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Messages - tickstock
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2501
« on: September 18, 2013, 13:11 »
"Confidential ( including but not limited to royalty rates, royalty payments and earnings data) Information shall not be disclosed to any third party"
Does that include the IRS? 
If they don't agree to keep it confidential then I guess so.
2502
« on: September 18, 2013, 10:46 »
You can tell "representatives, agents, attorneys, accountants, auditors and advisors with a bona fide need to know, who shall first agree to keep the terms confidential." I guess an accountant automatically has agreed to keep the terms confidential right? I don't think you would need a NDA first. Spouses, friends, and internet people apparently can't be told though under any circumstances.
The 90 days one seems clear to me (you can't remove more than 10% or 100 files for 90 days) but we won't know exactly how that works until someone tries it.
2503
« on: September 18, 2013, 10:33 »
Interesting how clear the TOS is but how much confusion there is about the summary of those changes. It's almost like the summary is meant to mislead.
Compare the summary:
"If you decide to remove more than 100 items or 10% of your content, whichever is greater, Shutterstock has up to 90 days to accommodate the request."
to the actual TOS
"You may remove Content from your account at any time, provided that in any ninety (90) day period, you remove no more than (i) 100 items of Content and (ii) 10% of your Content, whichever is greater."
The summary says shutterstock has 90 days to accommodate the request and even adds "we expect this to go faster" while the TOS says you can't remove more than 10% or 100 files.
What I don't understand is why you are constantly posting on this thread when, being as you are exclusive, you don't have a dog in the race. I've just counted and 21 of the 98 total posts are from you __ way more than anyone else! Why?
A few of the responses were because people were posting incorrect information but I think we all have a dog in the race. I've said it before but I want to understand what's going on at all the sites especially the biggest competitor to the one I'm exclusive with. It does me no good to keep ignorant about the rest of the industry, things change and one day I may not be with iStock.
2504
« on: September 18, 2013, 10:24 »
Interesting how clear the TOS is but how much confusion there is about the summary of those changes. It's almost like the summary is meant to mislead.
Compare the summary:
"If you decide to remove more than 100 items or 10% of your content, whichever is greater, Shutterstock has up to 90 days to accommodate the request."
to the actual TOS
"You may remove Content from your account at any time, provided that in any ninety (90) day period, you remove no more than (i) 100 items of Content and (ii) 10% of your Content, whichever is greater."
The summary says shutterstock has 90 days to accommodate the request and even adds "we expect this to go faster" while the TOS says you can't remove more than 10% or 100 files.
And then with confidentiality about earnings the summary says:
"we respectfully ask that you do the same and keep specific information about your earnings private"
while the TOS says:
"Confidential ( including but not limited to royalty rates, royalty payments and earnings data) Information shall not be disclosed to any third party"
In the summary it appears as though it's a suggestion while in the TOS it's clearly an order.
2505
« on: September 18, 2013, 10:15 »
You can still delete them one by one yourself
I think you cannot if you want to delete more than 10%, you have to wait up to 90 days for anymore to be removed.
Thats only if you ask Shutterstock to do it. I can still manually delete my images.
Read your TOS, this is what it says: " You may remove Content from your account at any time, provided that in any ninety (90) day period, you remove no more than (i) 100 items of Content and (ii) 10% of your Content, whichever is greater. "
2506
« on: September 18, 2013, 09:26 »
Wow - bizarre turn of events for SS. They must be expecting some sort of backlash with whatever they have up their sleeves otherwise why bother with a 90-day lock-in. I had the impression they were one of the safer places to upload to, as they dont actively distribute your work to multiple shady partner programs. I was considering uploading there, but in light of todays news, I think Ill hold off a little longer.
They already had a turn of events when Yuri yanked thousands of images without warning, affecting buyers who light boxed images and, I suspect, the removal process from SS and all their partner programs was a big, time consuming hassle. Maybe SS overreacted, maybe not, but I believe that is why they changed the TOS.
