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Messages - stockastic
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101
« on: May 11, 2019, 17:11 »
At one time I looked into selling prints on Etsy; but I've decided to have nothing to do with them. The fact that people can buy stock to resell as prints was one reason I got out of stock.
All these 'agencies' are scum IMHO.
102
« on: January 27, 2019, 11:49 »
A few years ago SS was talking grandly about how they were a "technology" company with a big R&D group.
I think they built a system so automated and so complicated that they can't manage it anymore; and some employees, partners and other 'insiders' have figured out how to play it. People with access are bringing in other people's stolen portfolios for a price, direct, no 'upload' and no inspection, thousands of images at a time. They've probably lost enough key development people by now that they're afraid to touch the code, can't take the risk of breaking things, and don't have enough monitoring hooks in place.
Its too late, the ship has sailed... they can't afford to pay new people to look back at 100 million images and decide what's real anymore. Even if they did, how many of those poorly paid 'inspectors' could they trust?
103
« on: January 25, 2019, 17:00 »
"Global warming" is just a shorthand term used by the media. What's really happening is much more complicated. As more solar energy gets trapped in the atmosphere, the overall average temperature increases but locally, all sorts of things happen as that energy circulates. In the short term some regions may get colder as major air currents (driven in part by the Earth's tilt and rotation) shift and move. That makes the political situation even tougher as people, and nations, start trying to figure out who wins and who loses.
In the long run we'll all lose if temperatures get high enough. Right now that's the track we're on.
Climate scientists don't all agree on the details or the short term forecast - we don't yet have the instrumentation or the computing power to answer every question. It's like oncologists - 9 out of 10 may agree you have cancer, but differ on their guesses about progression. If you want to pin your hopes on that 1 out of 10 who says he's not sure yet, be my guest - I'll have the surgery.
Steven Hawking says by 2600 we'll have about 100 years to colonize in space and get off the planet or we'll all die. Pretty gloomy prediction. But just like your cancer scenario, the truth is, maybe we don't know, but there's a good chance that Hawkins is in the right area of predicting the future.
Most of my argument with global warming fear and doom, isn't that it's happening, it is. I want to know how we're going to stop it, and feeling good, politics or signing an accord is nothing functional or useful. How do we stop what's happening? Is that possible?
I reccommend the excellent, brief, readable and non-political book by Carl Pope and Michael Bloomberg.
104
« on: January 25, 2019, 11:09 »
"Global warming" is just a shorthand term used by the media. What's really happening is much more complicated. As more solar energy gets trapped in the atmosphere, the overall average temperature increases but locally, all sorts of things happen as that energy circulates. In the short term some regions may get colder as major air currents (driven in part by the Earth's tilt and rotation) shift and move. That makes the political situation even tougher as people, and nations, start trying to figure out who wins and who loses.
In the long run we'll all lose if temperatures get high enough. Right now that's the track we're on.
Climate scientists don't all agree on the details or the short term forecast - we don't yet have the instrumentation or the computing power to answer every question. It's like oncologists - 9 out of 10 may agree you have cancer, but differ on their guesses about progression. If you want to pin your hopes on that 1 out of 10 who says he's not sure yet, be my guest - I'll have the surgery.
105
« on: January 23, 2019, 15:38 »
But note that Kim Dotcom was charged with things like money laundering - not copyright violations. Whatever he was doing, he p!ssed off the wrong people, who were able to get big time law enforcement on his trail.
106
« on: January 22, 2019, 16:33 »
They'll just claim they're only a "platform". Napster tried that, but the music recording industry had the muscle to shut them down.
107
« on: January 21, 2019, 16:33 »
You already know all this, but... the purpose of the DMCA was to protect the big ISPs of the day from copyright lawsuits from insignificant gnats like us - not to protect our intellectual property. It was written by industry lobbyists with intent of putting all the burden on the copyright holder, resulting in an endless and futile game of chasing our work and IP across ever-changing servers and domains, firing off emails and 'takedown notices' to crooks who can safely ignore them, or hosting companies that don't need to care.
IMHO there is no way to protect our content unless and until the DMCA is replaced by something that makes it possible.
