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Messages - Firn
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 [6] 7 8 9 10 11 ... 26
126
« on: June 14, 2022, 12:15 »
4. #FeelsGood No, it doesn't. Getting paid for my work feels good though.
127
« on: June 13, 2022, 14:26 »
What's not to like?
How about:
- Sales aren't registered automatically, but customers have to report their own sales, meaning unless you happen to stumble across your own image being used somewhere online and credited back to Alamy by chance, you won't even ever know one of your images has been sold and won't get paid for it if the buyer has not reported it.
- Customers can claim refunds for bought and used images even after a year
- Sometimes customers do report sails, but never pay for the image. Then you have to fight for your money for months.
- Even if customers pay the images on their own accord, it usually takes months to get the money
- They have sales with comissions as low as 0.04$, which is even less that Shutterstock.
- They let customers scam you by letting them buy images with a cheap "personal use" licence that clearly aren't suitable for any kind of personal use.
All correct Firn.
Although I'm not sure what you mean by "sales aren't registered automatically". But fraud (stolen images) is an issue across this industry. Alamy is not immune. Alamy gives more immediate info on sales than other places, so adjustments happen occasionally. No site is perfect. Although it has been slipping in the last while, I still find Alamy the least less perfect.
I am not talking about stolen images. I am talking about Alamy letting customers download images without paying for them. They can then do with the image whatever they want. And if they actually use the image - in a newspaper, or online - they are supposed to kindly let Alamy know that the downloaded images have been used and only then the image will be reported as sale in your account. Unlike with other agencies on Alamy customers don't have to pay for downloading the image, they only have to pay for using them and Alamy trusts them to tell them when an image has been used. And that - obviously - results in many customers never telling Alamy they have used an image so they don't have to pay for it. It happens all the time, it happens to me as well. From time to time I do an image search with my name and Alamy and then I send links to all images that I never saw sales for in my account to Alamy and then they start hunting down the buyers demanding to pay for the images. I found images of mine credited to Alamy in articles that were over a year old and the images were never reported as used, thus I never saw a sale for them and never got my money and even after reporting this to Alamy it took months and several mails inquiring about it to finally have the sales registered and get my money. I think this "pay on a trust basis"-method is unacceptable. What other bussiness does that? "Hey, you can take this apple with you and if you get home and decide to eat it, you can come back and pay me."
128
« on: June 13, 2022, 08:54 »
What's not to like?
How about: - Sales aren't registered automatically, but customers have to report their own sales, meaning unless you happen to stumble across your own image being used somewhere online and credited back to Alamy by chance, you won't even ever know one of your images has been sold and won't get paid for it if the buyer has not reported it. - Customers can claim refunds for bought and used images even after a year - Sometimes customers do report sails, but never pay for the image. Then you have to fight for your money for months. - Even if customers pay the images on their own accord, it usually takes months to get the money - They have sales with comissions as low as 0.04$, which is even less that Shutterstock. - They let customers scam you by letting them buy images with a cheap "personal use" licence that clearly aren't suitable for any kind of personal use.
129
« on: June 13, 2022, 02:09 »
From what I have heard Stocksy, but that's because it is a platform cooperative and basically run by contributors. So the interests of the 'agency' aligns with the interests of the contributors. I am not even sure they are considered an agency?
But they are picky about who they accept and only take exclusive content.
I wouldn't know of any other agency that isn't constantly searching for new ways to increase their own profit knowing very well that it will decrease therr contributors' earnings.
130
« on: June 12, 2022, 11:28 »
they wouldn't have the need to buy fake Trustpilot reviews 
Why on earth would they buy reviews like that?
lol...
These aren't the bought ones, you just wait 3 - 6 months and then you'll see the ones they paid for .
If you want to see the bought ones, check out Envato on Trustpilot ( who were only recently at 2.6)
Once again, you guys want to live in denial that you're working for the bad guys, so be it.
Keep licking boots and carry on.