Now to your point, I don't have a crystal ball but it is entirely possible that there is some kind of upcoming "change" for which they expect a mass exodus. Timing wise, prob Jan 1 if anything is going to happen.
Removing images should be automatic shouldn't it? I don't think anyone had to go in and do it manually one by one.
I don't know. It should be automatic. I am merely speculation as I have no insider process knowledge of SS. I have read in other forum posts where agencies "claim" it takes time to yank images from their partner sites, so not so automatic for some presumably.
They aren't changing this policy because they can't remove the images fast enough, remember they just removed Yuri's overnight.
2507
« on: September 18, 2013, 09:22 »
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2508
« on: September 18, 2013, 09:19 »
You can still delete them one by one yourself
I think you cannot if you want to delete more than 10%, you have to wait up to 90 days for anymore to be removed.
2509
« on: September 18, 2013, 08:03 »
Wow - bizarre turn of events for SS. They must be expecting some sort of backlash with whatever they have up their sleeves otherwise why bother with a 90-day lock-in. I had the impression they were one of the safer places to upload to, as they dont actively distribute your work to multiple shady partner programs. I was considering uploading there, but in light of todays news, I think Ill hold off a little longer.
They already had a turn of events when Yuri yanked thousands of images without warning, affecting buyers who light boxed images and, I suspect, the removal process from SS and all their partner programs was a big, time consuming hassle. Maybe SS overreacted, maybe not, but I believe that is why they changed the TOS.
Now to your point, I don't have a crystal ball but it is entirely possible that there is some kind of upcoming "change" for which they expect a mass exodus. Timing wise, prob Jan 1 if anything is going to happen.
Removing images should be automatic shouldn't it? I don't think anyone had to go in and do it manually one by one.
2510
« on: September 18, 2013, 08:01 »
For multiple hundreds of dollars per sale I might be ok with the borrow before you buy, but no for 38 cents or a handful of dollars.
Yes. Maybe I am misunderstanding something, but if a big company wants full-sized comps from a microstock agency, wouldn't they just buy a subscription? 
I've read that very argument used on this site a few times as a justification for very low value sub sales - 'As they are so cheap, buyers will purchase many files to use as comps, even if they only use one of them in the end'.
Yep, we've heard buyers download so many files that never get used. With free comps now it's like they have a subscription plan that gets them 29 million files a day and they only pay for the ones they publish.
2511
« on: September 18, 2013, 00:30 »
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2512
« on: September 17, 2013, 23:41 »
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2513
« on: September 17, 2013, 23:22 »
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2514
« on: September 17, 2013, 23:17 »
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2515
« on: September 17, 2013, 18:10 »
The stock community is not limited to the SS forums. It is everything - the blogs, the reports, Facebook,twitter.
People have been blogging their results for years and years. So why is it suddenly a problem??
You don't seem to want to hear it but my guess is it's not suddenly a problem but there are some changes in the works that will make it a problem.
2516
« on: September 17, 2013, 18:05 »
To me it sounds more like the influence of people who are not familiar with online communities and social network marketing is getting dominant. I cant believe that people who have lived online and seen SS grow would recommend such a policy.
It cannot be enforced and creates very negative buzz.
How is that good for an online business?
Anyway, we will see what they do. But it is scary.
I don't remember Shutterstock being very community oriented at all. They don't do lypses or events to get contributors together, the admins rarely were part of the discussion, the forums were predominantly used for pimping. This action isn't aimed at stopping people posting in their "community" they can already stop that part by locking threads and deleting posts they don't like, this was aimed at outside posting of sales and royalty rate information.
2517
« on: September 17, 2013, 17:42 »
Great post Jo Ann. May be the apparent lack of transparency on the prices paid for SOD's, etc is mainly to do with commercial sensitivity (i.e. they don't want their competitors knowing what they're doing)?
