Related note, AS seems to be having a rule breaking/account purge this week.
FB groups are full of the usual suspects, mainly Pakistan/Bangladesh complaining their accounts have been blocked, and in some cases, complaining the 5-7 new accounts they got after the first one was banned are also blocked.

I just went to that group for the first time. I don't know how you can stand to read the stupid complaints there, when people get banned. I love the one you quoted, and there are others who have been banned more than once. Then they say Boycott Adobe. PLEASE do! 

Here's one of them arguing with a Chat Bot:



Yeah right, $2,000 I'd believe that.

The other group that says Adobe stock contributors has just spam, image after image, just spam, no conversation.

Good to see you and a few others, who answer with the truth. Cheaters and thieves will have their accounts closed. I'm also amused by the flow of the conversations, where every one of them, didn't do anything wrong, but they can't say why the account was closed. (or won't say) It's just Adobe being unfair and cheating them. 

Good to know that someone at Adobe is watching them.

Quote from: SuperPhoto on January 16, 2025, 16:11

Quote from: Video1977 on January 14, 2025, 09:08

I'm genuinely surprised by the low figures from Shutterstock and Pond5 this January. Considering their business practices, I can't help but wonder if they might be manipulating the numbers or hiding sales�but is that even possible?

I'm experiencing a drop of around 70% compared to the same month last year. Is anyone else noticing something similar?
 

Very easy to do programatically. Its literally a couple lines of code, and yes - that is a risk you have selling on a 3rd party platform.

Easy way to test - get several friends to purchase several of your assets. If you are not credited with ALL the sales, then yes - they are manipulating the numbers.

I believe someone (here) had done that 1-2 years ago with shitterstock (& posted the results), and came to the conclusion that shitterstock was indeed keeping/hiding some sales. You should be able to do a search and find that.

Interesting...

Someone CLAIMED that he knew someone who ran a test and they claimed that they didn't receive credit for all the downloads, but they were waiting to check the data in case there was a delay. In other words, no one had anything except someone on FB who said it happened.

Sorry about having a little fun, jezz.

The only people who see manipulation of earnings are the ones who have lower sales than they think they should have. Anyone who's sales are up, doesn't claim there's any manipulation or favoritism, because that persons sales are up. Get it? I wasn't lying, my images are 1st in some searches and on another I'm 2,3,5 on the first page. One more, I see my images, depending on the variety of the exact search, moving around, but six are on the first page.

According to the conspiracy people, I am getting biased position and an unfair advantage. People with lower sales, of course will claim, it's some software manipulation.

In truth, I think it's just what it is and since my images that got better position, have sold or have a different view from the spammed, multiple other images, I got better rank. No conspiracy. (Of course I'd deny the conspiracy, because it's favoring me...)

Getty replied to my ticket:

Quote

Topaz is defined as an AI tool. Please ensure any files edited using AI tools falls under our requirements.

Creative Content Retouching and Modification Requirements:
https://contributors.gettyimages.com/article/10847

I will go ahead and close this ticket. If you would like to reopen this ticket, please reply to the email notification of my response as replies via Account Management will not register a response if the ticket is closed. If you have another question or issue, please create a new ticket as we often need to assign tickets to different people and departments.

Sincerely,
Maggie

Find out more about how we license your work:
https://contributors.gettyimages.com/article/6251
Contributor Services

What did that actually say? Can you use Topaz or not, or only some parts of it?

"Did Not Connect: Potential Security Issue

Firefox detected a potential security threat and did not continue to contributors.gettyimages.com because this website requires a secure connection."

of course,I said tomato because writing �tomato� or �Roma� or �Italian style�makes no difference to me.

I have to index the content correctly then if someone uses AI content irresponsibly it is certainly not my fault because I wrote �Roma�.

I say Sydney and you bring up some obscure similar name that could cause a problem in two languages, when translated. Nice try. Can you do that for Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, San Francisco, and 98% of the other city names, mountain names, people and fake AI images, that shouldn't use real names or real name places in their keywords and identification? Probably not.

I don't care if you make AI or not, that's your choice. I choose not to, and maybe if you did photos, you wouldn't shoot what I enjoy and upload. All OK with me.

