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Messages - Uncle Pete
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176
« on: January 03, 2025, 12:46 »
I don't agree. I personally know a few folks with small portfolio's that generate this income. Most of their images are of very high commercial value and are best sellers on all the major MS companies (i.e., Adobe, SS and iStock). Is there a pattern or type of image that sells best? Seems to be in the high volume areas like Christmas or nature (Flowers) or Homes. I knew one person (they are a realtor) that shoot nothing but very high quality interiors and make a lot of $$$$. Many folks, including myself, do not shot interiors very well compared to the high end pro's. I know one person that does Christmas only and they sell a lot! Yeah, having more volume will get you more sales but not in a predictable ratio. I know one person that shots everything (average looking images) and they have like 50,000 images but generate less than $3,000 a month.
Not to degrade the survey but under 250 people, is a small sample, from the tens of thousands of people who do or try to make money from Microstock. Since the participation was by choice, just like here, some people may not be motivated to participate. "People, who survive and learn - grow more organically later (as shown in the more even bottom rows). People, who give up and abandon it, make it only to statistics, such as this chart has to offer."True but another way to view that is, people who succeed stay and those who don't, move on to something else. I don't want to label that as Giving Up or Abandoning, when it's plain and simple business sense. Work for money or work for nothing? People who survive are doing so because they are good enough and smart and work hard. Success breeds success. Once against we come to the debate, more images, more images, more money, or better images, find open needs and make more money. Of course I am biased, because I believe that Niche is the same as Research before creating. Easiest way to put that is, don't make the most images don't just copy and make the most popular historically. Niche is the same as Find a needed subject, style, area, opportunity to create. Last of all, unnecessary to conclude or have a survey tell me this. Hard work pays off. Of course the people who work hardest, the most hours, and make the most, will continue to work hard and make the most. Also the people who work the smartest will make more. And in a similar way, people who have access to a niche or a special area of interest, or find their success in a specific area, will continue to make more. More images, does not equal more money, unless the images are suitable and in demand. More images is just a number. More sales are more money. Unless someone does this for entertainment or bragging rights, the bottom line is, making money, not RPD, views, likes, rank or anything else. "How big is your Microstock portfolio", died ages ago.
177
« on: January 02, 2025, 14:14 »
RPD and total DL aren't really useful for comparing agencies
my RPD for AS is twice that of SS yet SS income is consistently about 20% greater than AS (which is what matters in the end)
meanwhile SS DL are 1.5 to twice as many AS, but not reflected in $
so both RPD & DL are misleading as indicators of success, which also makes the AS weekly ranking merely bragging rights
Yes, the AS weekly and lifetime are variable and unreliable, not just because they might be DLs only, but comparing, people have different numbers for the same DLs and lower numbers for more DLs. It's terribly flawed. But nice for bragging rights, which never paid for anything. RPD, it would be good if someone is comparing similar systems. The problem is just what you say. My RPD on Alamy, to go for one extreme, was $48.83 last year. Being fair, two DLs were around $140 each. If I only use what I consider microstock sites: in order of earnings for the year = AS 00.88 SS 00.65 WS 00.44 iS 00.47 DT 00.38 In my case, AS is better in all respects. No one can decide based on someone else's images and content. I only have video on Pond5, I don't have Editorial on Adobe. Some of my best images on Adobe are not acceptable on SS. DT takes everything, the same images that are on SS and AS. It just happens that sorted by DLs, AS is double SS, SS is double WS, IS is double DT. WS earned half of what SS paid, but the RPD is close to 2/3rds. The only stat that matters is $$$ per year.   OK a nice bunch of numbers, but AS earns me 3X more in DOLLARS than SS makes me and that's what we spend, not RPD or DLs. RPD doesn't show that. And counting DLs doesn't work either.
178
« on: January 01, 2025, 14:18 »
(SS and P5)
At some point they will have to get back into it, or their share price will keep dropping and somebody else might buy them. Or shortsellers destroy them.
Would you go out in the ocean, to buy a sinking ship? SS has other businesses, has profits from shares, that made Jon a millionaire. They reduced our pay to below the minimum, and that's why we get the 10, not less. SS is not going to make a change or come-back. They own Pond5 and we all saw the new reduced pay rates there. That's how SS makes more money. By paying us less. And people still upload millions of new images a year. Just remember nothing at a lower level still equals nothing lol!