No thanks, I dont see a point in following companies I don't subscribe to. You seem very upset at them, when its an industry-wide issue ("free" sections). Its just business. It was good, now its not.
Love the keyboard warriors who call everyone else out anonymously. Lets see the portfolio that is so much "more" than all us peons...
So basically you don't care you sell through an agency that scams it's clients,
and I'm the keyboard warrior . ok. you're right.
Did you even read the reviews? They are all from people who did not cancel their subscription in time. That's not a scam, but laziness on the customer's end. Read contracts before you sign them! Just because it's online and you click a button it doesn't mean it isn't a binding contract. You can find the exact same reviews on Truspilot for every stock photo agency that offers yearly subscriptions. Shutterstock has them, iStock has them, Adobe has them, Dremastime has them. People sign up and don't realize the cheapes prices are for a yearly subscription and if you want out after a month you need to pay for a different subscription that costs you more for photos. Or people sign up for the free trial, without reading that you actually have to cancel it. Signing contracts without reading them and then giving the company a bad review for your error, that's just stupidity. There is a reason you can't just back out of yearly subscriptions: You already paid the cheapes price possible for images you downloaded and that price only comes with the condition that you pay for a minimum of 12 months. That's the condition you agreed to and you can't expect to pay the same cheap price, without fulfilling that condition. If you only want a few images, you have to pay much more per image as part of an on demand package. Allowing people to cancel yearly subscription before 12 months would mean giving away images that should be sold for on demand package prices for the lowers subscription package prices. The only ones being scamed like this would be the agencies (not the artists by the way. We don't earn a dime from subscription plans customers's don't want/need and use anymore, so we basically get screwed over either way.)
131
« on: June 09, 2022, 06:44 »
It helps to know that you have three months to prepare yourself. And you can use that time to aggressively fill your port and get more bonus money.
Shutterstock cut 70% income with 7 days notice, so I would say this is certainly an improvement.
I don't understand your "aggressiively fill your port" strategy. If I am a contributor to an agency, there is little reason for me to withhold content. Everything that is processed and worth uploading is getting uploaded and I am pretty sure most handle it the same - The only reason why some people withhold content to agencies is to give the best quality content to the agencies that earn the most and only "dump" their lesser quality content at agencies that pay less. Also, if an agency cuts my profits, my initial thought isn't "Give them more content! Fast!", no matter whether the agency gives me a notice of 3 months (It's 6 weeks, not 3 months by the way, as the announcement says the last payment will be covering the July earning month) or 7 dayys - Why should I put some extra special effort into an agency that just told me I'd be earning less with my content in the futurte? More money for 6 weeks, but less money for the rest of my life after that isn't math that works out for me to justify putting more effort than before into an agency. Maybe it works for you, but it seems like a strange logic to me.
132
« on: June 09, 2022, 01:52 »
Agencies will change over time, but if they communicate clearly it really helps.
But how does it "really help"?  I am not an Envato contributor, so this doesn't affect me, but even I can see that all this is is an agency keeping more of the profit they make to themselves and there is nothing in this message that "helps" anyone other than Envato. The message basically translates into: "Hi, we have more than enough contributors now, so after years of sharing our profit from unused subscriptions with you, we decided to keep it to ourselves. Cheers!".
133
« on: June 08, 2022, 09:40 »
So, did the rules (4 or less sales withing the last 12 months) change after all?
There rule absolutely did change. I have images up for selection to the free gallery with just one or even 0 sales and not just a few, but actually several hundreds.
Hi Firn,
Can you confirm if they had several hundred downloads in the past 12 months? Most likely, as in my account, the vast majority of those downloads happened more than a year ago. If I'm mistaken, please email me the file number(s) directly so I can take a look: [email protected]
Thanks,
Mat Hayward
No, Mat, you misunderstood, or maybe I worded it poorly, sorry: I meant that I have several hundred images up for selection that only had one download or no download at all. And last year no imges with zero downloads were nominated, but are nominated now, so something has changed in the nomination process, at least for me.
