not save money and resources on NOT re-designing a perfectly good recognizable logo. Of course, cutting commissions is much easier if you're only trying to increase profits in the short term. In the long term, they took something good and f***ed up, just like with Istock. But nobody cares about long term anymore. The formula is: Take a good company, f*** it up, make a quick buck, get out, buy a mansion, repeat.
13
« on: March 21, 2016, 18:13 »
I hope they go out of business.
They will, eventually. Or they'll turn into Flickr and try to cash in on advertising although... there is already a Flickr. It was feeling weird for a while now. Change of management direction may save them in the future, but right now looks like all they are doing is destroying their formerly very loyal artist base.
14
« on: March 21, 2016, 12:58 »
Yup no more uploads.
15
« on: March 21, 2016, 12:51 »
Whaaaatttt? ... well that explains which "direction" they are heading. Cutting from 70% to 30% - I don't think anybody's done that before. They are first.
16
« on: March 21, 2016, 10:12 »
All that venture capital they took in last year has to go somewhere....
Fancy offices downtown Toronto?  Developing of the new logo (which was thought by majority of photographers completely unnecessary and even damaging to the brand)? Who knows. Their direction is not clear to me too at this point. By the way, I have an "awesome" account that I pay for - doesn't help with the reviews.
17
« on: March 20, 2016, 11:28 »
Thanks everyone. It's good to know. Didn't make sense that I would be singled out. The sales I had with them, though, only came from the reviewed portion of my portfolio. I never sold an image that was still "pending". Anyone here did?
18
« on: March 18, 2016, 20:02 »
How do you really see if a photo was reviewed or not? Once uploaded my images are immediately available on the marketplace. If anyone wants to license them, they can.
I know they do review them at some point in time, and in very rare cases an image gets the status "declined" or "chnages required", but that's more or less the only way for me to see if they have been reviewed.
As images are available for purchase right after uploading, what does it matter how long the formal review takes?
It's easy to see. Click on your photo, then click on green "download photo" button on bottom right. This will open a new page with your shopping cart. If in the description of the image you see very red sign "Secure this photo. Be the first to license it" right under License: Print Ready RF (Pending) - obviously, the image has not been reviewed. You will notice also that under your photo there is a bunch of similar photos with following above them: "NEED A PHOTO IMMEDIATELY? Check out these similar photos." The similars come from the reviewed collection. If you were a buyer, wouldn't you choose an acceptable similar that's immediately available rather than going though the process of requesting a license?
19
« on: March 18, 2016, 13:23 »
I have occasional sales on 500 prime and considering uploading more photos...
However, when I upload and submit my photos for sale, they seem to sit in the queue forever. Last summer, after waiting 2 months for my images to be reviewed, and had to contact them to inquire if there is anything wrong with my submissions. My images got reviewed and I was told that it should normally take 2-4 weeks. Next time, I waited longer than 2 months before contacting the agency again. My images got reviewed and I was told that I am the only one experiencing such delays since nobody else reporting them. My next wait was over 4 months. I submitted an image on Oct 9, 2015 and it was not reviewed until I sent them another email on Feb 12, 2016.
Please share your experiences with 500 prime review times. If I am the only one experiencing this, then I would need to contact the agency again and find out why my images are given this "special" treatment.
20
« on: March 09, 2016, 10:56 »
Extended license sales on DT are not frequent for me. Even though, I am uncomfortable giving customers unlimited print run for such a low price. Here are examples of my recent EL sales on Dreamstime. Looks like for as little as $13.20 someone can have unlimited print run with my images. This is not acceptable to me, so I disabled the ELs as well.
21
« on: March 03, 2016, 17:51 »
Well I suppose as I am not offering my services as such it's going to be pretty pointless as I Am not looking for jobs. Perhaps it won't help my moscrostock images as buyers will look on the sites themselves rather than Instagram. I have found Twitter dissapointing also. I also sell my music and all I get ae other producers, musicians following me with no intention of interest in my work.
If your only interest is in selling stock photos then my feeling is don't give up on Twitter just yet. Twitter has a couple of things going for it than can be very useful. I assume you understand how powerful hashtags can be if used intelligently? That along with a live link directly to the download page for the image (not your portfolio or homepage). Also, are you trying to promote both your photography and music from a single account? If so, I think you might be muddling your message.
The one thing to keep in mind though is what kind of commitment social media really requires to be succesful. Many of the small businesses I work with make the same mistake. They don't immediately understand that to do it effectively they really need to hire a full timer. It's not about "post it and they will come". It's about constantly monitoring and updating content, responding and engaging directly with followers, searching for synergistic alliances and creative new ways to get your message across. It requires a lot of time and a lot of work.
Got any full timers to recommend? I am promoting my fine art work on my twitter account (@elenathewise) and yes it a lot of time and a lot of work. I wish I could have a competent person do this for me. The potential is certainly there. I had only brief experience with Instagram. The fact that you can't post from your desktop is a huge annoyance to me. I can't understand why they never put together a simple web interface.
22
« on: February 19, 2016, 14:46 »
FYI - they also sell on Getty RM
Ah - so they can be just a middleman then. Taking part of sales because they have a "backdoor" to Getty. That would be less cool.
23
« on: February 19, 2016, 12:51 »
Thanks everyone - some info at least. I also got information directly from one of the contributors, she is a famous food blogger and has a small number of files with them. Stock is not her business, but she said she does get some sales here and there.
About traffic - I suspect this kind of agencies don't rely on web traffic to make their sales. Rather, they have traditional working relationships with publishing industry, more like old time stock agencies. You don't cater to wide audience with exclusive and right-managed content.
Forbidding to sell anything on microstock is silly. A photographer can produce very different content for different markets. It's like telling a car maker they should only make luxury cars and never produce a cheaper more affordable model. I hope they got over it:)
24
« on: February 18, 2016, 22:48 »
.....Nothing?
25
« on: February 18, 2016, 14:38 »
Did anyone have any experience with submitting and selling food images on Stockfood.com?
Thanks in advance for any info.
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