It may be that a future image file format uses some sort of blockchain technology to verify rights, but right now that seems impossibly complicated and unlikely to ever be adopted. And even that, in itself, wouldn't be enough to compel action by infringers or their supporting infrastructure providers.
108
« on: January 15, 2019, 16:57 »
IMHO, pricing by pixel size was another major factor in the collapse. Image size has no relation to the costs of production, and "thumbnail" can be anyrhing. It's like selling low resolution versions of hit tunes at a huge discount. FB is a new form of advertising, some of the old licensing concepts don't really apply.
Anyway, I'm out of it. I no longer need to rationalize the pricing.
Though that is what happens with music...you can stream virtually free. Downloading in MP3 costs more and then more again for the (allegedly) better quality vinyl or CD. Pricing generally has nothing to do with input costs its a function of supply and demand.
Yes, price is set by supply and demand. But if that process ends up at a point where suppliers can't even recover their costs, production will cease. Of course, in the case of microstock, buyers and producers don't negotiate directly, so it's far from an ideal market.
Music streaming is comparable to microstock in some ways. I guess we'd have to ask some musicians if they thought streaming was a good thing. I think they'd say 'no'.
soon micro sock won't have any professional ready to invest more than 50 bucks in any kind of shooting...even bog company are hit, lower their earning. only desperate from eastern europe and thailand still upload . out of their camera, but it's just the impossibility to accept that micro stock is ending.
It's hard to imagine anyone, anywhere, making "substantial" money at this game - by which I mean at least a good portion of their income. But what do I know, I'm just an old guy in a wealthy country.
109
« on: January 14, 2019, 19:52 »
I got out of DT years ago, so none of this matters to me, but I'm wondering: are you really prevented in some way (i.e., in the site code) from just deleting all your files one-by-one, disregarding the agreement? And if you did, what could DT to you in retaliation? Sounds like a bluff to me.
I dont know about today, but back when I deleted images, no, I could not just disregard the agreement and delete them all. It stopped me when I got to the percentage, and I had to keep going back as photos aged and delete them. Maybe they are lax about it now, guess its worth a shot.
Or just email them, tell them your entire portfolio is stolen, you don't have any rights to it, you faked the model releases, you've recently found Jesus and want to go straight. They'll close your account and delete everything.
110
« on: January 14, 2019, 17:37 »
I got out of DT years ago, so none of this matters to me, but I'm wondering: are you really prevented in some way (i.e., in the site code) from just deleting all your files one-by-one, disregarding the agreement? And if you did, what could DT to you in retaliation? Sounds like a bluff to me.
111
« on: January 09, 2019, 16:30 »
IMHO, pricing by pixel size was another major factor in the collapse. Image size has no relation to the costs of production, and "thumbnail" can be anyrhing. It's like selling low resolution versions of hit tunes at a huge discount. FB is a new form of advertising, some of the old licensing concepts don't really apply.
Anyway, I'm out of it. I no longer need to rationalize the pricing.
Though that is what happens with music...you can stream virtually free. Downloading in MP3 costs more and then more again for the (allegedly) better quality vinyl or CD. Pricing generally has nothing to do with input costs its a function of supply and demand.
Yes, price is set by supply and demand. But if that process ends up at a point where suppliers can't even recover their costs, production will cease. Of course, in the case of microstock, buyers and producers don't negotiate directly, so it's far from an ideal market. Music streaming is comparable to microstock in some ways. I guess we'd have to ask some musicians if they thought streaming was a good thing. I think they'd say 'no'.
112
« on: January 08, 2019, 17:04 »
IMHO, pricing by pixel size was another major factor in the collapse. Image size has no relation to the costs of production, and "thumbnail" can be anyrhing. It's like selling low resolution versions of hit tunes at a huge discount. FB is a new form of advertising, some of the old licensing concepts don't really apply.
Anyway, I'm out of it. I no longer need to rationalize the pricing.
113
« on: January 08, 2019, 11:34 »
In all seriousness - the SS/FB deal was one of the deciding factors when I quit doing microstock. It was pretty discouraging to see comments - from people who should have known better - about this being a "great deal" for "sales you otherwise wouldn't get". In my mind, it was all over at that point. FB was a huge new advertising market, and microstock had entered it at giveaway prices; there was no upside left.
