Are you aware there's already a petition 500 people have signed asking for improvements to the preview and withholding uploads until they do?

http://www.microstockgroup.com/shutterstock-com/large-image-previews-on-ss/msg435623/#msg435623

many of my images are still with v1 watermark 

Am I alone ?

I still have a fair number - based on a spot check, I can't go look at them all - that are still white bottom preview. I have images from 2005 through 2015 and I can't figure out any pattern to the order in which they're doing the conversions. It clearly isn't be image number or sales or size or....

It really shouldn't be taking this long. Not sure if the issue is making the previews or propagating them out to the various caches of data worldwide, but either way it's been too long.

Thanks Leaf....and what do you think about this Canva move?
Do you oppose it? ...

I can't speak for Tyler (Leaf) but it seems to me it's not fair to ask him to express an opinion on this issue - assuming he has an account at Canva or would like to have one, why put his earning potential at risk? And IMO he would be putting that at risk for talking about Canva closing accounts because it didn't like being asked by a contributor to explain what it was doing with image deletions.

In time, I hope that things will improve - not so much that I hope existing agencies will see the unreasonableness of their ways, but new agencies will grow up to replace, buy out or otherwise make irrelevant those who have behaved poorly to contributors.

In the meantime, keep discussions of known "problem" agencies private - i.e. not here in the forums. Do it by e-mail or PM and make sure you know that you're sharing information with folks who won't relay what you've said right back to the agencies

I looked at yesterday's stats this morning, and there were two 30 cent royalties among yesterday's SODs.

So someone was sold an image at $1

I've had some odd sub-$1.00 amounts, but I don't think anything less than 38 cents. 69 cents, 80 cents, 95 cents; that sort of thing. Given that they negotiate deals with large companies, and they're all custom, I guess the number could be anything. We just get 30% (or whatever percentage you get) of whatever is paid.

...maybe Jon is watching you too
but this time with more appreciation of your feedback than Canva

If Shutterstock wants to remove me as a contributor for suggesting to them that their watermarks need to be improved, then they'd really have jumped the shark. Go right ahead (although I once read some police report that said that it was a very common occurrence for the last words of a shooting victim in an altercation to be some variation of 'go ahead then, shoot me'...).

I think that even though they're now a public company, Shutterstock is basically a straightforward organization. They've always paid us on time and have, until now, been remarkably free of shenanigans. Their near-total mangling of their review system is a problem, but that's harder to get them to fix as there are substantial, on-going costs attached to having a good, consistent review system.

Fixing this preview problem, if we can get them to agree that it needs fixing, is a one-time cost and it's just automated from here on out.

Sean was an exclusive - until Getty summarily terminated the contract because they wanted to teach contributors a lesson and figured picking on Sean might have an impact.

I was an exclusive for a few years, but left when I saw the damage Getty was doing and was planning to do to iStock. Lots of exclusives have left in the last few years (since I left, so I only know anecdotally what's been going on for exclusives) because sales have tanked.

My personal opinion is that even if it might make sense for some who are still making enough sales to stick with iStock/Getty exclusivity, it would make no sense from a sales/revenue point of view to become exclusive today.

If you want to say you're with Getty and don't care about making money, then go with your gut.

Quote from: Striving on October 30, 2015, 17:12

Lee Torrens has an article about it: http://www.microstockdiaries.com/istock-raises-royalties-for-new-small-subscriptions.html

Lee clearly did not assess this move end to end. He speaks nowhere about cannibalization.

I think this comment from Lee is talking about just that "However, against credit sale prices �which may decline now with the new subscriptions becoming available to all�  this potentially represents a cut in contributors� revenue."

I think it's more the removal of really, really bad news (minuscule royalty rates on the 10 and 25 credit packs they call subscriptions). These packs are really heavily discounted credit packs and as such, if buyers move to these as their existing credit packs run out (and why wouldn't they?) contributors take a pay cut.

Instead of buying 6 credits for $60, you buy a one month 25 credit (Essentials) pack for $65. Four times the images for essentially the same money (or save $20 and go for 10 images for $40). If you need Signature stuff , you can get 10 images for $99 instead of 8 for $220

If you were getting 30% (as an exclusive) on credit sales, you'd make $66 (on 8 Signature images) versus $25.00 on 10 of these "subscriptions". Even if Getty forced everyone to 20%, it'd still be $44 royalties for credits. It's a big cut, not an increase.

However, I think the bigger problem is getting the download volume up - I know they say it's increasing, but I keep hearing people describe declines of one sort or another, so I think we'd be hearing more happy noises if sales volume were picking up...