134
« on: June 08, 2022, 07:44 »
So, did the rules (4 or less sales withing the last 12 months) change after all?
There rule absolutely did change. I have images up for selection to the free gallery with just one or even 0 sales and not just a few, but actually several hundreds.
135
« on: June 02, 2022, 02:00 »
I just did three searches for single words beer, wine, cat then added the #
The results are the same total images and the order of images is just slightly different almost un-noticable.
I'd expect that but I wonder about the larger WEB itself? Or do hashtags lead to the subject and not to stock photos. I'm not chasing this one.
Why should it make a difference? Hashtags, unless I am completely misunderstanding something, only serve a purpose within the platform they are used on and only if the platform supports hashtags. Like, take Facebook for example or instagram. You make a post and you add a word with a hashtag. The hashtag becomes a clickable link where people can click on and then get shown all posts with the same hashtag. It's basically like a custom category. How would adding a hashtag to a stock photo serve any purpose on the web? It's not like you click on a hashtag on Facebook and suddenly have a stock photo from a microstock agency shown up. Hashtags only work internal. And stock agencies don't support hashtags as such. Using a hasthag in keywords would only make sense if the picture actually showed a hashtag and a customer would search for that keyword.
136
« on: June 01, 2022, 00:56 »
I see the new design now too, though only when I click on the "Detailed earnings summary" link.
As far as I can see this change brings absolutely no benefit to the contributor, so I don't understand why the layout was changed at all. It's not better or (much) worse, or at least won't be worse as soon as I finally get used to where to find what information now, right now it's still confusing. The only thing that is already annoying me and will forever annoy me is that the subscription, on demand, enhanced and Single & Other sale categories are now not tabs, but drop-down menues. What was wrong with tabs? One click and you are there.
But there is no additional new information contributors could benefit from. Everything has just been moved to different places and that's all. Reminds me of supermarkets that re-arrange their shelves every few months, so everyone just runs around confused for weeks trying to figure out where everything is. With the supermarkets the point is to make customers find and buy new products, with Shutterstock I don't understand what the benefit is supposed to be for anyone.
137
« on: May 31, 2022, 01:04 »
and stock videos make sense on quantity: you don't tell us HOW MUCH you sell and FOR HOW MUCH MONEY per month.
He refuses to tell that for a reason: Back on the SS forum he once boosted about getting either an extended license or an SOD (I don't remeber which one) and he said how much money he got for that and then posted a screenshot of his earning diagram without the numbers. You could see the spike in earnings where he got the sale and knowing how much money that was you could see what his usual earnings were in relation to that and it was not very impressiv, at least not to me. Of course what is a good income or "money rolling in" is relative to every person's own standards - Someone could be earning $100 a month and think that's a lot when another person could be earning $5000 and not be happy with that. It's a matter of perspective. But regardless of this his "upload upload upload"- way is not an effective way compared to others. And he not only claimes it was effective, but the only effective, which is what upsets me. I really don't like how he is purpsefully trying to mislead people. Back then I showed him a diagram of my earnings to show him that I earned a multiple of what he did with not even half as many images in my port, but he claimed that I was lying and my chart could easily have been photoshopped.  At this point I am not sure whether he actually really believes what he is sayig or whether he knows excactly that what he is telling was rubbish and he just enjoys stirring up trouble.
138
« on: May 27, 2022, 04:21 »
Not only it's worse but it's on purpose. It's meant to obfuscate info and make people visit the page less often.
I don't think they want contributors to visit the page less often. After all they put google ads up on the contributor page last year, so more visits mean more money for them. (Unless the ads aren't on the new design? I don't know, I have an ad blocker and I don't have any new design on my dashboard yet)
139
« on: May 20, 2022, 01:29 »
Is there anyway to exclude sales to China?
No, there isn't.
140
« on: May 19, 2022, 06:36 »
Where do you see what Paypal address iStock has on file? I can't seem to find it in their ESP dashboard.
