And how's that any different to any other site?

You still get to keep much more than you would on a stock site. Although, I'd be worried about licensing there, as there aren't any licenses as far as I know. Yes, you retain copyright of your work... they're not buying the item outright... but in theory, somebody could use your image multiple times for multiple clients, including for uses that would normally require an extended license.

I guess you could stipulate your own license in the item description though... but how would you prove the buyer had read it? Stock sites usually cover their backs on things like that... i.e. here are the licenses, you agree to them whenever purchasing anything here etc etc.

Seems a bit risky for my liking... unless you set the price really high to account for that kind of thing. 

If an image is of a high enough quality, and perfectly suits a buyers needs, then why would they care who has made it and how much time they invest in creating stock?

I can maybe understand high sellers coming above others in the results, but if it's just based on hobbyist or professional... then you might have worse images coming out on top of better ones.

As the agency, if they're operating in Europe, then I'm pretty sure that Pond5 should be charging and remitting VAT on your behalf.

Just use Photo JPEG, it's a better quality codec, more widely accepted, and allows 4K output.

Fingers crossed... a handful of 4K ones would be nice! Only had one there so far, but an email saying you've made $191.54 from one sale is always a welcome surprise.

They say that happiness is a state of mind and it is.

Of course it is. But it's heavily linked to things that aren't a state of mind. Like if I lived on a bench, eating one meal every other day, was tortured on a daily basis, and forced to endure ridicule and humiliation every day of my life.... I might still be able to find happiness within that. I might be able to influence my state of mind to be happy.

I was addicted for the first 2 years.  Now, I'm happy with Alamy.  The rest of the sites either pay me too small a percentage or have done something to make it harder for me to increase my earnings.  I have no idea how people can be happy with istock taking 85% or other sites selling video clips for almost nothing?  Working harder and harder to make other people rich while my earnings erode has no appeal to me.  I'm still looking for alternatives and I'm sure my next addiction will be nothing to do with microstock.

Not having a dig or anything, just generally interested in your answer.... if you got more money from iStock than you did Alamy, would you be less bothered about them taking 85%?

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few disabled people do Mstock it offers a "career" for many who might find getting to and from work etc very challenging.

Absolutely. There's a guy on the Envato forums (cue the boos) that had Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis which resulted in him being 95% physically challenged. He recently bought himself a new wheelchair using his earnings from Envato. I mean, he obviously doesn't value his work, but still

1. If it rains more than 100 pennies for every dollar, then it's more profitable. Although, slightly more painful.

2. What you value your work at is great, but it might have very little relation to what others value your work at.

3. You may not support VB's subs, but you are supporting their business as a whole, by uploading there. Defend them or not, you're still enabling them.

4. The $200 jeans were probably still made by some kid in Bangladesh.

5. It may be a philosophy, but philosophies don't pay the bills.

5. You choose to keep the price high. Price and value are not always related. 

I got a mail the last days from videoblocks, offering to download any video for free the next 7 days (would lead into a Membership if not cancelled)
maybe thats the reason?

I think they send those emails out every day of the year! They more or less do with their 50% off subscription emails anyway. Even though... most, if not all sales, come from people who are already subscribers, who can download whatever they want for free anyway. Such an email, in theory, should only result in the same amount of sales... possibly a few more. That's 'in total, on average' though... I appreciate that individuals sales can rise and fall with natural variance.

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on February 20, 2017, 19:50

The item prices and commision rates have increased at least twice since VideoHive has been running.

So they "raised" their prices, two times even, to get allll the way up to $8? And they "raised" artist share waaaay up to 36%? Wow, super impressive. I stand corrected.

Price and commissions were even lower in the past, and people still submitted there? I'd say that's unbelievable, but then I'd be the naive one to become shocked by how poorly some contributors value themselves.

Well of course it's going to be $1 increments on a base price of $6. That's a 17% increase. If Shutterstock did the same then it would be $92 instead of $79. A $13 increase might work on a $79 clip, but it's going to be a tough pill to swallow on a $6 clip.

And yes, it's waaay up to 36%... but you do realise that that's more than Shutterstock and much more than iStock? And if you're exclusive then it's 50% to 70%, so it's not exactly bleeding contributors dry.

I hear this a lot... about people poorly valuing themselves. Personally I think it's nonsense... some made up stance that people have which doesn't really correlate that well with the world of stock footage and stock photography.  If I 'valued myself better' (i.e. didn't upload anything to VideoHive) then I'd make about $2,250 less a month.

Stock is a business and not an art. Yes, you use the medium of art, and the principles that go with it, to create an end product... but it's a business selling that product. And as with any business, the main thing is usually the bottom line. People rarely sell stock for fun. I'm not that concerned if I'm getting $5 a clip, or $99 a clip... or I'm getting 15% a sale or 70% sale, as long as my net earnings are pretty much where I want them to be. 50% on a $100 sale is lovely, but 50% on 20 $8 sales is even better.

The way I see it, there's room for both types of agencies in the market. Film, tv and advertising people are happy to pay the $79, as that's what they've always paid, and that's what they can afford. Youtube people aren't happy to pay $79 as they're not doing films, tv and advertising, and they need large amounts of content that is affordable. Sure, both sites will sell to whoever wants to buy their stuff, but I think there are two distinct types of buyers. VideoHive caters to one of those types.

I'm happy to cater to both, as that increases my overall profits. Bank managers, landlords and off-license staff don't care about what percentage you get, or how much a clip sells for... they care about cold, hard, filthy dollars.

If you want to value yourself, then you're probably best setting up a photography studio, only taking high-end clients who can see the magnificent brilliance within your work, and having a gallery where you can spend the days explaining to your visitors how you feel the white background of the tomato represents the eternal struggle between fruit and vegetable, a void if you will... and also the purity of its essence as the one true king of foodstuffs. Maybe you could sell prints for $1000 a go?

What you need to understand is that this is an industry that has minimal barriers to entry, where a decent enough camera, combined with a bit of common sense, business savvy, and an eye for a decent shot is pretty much all you need to get started. Combine that with time and more common sense and more business savvy accrued over that time... and it'll probably result in at least a reasonable amount of money coming in every month. It's no longer the domain of the elite photographer, slaving away in their darkroom, with their full format cameras... endlessly telling anyone who will listen about how their parents had old film cameras and you found them so fascinating etc etc. 

The business savvy and common sense parts are pretty 'static' commodities, with a long shelf life, but everything else is getting cheaper, quicker, better... so why shouldn't the output from that work also be cheaper?

Even when the photographers who value their work are living on park benches from stubbornly sticking to their lofty sense of self-importance.... I imagine that their cardboard sign will say "can you please spare $50 for a cup of tea" when all the other homeless dudes will say "can you please spare $2 for a cup of tea".

But still, those who have a decent camera, time, common sense and business savvy are still relatively thin on the ground, surprisingly... so there's still hope for those that do have those attributes. You'll be fine for now Daryl, don't worry, but I'm sure we can start a Kickstarter to help out the poor impoverished photographers and keep the ancient art of 'tomatoes on white backgrounds' and 'businessmen shaking hands' alive.   

And to be fair... isn't everything that I'm saying probably the same kind of thing that RF people were telling RM people about ten years ago? Surely everybody here is undervaluing their work and contributing to the downfall of stock, by uploading to any of the micro agencies? If you're happy to go with micro over macro, then isn't it slightly hypocritical to diss people who are going with nano over micro?