100% of nothing is still nothing.  I'll take my 15% of something. I'm still going to try to stay positive, find more for subjects that have less coverage, have fun, and keep working at other things, because the best I can say for myself is, this is Microstock is only a hobby.  There's also the real side and Pond5 cut commissions, plus SS "Man meets Reset" 
179
« on: December 31, 2024, 12:21 »
AI didn't kill ClipartOf...
"all you can download for $10 sites" did.
Who would pay $30 for a single vector when they can get unlimited vector downloads for 1/3 of the price?
That too. The free and the all you can take sites, are hurting all around. But, I'm not a fan of AI, the point is, anyone can go to one of the AI sites and type in some words and have an illustrations of what they need. Many places, accounts were free like Dall-E, until last year, and there are still ways to make free illustrations. It's just sad to see a quality site, going out of business because the market and the industry has sunk so far. Microstock became Pennystock, has become Nanostock.
180
« on: December 31, 2024, 12:02 »
2025 Goals
1. Staying POSITIVE
2. Find a Niche
3. Concentrate on images that have a high commercial value
4. Be nice to others
Sure thing and 5) time for a reset. Oh, nevermind, I meant, personal reset.  
181
« on: December 29, 2024, 11:28 »
Spotted some AI payments on my latest sales report by iStock (November).
Check yours under "AISERVICES".
Although it's not much, even by Getty standard, at least they've started paying out.
Yes, we had a discussion about that when the sales were reported for NOV. One is USA and the other is Other. It's listed under Connect Sales for some reason. Just to keep you informed - the support answered my ticket with serveral specific questions:
"Hello Michael,
For more information regarding our generative AI services we have created a new FAQ section to address the questions you might have.
Please visit the link below: https://contributors.gettyimages.com/article/10953
Best Regards."
And my ticket was closed wihout any answer to my questions...
I got just over 15% on USA and just under 15% on the other.
182
« on: December 28, 2024, 11:57 »
I want to leave DT due to very few sales but I've only just over $26 in my balance. I've Uploaded videos which pay more but no sales. And the rate of sales hasn't increased at all even though I steadily increased my port to about 1500 photos & videos
Sorry, but your lifetime download per image is 0.03, mine is more than 6 for lifetime.
I never expected a fortune for snapshots, and I think I was right to be very selective, and hard working for the highest level I could produce.
DT was and is a very good company I like to contribute to.
Nice numbers, is that 6.03 an average, not a "per image"? So if you have bubbles vectors, with 725, 161, 40 downloads, and many others at level 5, then something else with zero, with 2,173 images, the average download per image is 6.03? You have some real winners in there! I'm first to admit, mine is 0.09 / 1,549 and no hero winner vectors. But not everyone has a special standout group of vectors that are repeating sellers at level 5. My best image is an illustration, marked photo  level 4 with only 15 DLS. Most of my sales are 35 cents. It takes a long time at 35 to make it to $100. I think for many more people DT was good at one time and has fallen to small returns now. Depending on when someone started, the rank and results could be very different.
183
« on: December 27, 2024, 12:55 »
I wish good luck to Jamie.
But this was expected. They had a very strict contributor approval policy and later completely stopped taking contributors.
AI killed it?
184
« on: December 25, 2024, 12:57 »
Hasn't been worth uploading to SS for ages now because new photos just aren't selling,
You can speak for yourself, the new photos are selling very good if you produce the right quality, my downloads doubled this year compared with last year on SS and the new material is selling very well for me.
I find some of each. New photos that catch on, do just as well as the old. Also the easy sales for new photos, aren't what they used to be. But that's because instead of being one new photo in thousands, for that day, I'd be one new in hundreds of thousands. Same thing for competition. When the agencies had 50 million images, we could sell more. Now they have 500 Million. Logically, nothing will sell as many or as much. But you're right, something new, top quality, will eventually sell.
185
« on: December 25, 2024, 12:42 »
Aim for 15 seconds clips
From advice of others, 15 to 30 seconds at most. A longer clip can be made into more shorter clips to offer.
186
« on: December 24, 2024, 12:53 »
That or half of Pakistan downloading them with someones subscription account, mirroring the image and then reuploading for sale themselves.
Or dozens of new copycat accounts who all share stolen images and then upload to a dozen agencies that don't care enough to check for dupes and stolen images.