I'm looking for a little integrity in what people upload, especially when it's a false representation, of a real place. Or a picture of someone, that's not that person. You can't make a fake AI sports car and say it's a picture of a Ferrari, and shouldn't because... It's Not What you claim it is. That's dishonest, just as labeling a Roma tomato as a watermelon, when it's not.

Yeah, it would be terrible if people got confused between a Roma and the city Roma and couldn't tell the difference in under 5 seconds. Yet you defend outright fraud in labeling a fake AI image as a real place?   

How many stopped uploading to Adobe because of ridiculously long waiting times for moderation and large numbers of seemingly random rejections?

I was saving up images, so I could upload in January and have the quota for next year, after it takes 8-12 weeks for reviews, plus the mysterious "Quality Issues".

I don't mind too much. I appreciated the gifts, but I think changing the quota without notice is a crappy way to communicate and show some respect for the artists. Will it be 500 next year? Doesn't matter how many downloads or how reliable any of us are, now we're getting into the making numbers, just to make some numbers. So spam up your collections everyone, lots of duplicates and similar.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 16, 2025, 12:55

If the merger goes as planned, GETY / SSTK will have 70% of the photo market. Because of the archives and the collections, they will also control some specific images. If they are the biggest and most complete agency, combined, they can also control the prices for their images.

Canva can't offer those images, and the free sites can't either. Some of Adobes images, might be unique as artists have stopped supplying IS and SS.

Interesting post by someone who knows:  https://petapixel.com/2025/01/12/stock-photographys-crossroads-can-a-getty-shutterstock-merger-fix-it/

AI: The Elephant in the Room
"To stay relevant, Getty/Shutterstock must find ways to better integrate AI capabilities into their platforms."

"70% of the photo market" Where did you get that number from? Plugged it out of thin air?

And Canva already has all Getty images!

Read the Blog post, I plucked it from there, and it was written by someone closer to the business and probably smarter than everyone in the forum, when it comes to understanding Microstock. I know he's way smarter than I'll ever be.

"This merger isn�t about ambition; it�s about survival. Together, Getty and Shutterstock will control an estimated 50-70% of the creative licensing market, but their challenges remain daunting."

" An Oligopoly Cemented

The stock photography market has long been an oligopoly, and the merger of Getty Images and Shutterstock will only solidify this. The key players remain:

    Getty Images/Shutterstock (Merged Entity): Combining vast content libraries and operational scale.
    Adobe Stock: Leveraging the Creative Cloud ecosystem for consistent growth.
    Canva: While not a traditional competitor, its rise among casual users and SMBs impacts the lower end of the market."

I think he's right:

" What They Gain:

    Market Power: Greater leverage with AI companies for licensing deals.
    Cost Synergies: Potential operational efficiencies.
    Pricing Control: Ability to stabilize or even raise nano-stock pricing.

What They Risk:

    Debt Overhang: Both companies bring significant financial baggage.
    Contributor Backlash: Lower royalties and exclusivity demands could alienate creators.
    Innovation Stagnation: Focus on integration may delay much-needed transformation."

1. If Hyperstock had been created, pond5 would not have been sold to shutterstock.
2. Now the question is not about what happened many years ago, but about what to do now.
3. But yes, I see that you like the lack of income on pond5.

1. I see you also have the time machine and predictive crystal ball, that shows what would have happened?

2. What can we do? We don't run the agency.

3. I do? When did I write that?

If the merger goes as planned, GETY / SSTK will have 70% of the photo market. Because of the archives and the collections, they will also control some specific images. If they are the biggest and most complete agency, combined, they can also control the prices for their images.

Canva can't offer those images, and the free sites can't either. Some of Adobes images, might be unique as artists have stopped supplying IS and SS.

Interesting post by someone who knows:  https://petapixel.com/2025/01/12/stock-photographys-crossroads-can-a-getty-shutterstock-merger-fix-it/

AI: The Elephant in the Room
"To stay relevant, Getty/Shutterstock must find ways to better integrate AI capabilities into their platforms."

No, they didn't.
To be honest, I don't understand how people come up with such weird conspiracy theories in the first place. It's becoming a habit here.

Since Elan Musk hasn't completely shot up the Shutterstock headquarters with his lasers from space, downloads are completely normal, revenue in January is expectedly poor.