I don't know whether there is some other (and easier) way to see it, but when I go to the ESP dashboard -> My account -> Update personal information and then on -> Payment from there and select Paypal and click on "next" the E-Mail address I use is entered in thr first line.
141
« on: May 19, 2022, 02:43 »
If their system was hacked, surely this would not only affect your account?
142
« on: May 18, 2022, 14:28 »
To be honest, if I did an illustration and photographed it - just the whole painting, not with canvas, frame, room surrounding, etc. - I would actully mark it as illustration and not as photograph, because it is a digitalized painting.
Also, consider this: Imagine a customer is looking for what you have created - Would he search under photography or illustration for it? I know if I wanted an image of an acryl painting, I would not search under the photography category. I don't think you are doing yourself a favor by even trying to submit this as photography.
143
« on: May 16, 2022, 11:52 »
Since then Alamy punishes me with longer review times. Everything is actually a bit childish.
Wait, your QC rank dropped because of ONE rejected image? That's really childish. Though I must say the speed at which my images are reviewd varies a lot even at the same rank. Sometimes it's a day, sometimes it's 3 or even 4 and can be even longer if a weekend is inbetween, where no reviews happen at all. But the whole review process on Alamy is a mess. What I can't stand is how you can only check the "editorial use only" box after an image was approved and is basically up for everyone to buy. Not that my Alamy images sell like hot cake the minute they are approved and that's a real worry of mine, but the thought has crossed my mind. What if a buyer buys an image after it was approved before I have the chance to mark it as editorial and used it commercially? Then I am the one to blame.
144
« on: May 16, 2022, 09:50 »
It is the same with Alamy, they do not go easy on rejections.
Alamy does rejections?
Not sure if you are being sarcastic here, but yes, they do?
Anything shot with my smartphone won't fly there. (but I don't have a high-end smartphone).
No, I wasn't sarcastic. I don't have rejections on Alamy. Alamy doesn't accept photos from "something that doesnt compare to a standard DSLR", so submitting spartphone photos maybe isn't the bets idea: https://www.alamy.com/blog/alamys-rough-guide-to-digital-cameras
145
« on: May 16, 2022, 02:15 »
It is the same with Alamy, they do not go easy on rejections.
Alamy does rejections?
146
« on: May 15, 2022, 02:32 »
Is this finalized? Can anything be done by writing the SEC ?
I am curious - What do you think you could possibly write the SEC in this case?
147
« on: May 12, 2022, 13:09 »
If they are still operating as separate platforms, what was the point SS buying them?
Shutterstock gets all the profit? Also, they said "for now" - of course they do. Otherwise all the people who abandoned Shutterstock after their royalty cut would instantly leave Pond5 as well. I am sure there will be royalty cuts in the long run...)
148
« on: May 12, 2022, 03:35 »
I don't think it's a "glitch", just being lucky that multiple people looked for and bought the image in a very short period of time. That's usually making an image shoot to the top on most microstock search algorithms.
149
« on: May 12, 2022, 03:06 »
It's unusual for Adobe, but it does happen. I once sold a single image over 400 times in a month - It just means that you got lucky, 3 or 4 people bought the image right after it was approved, so it got a high ranking and now it's probably somewhere at the top of the search for some relevant keywords. Once you achieve a top ranking on Adobe, an image becomes a gold mine. It happens way too rarely though.
150
« on: May 11, 2022, 04:16 »
I don't know what is wrong with your image (impossible to tell without seeing it in full size), but what I can tell you is that "technical reasons" is the only rejection reason Adobe ever seems to give and that's the "explanation" you get no matter what is wrong with your image. I keep getting these rejections from time to time on my photos of plants on white background and I have yet to find anything wrong with them. They are in focus, have no noise and no other agency, including Shutterstock, where most people seem to get rejections, ever rejected any of them.
The real reason could be anything, from wrong keywords, to too similar to other content to a simple "We don't want this content".
It's quite annoying, because without a more specific reason you don't know what to fix with the image. Sadly no one here can really help you with this.
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