187
« on: December 24, 2024, 12:39 »
I'll side with what majority seems to believe, which is that Microstock is on its deathbed with AI placing final nail in the coffin. At some point these famous photographers like Yuri were paving the road and showing what's possible with skill and hard work. Not anymore; microstock is nowdays "Uncle Pete hobby", which for average contributor can hardly even finance cost of gear. I look sometime at amount of work Brutally Honest Microstock guy Alex Rottenberg invests, shooting, technology, extremely well researched blogs - and what does he have to show for it? Few 100's a month.
It's really a shame because photography, when done properly, is form of self expression, art and can bring lots of joy beyond just financial aspect. In particular this downright despicable mess AI is creating. Today, while researching potential trip to Alaska next summer, I went to Adobe (as customer would) and searched for "Chilkoot Lake". Wanted to throw up when I saw results - some guy spammed with 100s of AI generated shots of grizzly bears that look about just as ridiculous as anything I have ever seen. Shooting wildlife is art, waiting, patience in the wild, having proper equipment/lens - not this.
Yes, Go High or Go Low. Either be very serious or make it a hobby. I decided hobby in 2012 when I saw what was going on with agencies, cutting our returns, along with the supply being far more than the demand. There was a false belief, being promoted by agencies like Shutterstock, that there was a hug untapped demand, and that there was potential for growth of the business. I think you hit the point very well, that AI ended the slow death of Microstock accelerating the final crash.
188
« on: December 22, 2024, 14:46 »
Deepmeta is the answer to the IS system that's worse and doesn't work and doesn't give us stats. There is also Qhero https://qhero.com/ if you want another. But here's what works for stats. https://deepmeta.creativ.zone/
Yes. Stats reporting is great example of something that was conceived very poorly in the beginning, and now just getting hacked over and over. Building 20th floor of a highrise that rests on rotten soil. IS Platform should be taught at college level software design courses as example now NOT to do things.
189
« on: December 21, 2024, 13:52 »
The inability to modify keywords, descriptions etc. after submission is very annoying. If you discover a "typo" after submission, you have to generate a ticket to get it corrected.
And after you write, more than once, the spelling error remains unchanged for years. I used to try to add words to the CV, there's a contact for that. Not worth the time.
It's just platform rigidity that makes no sense to anyone except maybe the guy that originally designed it, and now likely gone. Another nonsense is "Deep Meta" - heavy, monolithic Microsoft.NET standalone app, likely a nightmare from source code standpoint. IS already has Web Front End, that more or less does the job. Absolutely no need for Deep Meta, except maybe to keep the guy that works on it employed.
Deepmeta is the answer to the IS system that's worse and doesn't work and doesn't give us stats. There is also Qhero https://qhero.com/ if you want another. But here's what works for stats. https://deepmeta.creativ.zone/The problem is Getty and their system of cataloging everything. That's where CV came from. CV is not something that someone at IS just dreamed up to make everything convoluted and impossible. It's a cataloging system, used by large archives, museums and research facilities. I didn't say it was good for stock, in facts it's terrible for the application, for us and for customers. But that's what it is and why Getty chose it. https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/index.html
190
« on: December 21, 2024, 13:38 »
I agree. The 100% is the money they say they made. You get your share, be it 15% as non-exclusive or 25-45% as exclusive. Your part is calculated (before your percentage) as 50% of the files having been used for the dataset and the other 50% as the weighted factor of how many files you have licensed of those files during that year.
Yes, that's nice and simple and fits what we already get by contract. 15% of the total that IS takes in. But you know that someone will read the 50% and 50% and somehow imagine that we are getting 100% of something, which is impossible. IS gets paid 100% from the licensing for training, we get 15% of that number.
191
« on: December 20, 2024, 13:35 »
The CV is very frustrating if you are uploading editorial and they don't have the name of a store or business....and that happens a lot.
That's another example. Just leave it, it will still get indexed which is all you care about
Managed keyword concept is incredibly dumb. Capturing entire dictionary of modern language is virtually impossible. No wonder nobody else is doing it. If this idea had any worth to it, rest assured Adobe would be doing something similar on their platform
If you followed the links I included, you will see, this isn't for us or stock photos, it's for large archives. The idea is something like taxonomy, in that, you can't include everything, but you need relationships, groups, and names. There's a conformity that's supposed to make things less confusing and more organized. I don't think CV makes sense for our use or stock photos. But that's what Getty decided as they are running a huge archive, that needs to be searched. One thing, maybe, it does cut down on spam and useless words?
