I keep saying, we all tend to look at Pond5 as a safe haven when running away from SS, but it's like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

Unless the coalition can somehow negotiate costs so this doesn�t happen, I agree. I will wait and see if that happens before spending more time uploading my stuff. Not like I�m missing out on tons of money anyway. There isn�t any point for them to advertise �set your own price�, if they price match everything anyway.

Going exclusive at microstock prices would be incredibly risky in the current market. I used to think if Shutterstock went exclusive I would consider it...look how that could have turned out.

I agree. It was barely a good idea for some people even 5 years ago. Let alone today. Image exclusivity would be good, and I don�t know why all agencies don�t offer that. Must be some financial reason why they don�t.

Don�t click any link in an email. Go to the site and see if it asks you for a new password. Sounds like a phishing scam.

This is Pond5�s formal letter to the Stock Coalition:

Dear Members of the Stock Coalition,
Greetings! My name is Greg and I�m the Head of Content at Pond5. To those of you who are unacquainted with me or with Pond5, I want to extend a hearty welcome. We�ve been in close dialogue with your leadership over the last few months and thought the time was right for us to reach out directly and fill you in on some of those discussions.
Pond5 wants to be your agency. We pay the highest royalties in the industry � both for exclusive and non-exclusive content. We allow our contributing artists to set their own prices for their work, and we allow you to opt in or out of the programs that make sense for you. Recently we�ve been actively assisting Coalition members in on-boarding large portfolios with the help of personal Account Managers. We�re bumping your customer service tickets to the top of our inboxes and making sure your content gets prioritized treatment in our curatorial queue.
But we also understand that, as a video-first marketplace, we have work to do to grow our photo and illustration business. Step one, of course, is getting the content, and you�re helping us out with that just fine. Looking ahead, we�ve budgeted out development resources to deliver, over the next several months, improvements to our image experience including a search U/X overhaul, collection clean up and algorithm enhancement, and SEO tweaks that will help boost organic traffic to our photo and illustration pages. This will be coupled with appropriate marketing efforts to effectively �relaunch� our image offering and put us on the map when it comes to stills licensing.
In the even nearer term, we�re working with Coalition leadership to put together a branded collection on our homepage featuring the work of coalition members, and will be looking to feature members� content as frequently as possible in our social media channels.
Great partnerships are built on communication, so we�re going to be meeting regularly with the Coalition to assure alignment and receive your feedback. In the end, we�re all going to win if we can shift the market towards agencies that pay a fair rate and allow creators the choice to represent their content how they see fit.
If you have any questions, our support lines are open and we�re happy to hear from you. I know we can make great things happen by working together.
All the best,
Greg Andreacchi
Director, Head of Artists & Content

So no mention of royalties, except that they �pay a fair rate.� As I said earlier, maybe it�s in the pipeline. Good that they are offering help to those with big portfolios, though. It would be nice to see them do well in the image arena, to replace SS.

I know they just got paperwork done to become an �official� organization, so maybe it�s in the pipeline.

Quote from: cathyslife on August 14, 2020, 16:25

But on the other hand, the coalition doesn�t have anything in writing regarding contributor commissions. Plus, they can reset your price to whatever they think is right, defeating the whole �set your own price� sales pitch. If I am mistaken, and the coalition DOES have a price guarantee in writing, please let me know. I was thinking the whole point of the coalition was to negotiate things like this. I know they just got paperwork done to become an �official� organization, so maybe it�s in the pipeline.

Cathy, I say�

We all need to give the fledgling Coalition leaders representing us a chance to get their footing, and then grow and (we hope) flourish � and finally show what some kind of cooperative effort like this can accomplish � before we start jumping down their throats over what they have not yet been able to deliver.

First of all, I�m not jumping down anyone�s throat. Good grief, you too, Martha? 🙄 I was trying to get some info. I guess you don�t have an answer. Read more carefully.

But hey, you got a +3! 👍

Agencies just made a pile off it is all. Trads threw high quality concept stuff up for pennies and killed their own market off (yes more complicated that than of course, but it was  factor). It could and should have been micros for amateurs starting out and small business who could not afford thousands for photos, so that we had a place to go when we improved and higher paying clients to go with.

