The good news is my overall return per upload stat is going up after a multi-year decline.

Of course it is! If you're deleting low sellers then for it to stay the same or go down would be very strange. Yes, overall return per upload is great, but not if your overall earnings are the same or less.

It could be an issue... but it's hard to say if any drop in sales is definitely due to Adobe Stock. But still, SS don't seem to be going anywhere any time soon.

Which, to be fair, would be fine if he was correct... but I'm pretty sure he's not! At best, there are fine lines and grey areas, but unless he's some kind of expert copyright lawyer, then I'm pretty sure he doesn't know for certain. And if you don't know for certain, it's usually best not to present your opinions as facts!

Same here, Shutterstock down, Fotolia up, looks like Shutterstock will be in trouble

In trouble with what?

Agree with the other guys... what's not in your portfolio isn't going to sell, and what isn't in your portfolio, isn't going to make people want to buy your other stuff more!

If you're accepted, then your balance will continue to acrue as normal, and you can withdraw when you meet the threshold.

If you're not accepted, but you sell on one of their marketplaces other than Photodune, then you can withdraw when you meet the threshold.

If you're not accepted, and you don't sell stuff on their other marketplaces... then they will have a process for withdrawing your money, even if you haven't met the threshold. Not sure what that process is yet, I think they're still figuring out the details.

Not sure if price affects it that much. People may shop around to find a stock site they like, and with prices they're happy to pay, but once they've got their site of choice... I don't think there's that much shopping around.

I don't know much about Alamy, but aren't they a bit on the expensive side? If so, price probably isn't that much of an issue for people who source their content from there. If it was, then they'd probably look elsewhere before checking Alamy.

I could be wrong. Sometimes I am, surprisingly enough!

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on January 12, 2017, 22:08

What I took umbridge at... was somebody getting an image rejected for intellectual property reasons, and not even considering, for one moment, that it might have actually been rejected... for intellectual property reasons.

No you decided to turn the OP's question into a cat fight based on nothing more than your own suppositions

Give it a rest!

You're right Sammy, what I should have said was...

"You item was rejected for intellectual property reasons? My word, that's terrible. As nobody ever submits items that would be rejected for intellectual property reasons, then it's obvious that they've made a big mistake."

But it wasn't what I said. Fair enough, the response I gave may have been inappropriate due to not knowing if an item had been copied, but the OP's responses seemed to lack any acceptance that this may have actually been due to an intellectual property reason... and as the thread went on, it became very clear that the OP had little knowledge on what does and doesn't constitute a breach of copyright law (whether his specific item was or not). I could have 'given it a rest' at that point, but thought it was more important to make it clear what is and isn't copying.

Maybe I wasn't as cordial as I could have been, but what does the guy want? A sticker, a lollypop and a "There, there... don't worry brave little soldier. Everything's going to be ok?"

A good case for the illustrators out there to whip up some kind of newspaper front page mockup, to add to their portfolios!

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on January 12, 2017, 15:14

Quote from: pixel8 on January 12, 2017, 15:04

Or you used someones map!

My point is you referenced other material to get the planet correct just like I referenced material to create a believable Lotto Ticket!

So I could 'reference' a Beyonce album,,to create an almost perfect replica of a Beyonce album... and then just sell that album on multiple times?

I am simply saying that you referenced other material that was not your own to create your image as you have no way to know what the earth looks like unless you looked at nasa photographs or looked at existing maps in order to make your earth!

If you did not look at images of earth or maps then your animations of earth would not look correct or what everyone expects to see.

Anyone who buys a Lotto Ticket expects it to look a certain way based on what actually exist, therefore if I am going to create a lotto ticket it needs to resemble what is already in existence. So naturally it only makes sense to reference existing Lotto Tickets when creating Lotto Ticket so that it will resemble a Lotto Ticket, otherwise a buyer would not make the connection that what I have created is a Lotto Ticket.

If you did not reference earth photos and maps then people would not know they were looking at the earth in your images as it would look different.

Either you're trolling, you're very new to all this, or you have a serious lack of knowledge when it comes to copyright.

The design, structure and layout of the Earth is not protected by copyrights, patents or trademarks. However, if somebody takes a photo of the Earth, then that photo is afforded copyright protection, and although the photographer doesn't own the design of the Earth, nobody else does either... so there is no issue with them owning the copyright of the image itself, and are more than welcome to sell it, publish it, or give it away. Although, when the image is in the public domain, such is the case with imagery from NASA, people can do pretty much what they want with those images. Including 'referencing' them. I sometimes include NASA imagery in my compositions, as you're allowed to do that with public domain imagery.

And on a side note, there's also a lot of public domain map datasets, so it's not just images that people can use to generate accurate models of the Earth. Images are a lot easier though.     

Now in your case... A lottery ticket is a piece of paper that contains a design, a design that will have been created by a designer. Although there is a slight possibility that design will be in the public domain, it's pretty unlikely. As such, the copyright of that design will be owned by the lottery company. If you create a design that is very similar, exactly the same, or heavily influenced by that copyrighted design, then you are breaching copyright laws that protect the intellectual property of that company.

It's not about whether you created the image, or how much work you put into it, or whether you have the Photoshop file, or how real it looks etc... it's about whether you have the right to sell an image that is almost identical to somebody else's design. I say you don't, and I'm sure many copyright lawyers would agree with me.

I mean, it's not like they rejected it for fun? Have you considered that getting an image rejected for intellectual property reasons, might actually be because of intellectual property reasons? I know it's a wacky idea, but hey.. you never know! 

I referenced, and used, material that is in the public domain, to create imagery of a 'design' or 'arrangement of matter' (i.e. Earth) that is not copyrighted, or trademarked, or patented.

You copied the work of whoever created the design for lottery tickets... a design that is most likely subject to copyright laws.

You seem to be missing the point. It's not about whether you created it or not... it's about it looking so real that you can barely tell it apart from the real thing. So is it just some giant coincidence that your unique design looks almost exactly like a real lottery ticket, or did you actually copy a real lottery ticket?

Could be a combination of algorithms, bad luck, people still ramping up from the Christmas holidays, and an increase in competition. Both in new contributors and new files.