It is just a desperate move to compete on price because they are loosing video customers. Why because if you do any search on Pond5 Adobe the selection is much better and deeper, and if you want price subs sites like Envato Videoblocks Artgrid etc are also much more competitive in many aspects. They are fighting for the lasts drops but don't be surprised if in a few years they drop video the same way as they did with music. If you are video exclusive I would look to drop the crown as there are much better opportunities outside Getty and also the future hasn't look good for a long time with royalties so low. Shutterstock and Istock are not viable options if you want to live from stock footage.

You are on lawful grounds documenting and photographing someone on public grounds. It does not matter if the subject being photographed likes it or not. It is a right granted to you in most free democracies. Why? Because it helps transparency, freedom of press and because when you are on a public street you are not granted anonymity anymore. Nothing to do with respect or not. It is the way it is the same way as you have the right to not be arrested and maintained in custody by the police without a lawyer even if the police thinks that it detracts to catch the bad guy.
Things work this way in a democracy for a lot of reasons.

And about microstock and freedom of press. It does not matter if you have an official badge from a press organization which I have as I studied and have a degree in journalism in Spain, or if a microstocker or a citizen journalist documents any action on public ground. That freedom protects all.
And the photographer that had problems in Salamanca has all the law on his side and the subject that got angry not, only if the published image is used for "informative" purposes. If that would not be the case then the angry bad educated man might have a case.

Just to inform, this is NOT personally directed to Alexandre. I'm speaking generally about shooting strangers in public.

We photographers tend to get so defensive about our legal rights. Relax. It shouldn't ALWAYS be about legal rights. What about common decency, and what's reasonable? The other person you are pointing your camera at is not an anonymous object or a piece of meat. That's a real person with thoughts, feelings and opinions. I don't think it hurts too much to be considerate to other people, when you are shooting. Show some respect. If you are like most photographers, you have an enormous backlog of images to work on. It can't be ALL about that one photo of that one person who doesn't want his/her photo taken.

It's never a bad idea to think of your own reputation. If somebody starts complaining about you, it can be bad for your business. You come across as difficult to work with. Potential clients looking for a freelancer will choose someone else to work with.

"Freedom of press" is a huge exaggeration when it comes to microstock photography. A great deal of editorial micro shots are just a bunch of unreleased images that are not topical and will never be published by any news media. Even a microstock photographer who shoots some newsworthy shots every now and then can't be associated with daily news reporters employed by nationwide or international media. That's a whole different ball game.

Quote from: everest on May 08, 2021, 06:58

You are just wrong and don't understand how freedom of press works. In public space you have no right to not to be your image being taken by a photographer or a security camera. Those images cannot be published in a commercial way but yes in an editorial way. That means if an article is about a city for example and you are standing in the shot the article has all the right to use the image with or without your authorization. Tha's the law in most democracies. You might like it or not but that's how it works. In North Korea China and Venezuela it might be different do.

Quote from: ravens on May 07, 2021, 06:46

A photographer has his or her rights but a person has a right to be left alone. I usually think in situations like this, "what if this would be me?" Do I want somebody to point a camera at me when I walk on the street? NO!
OK, then I will have to give the same privacy to others, too.

Microstock is no longer a viable professional option for 99% of contributors. If you live in a cheap country it might work for you a little longer but this has been as a business has been a loosing proposition for a long time.

If you do it as a hobby I also think micro is not a good proposition because it limits you creatively a lot. Somehow you begin to pump content that many times is absolutely worthless from a creative point of view although it might rack in the dollars for the corporations.

Think wisely if you think a new lens every year is worth to drain your inspiration and creativity to the bottom.

So you are a professional. I doubt it. I am for the last 25 years as a photographer the last 13 living only from stock.  Do you live from Stock ? If so you will not soon if you keep uploading to Istock and SS. I plan to keep living from this in the next 3 years at least. And not in the Ukraine but in western Europe where cost of living is much more expensive.  Planning ahead of that in this convoluted industry is too unreliable.


Don't listen to advices like this.
If you want to be professional � look what professionals do. All of top authors/studios upload to ss and istock


Pond5 and Adobe are kings of the game in the footage department. Forget Istock and SS pennies for clips and getting worse by the day. You will only devaluate your work and clap to your abusers.

Videohive you can dictate your prices and commission is not bad.

