• What about users who don't have a dedicated IP but have a shared IP? The internet knows your IP address because it's assigned to your device and is required to browse the internet. Your IP address changes, though, every time you connect to a different Wi-Fi network or router.
  

This has nothing to do with IP address. IP is Intelectual Property, basically "content with author rights".

I would say that resubmit always goes to human reviewer, but the first attempt... who knows. Basically all landscape images from full frame camera are rejected for focus (but they are just detailed - it seems that some AI does not understand grass straws and consider the details as noise). It is much easier to get accepted blurred images (soft corners) from a compact camera than perfectly sharp images from a full frame.

The thing is that iPhone SE has some noise and compression issues so it would be wise to submit 4K clips from smartphone as Full HD and not 4K, so it does not matter much if DSLR or smartphone is used. At least, this applies for the first generation of iPhone SE which I use for stock video sometimes (I submit only minority of iPhone SE clips as 4K). I am not sure if the second and third generation are much better.

I find that strange anyway. From my point of view, it is out of proportion. The jump from 150 to 5000 downloads is gigantic. And how many contributors really need all the products from the CC?

Why don't they offer intermediate Bonus solutions?
150 downloads - 1 product
500 downloads - 2 products
1500 downloads - 3 products
3000 downloads - 4 products
Just as an example.

I think that you can be happy that there is at least some option to get it basically for free. Adobe does not have to have such a program at all. If you are a photographer, you should be totally fine with 150 downloads for Photography plan which has almost all the things you may need. The tricky part is if you make also some illustrations and videos, though. But still, it is nice that Adobe offers that.

Works in Chrome, does not work in Firefox.

Quote from: cobalt on December 05, 2020, 02:41

You are right, you can upload to places they do not have agreements with, but from my standpoint, for practical purposes they are exclusive for the agencies they deliver to.

Taking yet another 15% of net royalties further diluting already pathetic royalty rates. In addition who really wants their work on Shutterstock?

Almost everybody does. As they submit extremely large amount of videos of many contributors and, therefore, achieve high sales, they are probably at high levels with high percentages very very very soon (they have 884 thousands videos there!). Something majority of people will never achieve by themselves (the success of other people at BBG account at SS is also improving your level even though you have not sold anything yet).

On the other hand, lack of control, lack of monitoring where the videos are, what was the reason of rejection, inability to resubmit or even delete the videos easily is the reason why I am not submitting to BB anymore (any they are probably not taking 15%, the truth is approx. 17% as there is 2% fee for procesing a payment). And I have also deleted all my video content from Shutterstock.

I have made an updated statistics after 3 month of commission drop in September (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfIZ45QUnXg). The average commission per image dropped significantly. In my case, it is around 30 % less per image sale. And that is a lot. Nevertheless, after three months of very low sales in year-to-year comparison (June-August) and also in comparison with the beginning of 2020, September and October sales are somewhat better and it is comparable with previous system (the average value per download is still much smaller but number of sales is higher). So it seems that the regularity of payouts will probably not change much. I have disabled my video portfolio completely though. Curious what will happen in January and what will I do with my portfolio, that can be disastrous.

I am not sure the analogy is precise but I do not see similarity neither. Epic is using the Google/Apple system and agreed that the Google/Apple system will be taking fees if something is sold through that system. Epic used their system but collected fees elsewhere, so there is clear violation of the policy. It is more like editing an already uploaded and approved image to Shutterstock with a link to alternative payment method. The image will be found with the help of SS system but paid somewhere else if a customer wishes to do so. That is basically not correct especially if Epic agreed not do so (as it is in the Play Store/App Store policies).

And even if Epic wins the lawsuit, it does not relate to our situation. It is about monopoly. SS is not monopoly at all. You have hundreds of microstock sites where you can sell your images and even though SS has a high market share, it is far far far away from monopoly. Really, no connection with SS case. Do not hope for any change at SS in relationship with Apple/Epic case.

I don't expect SS to return to the old earnings structure. But I hope they will at least drop the January reset, and also give us a share of the un-used subscription downloads.

That would be nice but quite problematic and even the contributors would probably not be totally OK with that. If the image is bought in the beginning of one-year plan, you would have to wait one year to get your money because nobody will know how much will be unused.

Amount of sales increased because other people are disabling their ports, and now you're capitalising on that.

I am not so sure (not saying that there is zero corelation). The fact is that sales went up before the start of this boycott (the size of database almost have not changed). I have already disabled video port and stopped uploads now, but I am still keeping the image portfolio for a while. I do not rule out the possibility to disable image port soon as well.

My previous RPD - Lifetime average:
$0.59

Current RPD (June 1-4 sample):
$0.47

Current RPD:
-20 %

Some comment here:
In my case, RPD si going down (-20 %) but the amount of downloads has increased. It even seems I may achieve one of my best results this month (hard to say after 4 days but it is relatively good so far). I am at Level 4 in the new system. Frustrated by a lot of $0.10-$0.14 sales but satisfied with increase of sales (so far). It is not so bad as I have got few sales with expensive subscriptions ($0.59, $0.87, $0.95 commissions from subscription are much better than previous $0.36 but you know, it does not happen very often).

Tough crowd!

How about if the image was used in some sort of advertising usage where there was text over the blurred foreground. Seems it would work quite well for that.
Think about in image of a model holding a blank sign. Would you criticize that for having a blank area in the image?    This is stock.

As it was already said. It is blurred a lot for a normal image of church in nature and it is not blurred enough for putting the text there. It should be blurred more or less but this is the great example of a shot when it basically does not suit anything. It the camera would be closer to the foreground and it would be shot from lower point of view, it could be blurred more and with better composition would be fine. But this is basically between two methods which would make sense and therefore, it does not make it. It is neither of them. Too much and not enough.

Working for few minutes, then not working for hour... and so on...