Can't log in at the moment and has been doing odd things the last couple of days.

Best month for a while on there. Surprising as my sales are mostly tanking everywhere else.

There's a possibility that it would reveal something about marketing strategy or technique that the creator would prefer not to share with competitors.

Or lead to a flood of "me too" similars that would devalue the original to the buyer.

Do you mind if I ask you to show us a link to that clip? thank u

and why would he want to do that?

I've had some big ticket sales for images that have never sold before or again on Shutterstock and pretty random/average ones. Once I've expended effort in the first place I do see the value of "investing" more time in deleted images. Sometimes I look and wonder what I was thinking at the time but there must of been a reason I thought they were worth uploading 

Quote

Steve how in the world do you this every month? Make money.

I guess I am reasonably good at what I do... 

To have probably the best cat picture on the whole internet is more than reasonably good!

Sadly other agencies will be looking at this thinking that cutting contributor rates doesn't seem to have a downside.

If free images are uploaded for sale elsewhere what actual damages can be claimed as there is no lost income?......

I don't produce the kind of work that this initiative is likely to generate or come from one of the groups that this is addressed at. If I did and wasn't part of the 40 chosen ones my income would now be under threat.

Leaving aside any politics and motives its more subsidised content for the vast majority of contributors to compete against.

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on October 15, 2020, 10:52

The News app on my iPhone gives me free access to tons of great stories from many sources.  Some are only available on News+ and they are always trying to get me to upgrade.  While some of those stories look interesting, the same content often becomes available for free in a few days from the same or a different source, so I can get access to 97-plus percent of what I want for free, and I have gotten very good at just skipping over any that are listed in News+.  The probability that I am ever going to sign up for the paid news is basically zero.  I suspect the same is going to happen here.  Once we get it in our minds that the price for something is free, getting people to pay for it later is unlikely.  After the word gets out that you can download over 36,000 high-quality images for free every year there will be no need for anyone to pay for them ever again - I certainly wouldn't.  Commercial clients might occasionally if they can't get exactly the image they want but within a few months I expect those will be very few and far between.  I hope I'm wrong but I won't be holding my breath on this one.

I think your news app analogy is very appropriate for this conversation. My question for you is this...did you ever pay for a News app before you started getting the articles for free? If not, then they have lost nothing from you. Do you however, believe that other people are willing to pay for the news app that were drawn in through an article they found for free? My gut says the answer is yes. How many people were subscribing to have the paper delivered to their door until the digital era kicked in and completely disrupted the industry? How many papers went out of business because they didn't adapt to the changes fast enough?

The people that only visit stock sites that offer content for free had no chance of ever buying a license from you. As was illustrated earlier in this thread, those sites have picked up a lot of momentum and that hasn't seemed to be slowing down. Now, there is at least a chance to convert the people visiting for the free collection into paying customers. This has already proven to be true in just the first day of the program as I've learned multiple visitors through free converted and made purchases yesterday which is very good news. The collection size, content, the download use, everything about this is being closely monitored by people much smarter than I am whom I trust. They will be reacting appropriately.

I've heard your concerns loud and clear and I promise that I understand them. I'm in constant communication with the team and I will continue to keep you updated as I learn anything that you may find important.

Thanks,

Mat

Which news apps allow people to copy whole articles to incorporate in their products and sell?

Good news for the fortunate few added to the collection bad for the rest of us. Its really that simple. I can't really understand Adobe paying for images with actual money in the hope someone looking for free images will decide to pay for others. Sounds like a desperate gamble to me.

"We expect this collection will help educate and convert users of free content into responsible buyers," I expect it will educate users that there is free content out there and if they can't find what they want on Adobe they will look elsewhere.

Quote from: Brasilnut on September 16, 2020, 10:26

Imo the future belongs to programmers. Those that can create very very realistic models/animals and scenarios using CGI without leaving the comfort of their homes.

Imagine lifestyle photography without the hassle and administration to shoot models in fun scenarios.
...

imagine someone doing that work for pennies...

There will be a hand full programmers to create the ability then designers will use simple software to create images themselves.