This is exactly how I viewed microstock. My stuff was never meant to compete with �trads�. I was a graphic designer working for small companies. I�m over there designing newsletters and magazines, and one image cost $300+. It was a hard sell getting the boss to approve even one photo for the project. When microstock came along, it was a great solution. I could buy 3 or 4 or more micro images, not quite as good quality as a custom shoot or from �trads�, but acceptable to get the job done. But then, �trads� decided they could clean up by selling on microstock. For us buyers, it was great...�trad� quality for microstock prices. But then those of us who were just starting in photography are now competing with pros, and the race to the bottom began.

I was encouraged by a friend to jump into microstock for exactly the same reason she did...we were designers who thought we had a pretty good handle on what was needed and what would sell. We weren�t trying to put anybody out of business...we were just trying to fill the gap between large companies who could afford big budgets for photography from the �trads�, and the small companies who could not. And make a few bucks along the way.

As my skills improved, I totally expected to move to RM �trads� and out of microstock, and in fact sold some RM images directly to a large card printer. Then life happened, other things became priority, and I just continued with the microstock. Today, I still sell images but I don�t even shoot anymore. My choice.

Multiply my story times how many hundreds of thousands contributors there are, and we are where we are. It�s only gonna get worse, as long as people are ok with the agencies making all the money, and taking peanuts (or pretty soon, nothing) for their work.

As far as the OP, it will be difficult to predict anything like that, because the same image can be a blockbuster at one site, and hardly ever sell at another. If you are deactivating or removing at SS, you should do it on principle. When buyers can�t get images or clips that they used in their comps, and the quality of what�s left is not something they can use, they will go elsewhere. The more people take quality out of SS, the better chance everyone has of getting sales at other places for more money. Hopefully.

Quote from: cathyslife on August 11, 2020, 11:37

Quote from: Clair Voyant on August 11, 2020, 11:27

Quote from: Cobra on August 11, 2020, 08:14

"I particularly love the folks who love calling those of us who have been in microstock for 15+ years �clueless old timers.�

I am clueless but not too old yet 

Sort of like the cool kids of microstock trash talked about us 'trads' 15 years ago?

And yet here you are, a �trad�, on a microstock forum. Just like all the other �trads.� Can�t be all bad, can it? I bet you�ve taken your fair share of money from low life microstock sites, right? 

Looks to me you so very much missed the point.

Nope got it loud and clear.   

Quote from: cathyslife on August 10, 2020, 20:40

Quote

  but I do know a lot more then you do.     

Apparently not, or you would know it should be �but I do know a lot more THAN (not then) you do. 😂

Wow Cathy, you too? that surprises me. I expect nothing less from the usual trolls in here but you joining them and having a go at me as well? I thought you were one of the good people here like Jo Ann.
We all do what we do best...

I'll make more room for the trolls and better educated people by removing myself.

Thanks Tyler for having this available to us contributors. Like I said before many of us would be in the dark if it wasn't for this forum. I don't know what I was thinking though joining the discussions because I knew it would turn out like this. This is exactly why many stick to reading instead of posting. Lesson learned 

To all contributors, best of luck in everything you do, we're all in this together (most of us anyway) and stay safe!

LOL people can dish it out, but when a grammar error is pointed out, they leave. He�s over there ragging on farbled, but for some reason, he thinks I shouldn�t be able to jump in. How many times have I been on the butt end of the bullies here? Too many to count. And look, he even got a +1 for his knockdown of me. You need a thick skin to be in this forum. I don�t stay because of all the great friendships I hope to make, though there are some decent, intelligent, talented people here. I only stay because I still sell images. Otherwise, why stick around for all the abuse?

I particularly love the folks who love calling those of us who have been in microstock for 15+ years �clueless old timers.� LOL

  Yeah, that's it, the judge was paid off.       

You say that like it never happens. 

Here is an alternative view

https://theconversation.com/b-corp-certification-wont-guarantee-companies-really-care-for-people-planet-and-profit-124459

Yeah, all it takes is money. �B Corp certification is available to for-profit companies that apply to B Lab, a non-global profit organisation, and pay for it.�

Kind of like the FDA approving every harmful drug out there, under the guise of �helping mankind.�

If Adobe gets enough partners to implement this it will be really beneficial on many levels but as content creators for sure it is a welcome feature.
I think this is the most exciting thing created by Adobe in a long time.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/6972974550/adobe-reveals-how-its-cai-digital-content-attribution-system-will-work

Basically blockchain?