Did you guys read the topic in SS forum???

They say the new watermark will be different from now because it's going to have a black footer instead of white ( mine are whit white footer) and they say it will take few days to change the watermark...

This was wrote on 26th October ... Let's wait and see what happen...  meanwhile I have wrote to support ... Let's see

A few pages back I posted two of the new (black footer) images as examples - one that is OK and one not. These are the ones I sent to SS support to show them what needed fixing - and to which I got a boilerplate reply this morning saying it was better protection for us as well as good previews for buyers

Here's one where it works well:

http://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-photo-open-layout-kitchen-with-family-room-adjacent-back-in-use-following-an-extensive-remodel-331838918.jpg

And one where it doesn't:

http://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-photo-antique-and-well-worn-gold-jewelry-cameo-amethyst-enamel-garnet-and-three-ring-lover-s-knot-331483934.jpg

I signed this morning. I added this note (and used my full name):

"Theft of images is an old problem, but helping thieves with huge previews and a weak watermark is not in contributor interests. Shutterstock has been shown the problems and is consciously ignoring contributor interests while lamely claiming this will help our sales. Fix the watermark Shutterstock!"

They replied to my support ticket which gave them examples of how the V2 watermark failed with isolated on white images with a boilerplate blurb about how the new watermark provides better protection while serving the needs of customers. They clearly can't even be bothered to write a specific reply (in which case why did I have to wait? If it's just an automated spew of canned text it should be immediate!).

Tossers!

I'm not one of the big portfolios - although with 66 million in the collection, I'm not sure who is these days - but I have been around SS a long time. I haven't signed the petition because I think they're aware of the problem and making a fix. This feels very different from situations were the agency has told us to pound sand.

I think it's important they fix this watermark - even the new one isn't adequate. I have two images with the black-bottom (V2) watermark; one is OK and the other - on a white background - isn't.

I've written to support with these images as examples asking that they fix this. I think they've had other examples sent to them showing the V2 watermark needs some work, but if anyone thinks there's a good example in one of their own images, send the information to support to help them see all the problems.

If Shutterstock says they won't improve the V2 watermark, I think it'd be time for me to sign the petition. If they fix the problem, then I hope they've learned their lessons:  (1) that they need to do better quality control when making a change like this; and (2) they should improve the frequency and scope of contributor communications so they tell us about stuff like this versus we find out about it from each other. None of this would have been such a mess if they'd told us what was going on directly.

It's hard to rank the various agency shenanigans in terms of severity, but I do think there's a difference between dealing with thieves - enabling them or not pursuing them vigorously enough - and setting onerous terms and conditions of sale - reducing royalties, giving away more rights for the same royalty, etc.

It's unfortunate that SS's success has made them a target of thieves and pirates for years. I'm not the only one who has contacted SS about sites like Fiverr with stolen SS images (I just checked and I can get 50 SS images for $5 from Fiverr - I just searched for Shutterstock on the site). Watermarks won't help with this theft as people buy subscriptions and then resell. If I had to rate the current poorly watermarked preview against the lack of effort shutting down Fiverr gigs reselling SS content, I think I'd rate the Fiverr problem as a bigger threat to our income. One of the gigs I just found had an "extra" that for $40 the guy would teach me how to download any Shutterstock image free!!  There have been all sorts of sites offering free Shutterstock vectors and images for years - I've stopped reporting them to Shutterstock but a quick search reveals there are still plenty around.

Most legitimate businesses will not do an end run around licensing work they just because there's a poor watermark any more than when it's on a scummy free content site. They don't want the legal risk.

We don't need to make life easy for thieves, but given all the other piracy of work that has been going on for years, I find it hard to see this watermark issue as more than something that needs to be dealt with. Given that it's wholly within SS's control (unlike the piracy issue) I expect we'll see a resolution (although we may have to do their QA and show them the problems, which we shouldn't have to)

...What is not true?

- the fact that IS reports their own subscriptions sales more than 1 month later, like no other agency, or
- the fact that Alamy reports a sale as soon as it happens?

It might take several months for Alamy to clear payments, indeed, but their are very clear about the moment a sale is made.

Alamy does not report image downloads or uses as soon as they happen. Earlier this year I inquired about an image I found in use, credited to me/Alamy, with no sale showing up. Member services replied that some customers take up to 3 months to report usages. After the usage is reported, then there's up to 45 days for any payments to clear. It's a pretty broken system given the current setup (might have been OK a decade ago), but it's not a software snafu, it's business policy on Alamy's part