Quote from: stockastic on March 21, 2012, 09:29

Hi I'm the OP.  DT accepted all these images, no problems.   Yeah I know that doesn't really prove anything.  Well it proves I'm not completely crazy  

Have you contacted SS about these rejections? I feel we need to do that more. They can't fix the problem with reviewers if they don't know about it. A polite and to the point email to them including maybe some fragments of 100% resolution of the images in question can surely do no harm, but might help.  If all of us take it to them when rejections don't make any sense maybe it will improve their process in the future.

I agree with you especially if you are a long time submitter and you are certain your work is well above average.

My last two batches were reviewed a few hours after I submitted them.  The batch before that took 2 days.

It is well known that SS reviews are all over the map.  They accept the most god awful stuff from some well known submitters and reject pristine work from others.

For a very long time I had close to 100% acceptance then suddenly I ran into a reviewer or possible a script that was rejecting my work at close to 90% for about 4 months. I kept submitting images to get a good understanding of what was up. My conclusion was either the reviewer was making more for rejections, they were malicious or they were completely blind.

Now for the kicker, suddenly that reviewer seems to have moved on to new prey, because once again I have close to 100% acceptance.

SS puts different sets of data like images, thumbnails and the keywords associated with the images in our ports on different servers. These latency bugs which continually reappear without resolution, could be caused by data set servers that are out of sync across the SS network.

I tend to agree with Wut, that chances are good that if some of the small agencies hit it big, they will start messing with royalties.  As I see it, 123RF didn't try lowering royalties until they made it into the Big 4 (however briefly). 

I also still remember when Istock had been around for 5 years or so, and SS for at least 2 years and FT was the newest kid on the block (no, they haven't all been around the same amount of time).  Originally, FT were extremely responsive and accommodating. There was a lot of give and take with the contributor community.  Over time, I think we were viewed and treated by the big sites, less as partners and more as a necessary evil.  Our opinions were no longer welcome as they introduced subs, and later lowered royalties.   

However, seeing that some sites will do this when they get successful doesn't make me want to limit my options to those successful sites, who have already proven they will lower commissions.  It makes me want to broaden my options and upload to the smaller sites.   Yes, its slightly more work to upload to more sites, but a very small price to pay to keep some checks and balances on the big sites. 

I am extremely glad I joined Veer, Depositphoto, and Photodune.  Together they account for several hundred dollars a month I would not otherwise have, plus an insurance policy against falling royalties at the larger sites.   

I agree with you Lisa and I try to upload to the sites who treat their contributors well. I find it hard to swallow when the sites which we helped become successful, in turn thank us for our support by cutting our royalties and then utilizing that money to stick it to us further via newly ramped up sites sporting niceties such as best match disease.

Interesting. I have noticed a similar pattern on IS, where I'm exclusive. Tues, Wed and Thur are no longer the best days, in fact sometimes they are very poor. Rather than it being a bug or an anomaly, I had assumed it was some sort of rotation of files/contributors.

This is my fear, lets hope that it is the anomaly stockmarketer mentioned. These changes do concern me because I am a very early SS member and I have never consistently experienced this sales pattern.   It is time for us to start paying close attention.

Are we really such pathetic defeatists?

It does not take much for the collective mindset to change, in fact the courage of just one person can ignite a lasting change in mindset.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq8zFLIftGk[/youtube]

We forget the very roots of microstock which are different than traditional stock, in that IS and SS were created by buyers who wanted a cost effective product for themselves.

Today there are still a substantial number of stock photographers who are also buyers. And many of us produce content which is used by our colleagues; therefore we have the opportunity to influence where those colleagues buy the product they need. 

Why in the world would we choose to continue to hand over our power to corruption or greed; when clearly amongst our own numbers we have the buying power to protect our own interests.

History has proven over and over that when the collective balance become disproportionally out of wack we unite as collectives to restore a semblance of fairness and balance.  It took only a few people to stand up and start the trade unions and they had more to lose.

How much courage does it take to vote with our pocket book and encourage our friends, family and co-workers to do the same?

Quote from: stockmarketer on February 21, 2012, 13:36

So you decide to sweeten your financial arrangements with your 20 best selling vendors and make the deal less financially attractive for the other 80.  The end result is that the 20 best sellers give you more and more stuff since you strengthened those relationships, and a number of the other 80 decide to stop supplying you.  You're OK with this, since their products weren't bringing in customers, and the extra shelf space makes more room for the additional products from the top sellers.

This makes sense in theory.  Unfortunately, in practice, there are a few kinks.  Sites have discovered that rigging their search engines to promote the images they make the most profit on is preferable to boosting the (previous) best selling contributors.  

I am black diamond on Istock, but my stuff has been buried there, and sales have been in decline for a year or more.  Same story on Fotolia.  It's no coincidence that since the last major search engine shakeup Emeralds have reported plummeting sales, and lower ranked (lower percentage) contributors report sales are booming.  