192
« on: December 19, 2024, 14:30 »
Hasn't iStock said that if you don't disambiguate the kw's they won't be translated into other languages and you could therefore be missing out on a lot of sales from non-English speaking regions.
I believe you are correct. Hello guys,
Maybe someone know where can find Istock controlled vocabulary (CV)? Maybe somewhere can download this vocabulary?
Didn't you get the study guide and dictionary when you signed up for iStock. Here's some good reading: https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/intro_to_vocabs.pdfAnd here's the Getty Vocabulary, which will make some people say "I'm sorry I asked"? It is open source. https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/index.html
193
« on: December 19, 2024, 14:14 »
Here's my answer, like the drones in New Jersey, which aren't drones, but mistaken identity or ordinary UAVs, this is 100% conjecture, from what I've read. Translated, that means I might be imagining things or I could be right? Or none of the above.
Training share: 50% of the revenue will be divided between all of the files used to train our AI Services, giving an equal share for each file. This rewards every file that was part of the value created by our AI Services in each year.
Weighted share: 50% of the revenue will be weighted to each file in the training set, based on the royalties that file earned from traditional licensing in the same year. This rewards the proven commercial value of your content in each year.
50% plus 50% = 100% Half will be an equal share of the money, received by Getty, for each file. Half will be based on royalties that the file earned, in the same year. That's for each of our files or each of our files that were used, that also had sales.
50% plus 50% = 100% and we get 15% of that total amount, the 100%, for images. A further guess is video gets 20% of that 100% if the files used for AI training are videos.
They probably had meetings and committees that met and studied for months to come up with this.
Until someone comes up with the real answer, from support, or finds a better made up version, that's mine. We get 15% of that 100% and Getty keeps 85%
What you wrote is almost as convoluted as IS platform ;=)
That's why I think I understand it? Real simple and straight. The number we see for the CONNECT SUMMARY STATEMENT Summary of Connect-based revenue by customer and product. AISERVICES United States ##.## is the License fee Commission = varies ##.## is what we get. (mine was just over 15%) The second AISERVICES for location says "varies" then License Fee Total, Varies for Commission, and the number we are credited. (mine was just under 15%) So the numbers for AISERVICES are the 100% and we get, around 15% of that. The whole 50% of each file and 50% of each file that has downloads, is just mystical, magic, Getty math, and irrelevant. They pay us a roughly 15%, just like everything else.
194
« on: December 18, 2024, 17:25 »
I found "AI Services" in PDF as well (no need to use TodayIs20).
Just like everything else on IS Platform things are super convoluted. It's almost like they are trying very hard to make it as complicated as possible. Maintaining this bloated system must be real nightmare, no wonder errors happen. It is also significant overhead in terms of $$ required to pay people that work on this. This is why we get 15%. Modernize the system, reduce the overhead --> Contributors get at least 5% more, IS maintains same profit.
Here's my answer, like the drones in New Jersey, which aren't drones, but mistaken identity or ordinary UAVs, this is 100% conjecture, from what I've read. Translated, that means I might be imagining things or I could be right? Or none of the above. Training share: 50% of the revenue will be divided between all of the files used to train our AI Services, giving an equal share for each file. This rewards every file that was part of the value created by our AI Services in each year.
Weighted share: 50% of the revenue will be weighted to each file in the training set, based on the royalties that file earned from traditional licensing in the same year. This rewards the proven commercial value of your content in each year. 50% plus 50% = 100% Half will be an equal share of the money, received by Getty, for each file. Half will be based on royalties that the file earned, in the same year. That's for each of our files or each of our files that were used, that also had sales. 50% plus 50% = 100% and we get 15% of that total amount, the 100%, for images. A further guess is video gets 20% of that 100% if the files used for AI training are videos. They probably had meetings and committees that met and studied for months to come up with this. Until someone comes up with the real answer, from support, or finds a better made up version, that's mine. We get 15% of that 100% and Getty keeps 85%
195
« on: December 17, 2024, 13:04 »
I don't confirm the slowdown,in fact this week is already better than last week,and I have already reached last December's sales number.