That's interesting. Please make a follow up if it appears as a sale in the next 60 days. If not we could be in front of a fraud maybe huge if it is common of other reselling parties that sell Shutterstock or Istock images......At one point there will be a huge lawsuit with planetary fines. It's a matter of time and that a bunch of large producers go ahead with a solid case and strong evidences like the one you mention.

Mat as you ask. You are right that the content need have changed and that now everybody has to wear a mask and "travel" "tourism" images are out of fashion but surely they will return once the pandemic is over. I truly think that those that produced lots of covid related content for sure did better but they will also pay a price for it because once the pandemic is over and it seems it will be sooner than expected now that so many vaccines are on the table that content will become stale very quickly and "regular content" has a much longer shelf life and hopefully will keep selling for years to come.

But the biggest problem I see now are the ridiculous nanostock prices everywhere. Today i received my Getty statement and I can tell you I have thousands of sales for 0.01$ thats right 0.01$ expensive lifestyle shoots that are given away. I don't supply anymore nor Getty nor Shutters in their race to become a free site. So what I have done is to concentrate in the few well paying sites that are left like Arcangel, Pond5 Envato (not element the regular one where I can set my prices) and Adobe , those last ones mainly in video as they still pay a reasonable amount of money for every sale. All the other receive 0 content from me and it is going to stay that way. If all the market becomes like Getty Shutter pretend it to be so be it . I will be out and doing something more profitable. I supply agencies for the money not for fun , ego or wasting my time.

I am happy that your agency is still resisting the urge to follow the other two gorillas that only take stain with mud a wonderful way to be creative. No respect at all for them and I really wish more artists take notice and begin kissing goodbye all those blood suckers.

I guess briefs are a huge failure and they are trying to push them hard down the throat.

I wonder if any pro would take the time to even read them. When I reviewed the program I was astonished. If they would pay 10x /image (literally) I might take the chance. Briefs are ok if somedy is searching for any simple image or something you have on your HD. To arrange a shoot with models and locations for such a low reward "if" you get rewarded is just crazy.

Hello:

This morning I was running a test. If I search with my Shutterstock and account name on Shutterstock many of my deactivated videos months ago are visible on google and you can click on them and purchase them on the Shutterstock page.

As a chat window opens for customer service I asked why they are still selling my content if deactivated from the site. The only answer I got was that this was not the right forum and I should contact Shutterstock support.

So it seems they are selling the content even if deactivated. I wonder if they have a clause in their contract that they can do so and they rely on google searches to circumvent the deactivation. I wonder also where the money goes. i haven't had a report of a sale for months. So it is really suspicious that all the content is available for sale but "no sales happen".

Maybe that's the reason they really don't care much about deactivations. I wonder if it is also happening to you. Because if that would be the case a huge class lawsuit would be in order.

Adobe will be dominating this market in no time. Shutterstock and Istock are being left behind much faster that everybody thought. The Shutterstock move is just a quick money grab so the founder and a few more people in the management can make as much money as possible before leaving the sinking ship. Mr Oringer is slowly selling his stock in the company every week. I wonder if he still has more than 50%.

Istock did the same when they raised prices like crazy with Hellman&Friedman in this case making a quick money grab on the back of their customers. They run away and then they had no other option to reduce royalties, introduce subs, ...... Since today they have not recovered from the hit, have a huge debt that at one point might put them out of business in the future.

Less and less top contributors are giving any content to Shutterstock and that only means one thing in the near future. As simple as that.

It is a campaign where the message is that all catalans should embrace themselves again for the elections that will be held in 2 weeks in Catalonia, autonomy territory in northeast of Spain (similar to a federal state ). As there has been a lot of conflict among catalans in the past years, those that want independence from Spain and those that want to stay in the country the campaign was supposed to be a metaphor to reunite this two very distant points of view.

The article says that the campaign has been criticized a lot is the social media because of different reasons. First, because the images do not use the party colours (orange). Second because many people say the images are "naive". Third because there are images from the same shoot where the same model shows his middle finger (:-D)  and the most weird of all is "that in a time that hugging is not recommended because of the pandemic situation this images spread a wrong message....whatever.

In any case it is weird that in a political campaign that costs lots of money in banners, prints, leaflets, the design,.....they cannot spend a little of that budget hiring a photographer and a few models that make it a personal and unique one. The sign of our times ...-good enough- although the images are quite "microstocky" and you risk this kind of problems using people endorsing an ideologic view as they were sympathizing with this party. Well many mistakes and they are learning the hard way. Now they have to start all over because of the prohibition and people backslash they retired the campaign.

Despicable and shameful.