My sales are up and I found one of my images, first in a search, there's obviously some unfair manipulation going on there! 

At one time, Pond wanted to create Hyperstock. But many authors began to resent it and Pond abandoned this idea. I think that now Pond can only be saved by its complete transfer to Hyperstock and the introduction of a subscription pricing model. Otherwise, Pond will become an unprofitable asset for Shutterstock and may eventually be liquidated.

Anything is possible, however unlikely and improbable. If I remember right, Hyperstock was beta and never launched. Whether that was because of artist backlash or something else, we'll never know. Seeing how subscriptions have worked and been abandoned by Shutterstock, I'm not going to agree with your prediction for the Pond5 future.

Quote from: stoker2014 on January 15, 2025, 06:45

It's strange that the idea of ​​creating Hyperstock has never been discussed on this forum before.

That's so you. If you can't find something or don't see it, then it doesn't exist. Your support at P5 isn't the same as everyone else, so you invent your answer, it's been ended and taken over by ss. Now you say we never discussed Hyperstock. https://www.microstockgroup.com/pond5/hyperstock/ Somebody gave you a + for that false claim.

No way, Stoker says we didn't discuss that. You probably invented a time machine, went back and created that whole fake thread. 

@Uncle Pete

a difficult matter!

If you can't use the name of anything,how does anyone find this content?

it's different to write "in the style of Miyazaki" or "Australian style landscape" as you already know.

but if you can't write tomato because it's not a real tomato,how do you find the AI ​​tomato?   

and the same is also applicable to a name of a city or a country.

why set these limits?

if anyone wants to create a London with 2 Big Ben and insert the name "London", "Big Ben" and "Westminster" in the keywords,what's bad?

it doesn't matter at all because all the content is labeled as AI,so whoever buys it knows that it is AI content.

man has always been looking for new lands to explore,new borders to overcome,new discoveries,see what's on Mars and create gluten-free biscuits!

text to image AIs are simply the answer to a need that is innate in human beings,the need for something different,new.

I didn't mean tomato or cheeseburger and I never suggested that. You know that!

But putting Sydney Harbor on an AI image, is irresponsible. Putting Pope Francis on an image is misleading. We can't put down "in the style or" some specific artists name, and shouldn't. because the infringes on the artists known fame and styles. There are rights to personal likeness, which AI or not, are infringing.

No all AI images are not marked as AI, and you know that too.

Sure thing, make all the fake AI images anyone wants and of things and objects, scenes, mountains, woods, sliced tomatoes, any of that. But specific geographic places and names of a city, or a name of a real person, shouldn't be allowed. Then the fakery is spread, and who's to say that every AI image is also labeled as AI, once someone licenses it and uses it on their website. We can't even get proper credits for our work.

What next, fake news and fake editorial images? I'm not against making AI images, I opposed to making AI images that are deception or fakes, being passed off as something real.

Quote from: Pacesetter on January 14, 2025, 02:08

Here's another of Sydney from the top of the first page search results.

Since when did Circular Key vanish! 

I've posted an actual photograph below where you can see the blatant embarrassing error of this IA image and the equally blatant embarrassing acceptance of this in Adobe Stock's library... 

The funny thing is - actually in the submission requirements for "AI" - Adobe actually DOES explicitly state NOT to label "real place names, real landmarks".

So - in this case - it would be the fault of the contributor, so there is a very valid reason for removing that asset.

If they stated "Simulation of Syndey" or "Australian Style Landscape", that would be one thing. But if they are calling it "Sydney", which obviously it is not - then yes, that asset can be deleted/removed under the terms of submission they specified.

Not only should the image be removed the artist should get a warning.

If you can't use "In the style of Picasso" or some other artist, why should "Australian Style Landscape" be allowed. No names of real places, no names of real people, no names of artists styles or using a real famous or otherwise, personal likeness, as the basis for any image.

Whether people here agree or disagree about AI, as stock or art, I think most of us agree that labeling something AI with real tags, implying it's a real place or person, is supporting fakes and frauds. It's misleading.

My thought is that even in the stock industry we are going towards the Cory Doctorow neologism "Enshittification" 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Not going towards, already there.