Sure, we choose when to produce images... but the production of those images is of no benefit to Shutterstock. The only benefit to SS is if we then upload those images, those images are considered worthy of going live on the site, and those images then sell.

The benefit to Uber is much more direct. Customers call a ride, the driver gets told where to pick them up, where to drop them off, and that's what the driver does. Then Uber get paid X and and the driver can get paid Y. They can work when they want, but when they do decide to work, then they are very much told what to do and when... whereas we arent.

Couple of things to consider though, if hell does freeze over...

A) Everyone would have to be exclusive. They're not going to want to pay people to produce images and then have them selling them elsewhere. 

B) If we're considered employees, then surely we'd not own the copyright on our own work, as it would be 'work for hire'?

I can't see how it would work. At least with Uber, the drivers are carrying out a defined activity, for a specific amount of time, all of which is pretty constant from one driver to the next.

How would you quantify the time taken to shoot an image or a video? Would my tomato on a plate be worth the same as an aerial polar bear party at the north pole? How would you factor in the cost of props, travel, models etc?

They'd also have to have barriers to entry. Would people get paid for clips that aren't approved? They've put in the time, so they should get paid. As a result, approval rates would drop so tat SS don't have to pay out on clips that might not make them a bunch of money.

If they do have to pay out on clips that aren't approved, and there aren't any barriers to entry, then global unemployment could be eradicated overnight for anyone that owns or buys a camera... just sit at home for eight hours a day taking pictures of your cat and you're guaranteed minimum wage.

Not to mention the direct correlation on Uber of rides booked and wages paid... they know what it costs and they know what they'll make. SS have no idea what they will make from any one image or clip. For it to work, they'd have to reduce commissions considerably to compensate for the massive amounts they'd be paying out in minimum wages. Great for people who don't sell much, really bad for people who were making a lot more than minimum wage in the first place.

So yeah, with the current model, it will never work and it's very unlikely it would ever happen. It would be like the app store paying minimum wage to app developers, or Amazon with e-book writers. The only way it could work is if SS lowered commiasions, dictated how many clips you needed to submit a month, the content of those clips, and a specific level of quality... all of which are reviewed on a regular basis and can result in you getting 'fired'.

I think I'd rather it stayed how it is now!

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on October 28, 2016, 03:55

...You're absolutely right, but you're also splitting hairs slightly. I mean, it's a graphical symbol meant to represent an event, and a brand, across all of their marketing channels. If that doesn't constitute a logo then it's pretty * close... it's not like such a case would get laughed out of court.

Are you seriously suggesting that the guy should forget about the rules of Shutterstock being broken, and his intellectual property rights being breached, just because there's a slight chance that the logo might not be a logo, when in every conceivable way... it does seem to be a logo?...

Splitting hairs is what lawyers do. At the hourly rates they charge, that can be very costly for their clients. In the US with contingency fees being legal (not the case everywhere) sometimes if you have the possibility of a huge payout, a lawyer will take a case on a contingency basis.

If you have large companies, governments or rich clients on one side, you have to consider the practicalities of the chance of winning and the costs of doing so, weighing that against the largest possible payout you think you could get. If you win and it costs you more in legal fees than your judgment, what's the point?

It's in the contributor's best financial interests to try and resolve this without a lawsuit, IMO. In addition to the issues of making the details of your case , you've got five countries involved, apparently, and possibly another country where the agency is. Which court do you take this to?

The OP mentioned that the countries are rich - not sure what that has to do with anything regarding the infringement issue, but it probably means they can outspend a stock illustrator in a legal fight. Legal battles are typically long, costly and ugly.

So your advice to everyone, would be that no matter what has happened... whether it be dead family members, copyright infringement, a house that has burnt to the ground because of faulty electricals, lost baggage, broken limbs due to poor safety, defamation, unfair dismissal, somebody blatantly copying our work, squatters in your property, items that are mis-sold, unpaid debts, people breaching NDAs, burgers with rats heads in them etc etc..... we should just forget about it?

It isn't a logo unless they try and trademark it. Otherwise it's just art they use in their materials.

Why are you assuming it's a logo?

I'm not buying that. You can have a logo without trademarking it, which although probably not the wisest of ideas, it probably can and does happen. Envato have a logo template category for items whch you can use as logos. Anything else on the site you can't use as a logo. You still can't copyright or trademark the logo though... although it's still a logo.

The text is pretty clear...

Use any Visual Content (in whole or in part) as a trademark, service mark, logo, or other indication of origin, or as part thereof.

So whether you can use the content for logos isn't really up for debate. The only point that could be argued is whether it's a logo or not, and copyrighting that logo doesn't automatically make it a logo or not. The fact it's being used as a visual representation of an event through the medium of illustration... makes me think that it's pretty clear cut. It's a logo and they shouldn't be using it as a logo. 

No logos, thems are da rules. I'd wait until after the event.... when it comes to compensation, you'll have less leverage if they pull the logo and go for another one the instant they're made aware of the issue... more if every man and his dog has a t-shirt with your image on it in their wardrobe.

Same here. I uploaded 20 videos in May, completely forgot about them. Noticed a week or two ago, so sent them an email. Got the old 'lots of submissions, it's normal, we'll get someone to look into it' response,  and then they were all approved in a couple of days.