I can't quite accept the idea that Facebook, with a market cap of $400 billion, can only pay 38 cents for a image, for an ad that might be seen by millions. Call me nave.
114
« on: January 03, 2019, 13:09 »
I've been contacted by an art consultant who wants to license some photos for prints. I'd like to find a standard license agreement that I could use, granting them a one-time right to make a print, but stating that I retain ownership of the images. And that's all it really needs to say; I've dealt with these people before and they're totally on the up-and-up.
Can anyone point me to a generic license agreement that I could download and use?
115
« on: December 31, 2018, 20:00 »
It would be so interesting to know what's really happening inside that company.
I get the impression that there's been so much turnover and organizational 'churn' that things are chaotic and some 'games' are being run by insiders. These thousands of repetitious junk images didn't get in by being submitted and inspected through normal channels; something else is going on.
116
« on: December 18, 2018, 14:26 »
Alamy is the only place I still have photos. The only reason I left them there is that with Alamy I didn't feel like a chump every time I made a sale. If they can't hold the line at 50% anymore then I guess it's time to pull the plug.
You are in luck they just announced today that "exclusive" images will still get 50% none exclusive images 40%
But they're not exclusive, because I still try to sell prints of some of them.
117
« on: December 18, 2018, 13:44 »
Alamy is the only place I still have photos. The only reason I left them there is that with Alamy I didn't feel like a chump every time I made a sale. If they can't hold the line at 50% anymore then I guess it's time to pull the plug.
118
« on: December 13, 2018, 09:30 »
No one is loading 20,000 by hand and getting them inspected. This stuff is coming in through a back door with inside help.
119
« on: December 06, 2018, 11:31 »
The guy should really get an award for the worst profile/avatar shot ever. He looks like he just got back from a meeting with his parole officer.
120
« on: December 01, 2018, 18:14 »
Inspection costs a lot of money. They all think they can make more money if they stop paying inspectors and let the search algorithms somehow sort it out. SS in particular makes a big deal about what a high tech software company they are. Investors bought it, for a while. But the sort of "AI" it would take to really judge photos doesn't exist, and may never exist.
121
« on: November 11, 2018, 12:14 »
They have no fewer than 3 admins for their forum and any critical threads are quickly locked. If you talk about anything related to sales, they designate it a "sales thread" and show your average monthly sales next to your name and avatar. This is actually a privacy violation in my opinion, but it sure has worked as a way to discourage criticism. There's a lot less activity on their forum now and some people (like me) just don't post there any more.
122
« on: October 30, 2018, 19:42 »
Yesterday I emailed GL (the support address) asking them to close my account - to my surprise I got a reply today saying it was closed and the images deleted. So it looks like right now, someone is actively running the site and responding to email.
They won't miss me, I hadn't had a sale in many months and most of my images were several years old.
Are they paying any money they owe you?
My balance was shown as 0. I think that's correct, didn't bother to check.
123
« on: October 30, 2018, 12:10 »
How can I put this politely, fairly and diplomatically? I hope they utterly collapse, become a penny stock, are forced to move out of their building and onto a flatbed truck, and eventually get arrested for dumping their servers in a river at night because they couldn't afford proper disposal.
124
« on: October 30, 2018, 10:02 »
Yesterday I emailed GL (the support address) asking them to close my account - to my surprise I got a reply today saying it was closed and the images deleted. So it looks like right now, someone is actively running the site and responding to email.
They won't miss me, I hadn't had a sale in many months and most of my images were several years old.
125
« on: October 29, 2018, 15:24 »
Back when I was actually doing microstock, I always worried about giving my then-current images to small startups, because if they don't make it they could end up selling off assets which might include hard drives full of photos. GL is the only one I stuck with and today, it's the only stock agency besides Alamy where I still have an account.
As long as the new owner kept posting here, I figured there might be hope for reviving the agency, and I had nothing to lose by leaving a few hundred old photos there.
I guess that was a bad idea, I should have followed my original instincts and not left photos with an agency that clearly wasn't going anywhere. Now I'd be happy to just get my account closed. Of course that's no guarantee that files actually get erased, but it's all we can do..
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