Once 123RF figures out it can boost it's profits by pushing its lowest ranked (most profitable) artists to the front of its searches, the same thing will happen.  

The real death of this industry will be the fact that it punishes its successful suppliers in its pursuit of short-term profits.

I agree with your recap, which is why it is infuriating to see sites make these moves so that they can gather the resources needed to manipulate sales at our expense.  

I think SS is in the process of implementing this scenario as we speak. To date it does not seem that they are using their newly hired programmers to fix the serious bugs that negatively impact the folks who's hard work has helped them prosper and grow.

I won't be leaving, as I sell well at 123RF and I won't be seeing a cut. 

But I actually agree with the sentiment of the original post here, as well as replies who say everyone must make his/her own decision.

If a partner changed the terms of a deal on me, I would have every right to leave.  If I feel I'm being negatively impacted, I would say so, and if I end up being ignored, I would leave.  I would be a fool not to. 

We all should respect every individual's right to make decisions in his or her best interest.  If I were in the shoes of someone upset at the new terms, I would want to leave.  And if you were in my shoes, retaining your rate or even seeing a possible increase, you would want to stay.

The thing I have a hard time respecting is whining.  Or a victim mentality... taking abuse and sticking around for more.  By all means, make noise and try to get the other party to see your side, but if that ultimately doesn't work, you have to make a decision and live with it.  You're no one's slave.

It is really no secret that the folks who shoot full time would not be upset at all to see those who do not shoot full time leave the marketplace. Their departure just leaves a bigger piece of the pie for themselves and conversely if they choose to stay their exploitation to fund company growth could also be seen as beneficial to their bottom line.

The folks who shoot part time are either hobbyist with hit or miss images or they are buyers who produce HCV content as a second business in smaller quantities. Income for the former HCV content is already lower in recent years because that content is buried overnight by volumes of images from hobbyist and factories, so these royalty changes will impact the income of those producers especially in the lower tier sites. 

IS found out what happens when you reduce income for the later camp.

Quote from: luissantos84 on February 16, 2012, 13:45

honestly I don�t understand why you guys come here with non fundamented stuff when there isn�t a positive argument to talk about.. BUT yes can make them look pretty, perhaps you will get somekind of reward, seriously don�t blame the agencies/contributors

Luis, it is well known that some of us were directly contacted by one of the big players and told that there were certain small players we contributed to that were undercutting their business.  Agree with that argument or not, it has happened, and it is a real concern that we all have to keep in mind.  The older, big players ARE feeling threatened by the newer, small players.  And if you support the new agencies offering lower prices and commissions, you are helping to drive business away from the older agencies that you also support.  At some point you have to ask yourself if that is smart business.

Which is exactly why I supported this site first as a buyer and then as a contributor.  If I see a drop in earnings or search engine tweaking that benefits site earnings at the cost of contributors, I will no longer support this site as a buyer!

Quote from: Pixart on February 15, 2012, 11:40

Today I am hurt and confused.  What have I done wrong?  Why don't you love me any more?  

You haven't done anything wrong. But you have confused a personal relationship (love and trust) with a business relationship (financials and leverage).

Whenever a business has leverage over something (employees, distributors, etc) it will almost always take advantage of the leverage to optimize its financials.

I'm going to repeat this again and I hope someone is paying attention. Bookmark this. You are all slowly being herded herding yourselves toward Shutterstock with your "support the fair" mentality. When you all end up in the SS corral, they will have the absolute maximum leverage to make changes that inflict massive damage to contributors. I'm not saying they will. I would like to hope that they won't but history suggests otherwise.

I think SS is already making those changes, we are just too trusting to notice!

Hi everyone,

The new commission structure is up. You can read it as you log into 123RF and the structure is right below the captcha entry.

I thank you for your patience and for those who have afforded us some amount of faith - I personally thank you very much. I am open to all questions and I promise to answer each and every one. As usual we'll be upfront about things.

All I can say is, allow our track record to speak for itself. We came from humble beginnings have outlasted quite a few agencies and we aren't stopping our growth. I do apologize for dismal review times, I acknowledge we're a bit slow but we're hammering out the videos platform this month, our attention is focused there somewhat.

We are making quite a number of changes most importantly - we've been given the go ahead to expand the operations department threefold. I believe in about 2 months time, long review times will be a thing of the past.

I welcome your questions.... As usual

Alex.

To recap you will be expanding your operations department threefold "At Our Expense"!  Soon we will be seeing job postings bragging about stellar company benefit packages while we suffer the consequences.

I do not know about the rest of this bunch but I am sick to the bones at seeing others benefit at my expense. http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/day-in-the-life-jon-oringer-wsj-slideshow/

Our costs continue to rise, the companies are doing well, they are hiring and yet our standard of living continues to deteriorate.

Pathetic and dispicable!