From January my sales should increase further,I don't have much Christmas content and I definitely need to do more people,I already have ready and selected more generated people content,but I have to start working on it as soon as I finish the current project.
Lots to do,better get to work! 
I'd agree that there's no telling. I just had a burst of sales today. I never know why or when someone is going to want something. Cobalt is right about the Holiday sales, I always get a boost from that. But, I just had an Easter image download. Something I uploaded two years ago. My St. Patrick's Day project was a dud. Maybe they will pick up after two years of laying dormant? No I don't mean rank, just sales would be good. I'm done uploading new, for this year. I'm saving anything else for 2025, to kick off the New Year with some uploads.
196
« on: December 16, 2024, 12:06 »
Hello everyone. There's a statistic I'm curious about. What's the most you've earned from selling a single photo or video on Adobe Stock?
I've been uploading for two years. The most I've made on a single sale is $6 for photos. $7 for videos.
I have no idea. Adobe doesn't tell us that kind of thing, and I'd have to dig through years and years, one year at a time, pages and pages of activity, just to see.
197
« on: December 16, 2024, 11:17 »
Received notice a few days ago that they are relocating their photo section over to Yay images.
Which is the reason why they may not be accepting any contributions at this moment.
both these companies truly suck! Remember nothing plus nothing still equals nothing...
Two dead agencies, pooling their resources, to make a slower and more painful, slow death. This is the end my friend.
198
« on: December 13, 2024, 14:22 »
As if they weren't unpopular enough, Shutterstock now have a new rejection policy.
Shutterstock Content Resubmission Guidelines
Guidelines on submitting content that has been previously reviewed or already approved.
Previously Rejected Content
Content can only be submitted once. When submitting content for the first time, please ensure it meets all Shutterstock Content Publishing Standards and Guidelines before submitting it for review. In most cases, our system will not allow you to resubmit content that has already been reviewed and rejected.
If you attempt to resubmit content that has been previously rejected, it will generally be rejected again for Previously Rejected.
https://submit.shutterstock.com/en/dashboard
Except that SS doesn't reject much anymore. Everything now is put into "Eligible for data licensing". To get a rejection, you have to do something pretty extreme. Someone will have to test the theory that a missed check box, for Editorial, for example, makes an image impossible to upload again. How about rejection for improper Editorial caption, is that a death sentence for the image? Doesn't sound right, but this is Shutterstock. Anything is possible, no matter how unlikely or illogical.
199
« on: December 13, 2024, 13:30 »
So... maybe it's you or your location. 
No, it's just that my questions are more complex than yours, they are technical in nature. And how they will solve them is not yet known.
You can read my questions now? Yes, my question was about their system, submission and reviews, Editorial and things that I do, so it wasn't technical "technically". The reply took a week. But in other instances, they have been faster and gave personal responses, not some boilerplate "expert" who probably knows less than you or I about how SS works, and then says, they will forward the question to someone else, which means two things: 1) It's going into a black hole and we'll never see an answer OR 2) It's going to the real SS assistance people. Where they will file it as #1 on their priority list. (see #1 here)
200
« on: December 12, 2024, 13:13 »
Curious, what do you propose doing?
40%->30% for regular is a 25% income steal.
60%->40% for exclusive is a 33% income steal.
Has nothing to do with "market" conditions, but rather simple theft, and the execs giving themselves between a 25%-33% Christmas bonus to buy new yachts (or maybe 'acquire' more companies), then saying happy hanukkah while they do it grinning from ear to ear, calling the "exclusive" as well an "increase", like what?
Very wrong. Thoughts?
It's on the stock news for SSTK. This explains much of it. Bullish Shutterstock Insiders Loaded Up On US$679.5k Of Stock
Simply Wall St. 4 days ago Insiders knew they were cutting our commissions and bought stock. 1-Year Return SSTK Down 26.54% / S&P 500 up 31.40% Many years ago, I said SS was a $30 stock. Now it is. I would have considered it at $29 a share, but now I wouldn't be an investor for anything. They are unethical and nothing but money grubbers. As for the questions about closing P5, keep in mind the history. They are still operating BigStock and I believe everyplace that they bought. It was Getty that bought IS and then shut down all of the agencies that IS grabbed up, early on. Veer, StockExpert, Thinkstock, and the long list.
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