I'm only on one site where they do video subscriptions, and rollovers, Artbeats Express... but I think the way they do it is pretty standard:

They take the total amount of money they have from subscriptions, dividend by two to get their cut and the cut for the contributors. Then they divide that cut between how many files are downloaded and distribute that to each contributor based on their number of sales. So if there's a lot of rollovers from one month to the next, you just get paid more one month and less the next.

But the most important thing is that they know exactly how much money they are getting through the door every month. And I'm assuming you lose your rollover if you don't carry on your subscription, so that's more money for iStock!

However, it's a fixed subscription there... there's no discounts for buying more credits, so that makes things a bit more complicated. But knowing iStock, you probably get paid out on the amount they'd get from the most discounted subscription tier, so any buyers getting smaller subscriptions that allow them less discount... iStock just pocket the extra.

I could be wrong!

An exaggeration of lowering prices to $1 resulting in earnings of millions, required an equally proposterous exaggeration in the other direction!

But still... an exaggeration of $5000 still makes a valid point. Nobody would buy any of my clips at they were that much and people are buying my clips because they're not that much. But there's not some hard and fast line, some cutoff point where people will and won't buy. But every dollar you increase your price, it does reduce the chance of somebody buying your work. I'm not saying that an extra dollar will mean one less sale, just that people do look at the price tag, no matter how much money they have, and the more dollars you add on the harder it's going to be to justify the purchase.

Were in a crazy new world where people need more and more content and they need it better, faster and cheaper. The thing is, producing stock is also becoming better and faster and cheaper. Can we justify charging, and can buyers justify paying, $100 per clip when the average budget for a production is generally on the decrease... especially if you include Web content in that average?

And all my clips are $50 anyway! Well, on Pond5 they are. More on other sites, a lot less on Envato, obviously!

Cheers dude... not sure what I'd do without you! But yes, you're right about the prominent player part, but that doesn't automatically mean I'm wrong about the pricing part as well. People need to find your stuff, obviously, and they're not going to do that if the site doesn't have any traffic or buyers. But when the buyers do get there, it's not outside the realms of possibility that they'll buy more content as the content is cheaper.

But Videohive does have a lot of buyers, which is one of the reasons why I have a large volume of sales. And one of the reasons why they have a lot of buyers, is probably because they have low prices.

However... in the meantime, I'm going to leave these questions here, and maybe post them every day or two, in the hope that somebody will answer at least some of them, at some point, before the sun expands and engulfs the Earth.

How does pricing high make selling stock footage sustainable, and pricing low makes it unsustainable? How does pricing low contribute to the demise of the stock industry? Is there any evidence to show that's the caseor is that just a feeling? If videohive has been selling stock for ten years without resulting in the demise of Shutterstock, iStock or Fotolia... then what are the odds it will contribute to their downfall in the next one, five or ten years?

And it's not about wanting to earn less, it's about wanting to earn more... not selling a clip on VH for $8 doesn't automatically mean it will then sell on SS for $79 instead. I see VH sales as being 'in addition to' the higher priced sites, not instead of. 

You want someone to tell you specifically how to price your product. I've explained that you have to make that decision on your own

We're going in circles because you're not reading my posts! I'm not asking for a pricing strategy*, or advice on what I should set my prices at. I'm asking for somebody to explain to me how submitting my work to an established stock selling site that sells HD content for $8, a site that has been doing so for ten years... is going to result in the end of stock footage as we know it. I want to know why pricing low is not sustainable and why pricing high is sustainable.

These are questions I've asked several times and nobody can give me an answer.

*In a couple of posts I've asked why should something be $X rather than $X, but there I'm not really looking for pricing advice, I'm just curious why people have this fixed figure in their head of exactly $X... not $1 more or less.

Quote from: Fairplay on October 24, 2016, 08:37

The prices on VH are too low! There's no way for me to upload any footage there!
There are contributors who think they will outsmart others who don't support agencies with low prices. But in reality they are responsible for undervaluing the work of all contributors and I don't have any respect to them.
danr13, maybe VH are making you a favor when they reject your clips and you will have more sales on the other agencies with higher prices (royalties)!

I totally agree. �8 for HD and �25 for 4k is ridiculous, and that's before the agencies %.
I can't afford to put my catalogue of clips on there because if people do shop around (which I'm sure some must do) I want them to buy my clips at the higher rates.
There is a market for all prices I'm sure but I value my work higher. �8 HD clips should only be the dregs of contributors catalogues but some people supply them there best works, doesn't make sense to me?

It costs Pepsi millions of dollars to make one solitary can of Pepsi, yet they sell their cans at less than $1. How can they afford to do that? Because they don't just make one can of Pepsi, and they don't just sell one can of Pepsi.

If you've never uploaded to VideoHive then there's no way to tell if you'll sell one clip per month, or hundreds of clips per month. Yes, any sale that's $100 is considerably better than a sale at $8, but it doesn't really mean anything without a sales quantity as well. A high cost per clip doesn't automatically dictate financial success.

If I go to the bank manager for a mortgage and I tell him that my stock clips cost $1m each, his eyes are going to light up. If I then tell him that I haven't sold any yet, he's going to be considerably less impressed. I value my work at what it will sell for. And what it will sell well for. That price varies on different sites.