Any competitor could easily have an employee, friend or relative shooting for SS to find out. But like policing the sort of conditions that say you can't use an image bought on subscription after the subscription has finished, it would be nigh unto impossible to police what someone tells their boss, friend or relative in private.
SS publishes their own earnings in incredible detail. It makes absolutely no sense to forbid their contributors to talk about their results if they publish everything themselves.
I also dont see how a competitor can deduct anything from me posting that I have earned 350 dollars, or when I celebrate that I have moved up to 33 cents instead of 25 cents. On the contrary, it is the very detailed information shared by contributors that got me interested in working with SS in the first place. This is how online communities work. People share results.
I really cant see the logic in this decision and the idea that SS is paying admins to scout the internet to check if we talk about our results is...creepy?
This sounds like a very negative move. What on earth is coming next?? Why do we need to start hiding our results?
Bigstock RC type system is coming and royalty rates change monthly? Maybe certain contributors will be given special rates? Who knows? But I can be pretty sure it's not to stop people from reporting good news.
2518
« on: September 17, 2013, 17:37 »
.
2519
« on: September 17, 2013, 17:35 »
I'd be curious to see what the reaction would be if iStock. changed their terms to add things like a 90 day lock in period (exclusives leaving and they want to stop the bleeding), using social media to market (more google drive deals), free (full sized?) comps (giving away our images), secrecy about earnings (the company is about to collapse), no opt out for sensitive use of some images (taking away our choices), etc....
To me those changes look bad for contributors.
You are so predictable
it's his job.
I wish, then I'd be getting the big bucks.
2520
« on: September 17, 2013, 16:38 »
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2521
« on: September 17, 2013, 14:36 »
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2522
« on: September 17, 2013, 13:48 »
So is contributing to the poll every month now taboo.
It could be for Leaf, he's publishing earnings data. You should be fine though.
2523
« on: September 17, 2013, 13:43 »
It is important for artists to share information to see which sites are worth contributing to. If I hadn't read how successful people are at SS I would not have even considered working with a subscription site.
If they really start policing us on external forums or people get their accounts closed because they decided to share what they earn, if they reached a new royalty level etc...then it will probably be necessary to use an alias for the sales threads.
But maybe this is also related to people like Yuri who have huge volumes of sales and can actually track how SS is doing overall. Nobody can gain any insight into how SS is doing from my data.
But I really can't believe they are suddenly worried by the sales threads on msg, blogs or facebook groups.
I also find it hard to believe they are worried about that so maybe another explanation is needed? You aren't allowed to post on a forum or tell your husband what royalty rate you get but they have the royalty rates listed on the website. I wonder if some more opaque system of royalties is going to be announced, maybe an RC type system (it's been tested at Bigstock already) where royalty rates are changing constantly?
2524
« on: September 17, 2013, 12:31 »
The only thing that worries me is the social media marketing, if the images are not watermarked. The reactions below the TOS article state that images are available for grabs at a pretty high resolution. SS should try to prevent image theft by watermarking or showing smaller images, or both.
The request not to talk about earnings is fine by me. Most people aren't keen on telling what they are earning anyway. I believe you can still mention your total earnings, but not to publicly disclose more specific details about the number of SDs or ODs. I think it's good to be a little secretive about it, since any of SS's competitors may use the information to devise new strategies to compete with SS, which could turn out bad for us.
This is what the TOS says " including but not limited to royalty rates, royalty payments and earnings data". Total earnings would seem to fit under earnings data but that doesn't really matter because it's not limited to those things listed, there are other unknown things you can't talk about.
2525
« on: September 17, 2013, 12:04 »
The part that you cannot talk about your own earning does not seem to be fair.
It's because SS are now a publically traded company and therefore have to comply with regulations.
Significant changes to your own earnings for example could be deemed 'insider information' so they don't want contributors blabbing about it all over the internet. It might lead to a situation in which some traders have information, that could affect the share price, that others do not.
I think that's quite a stretch to say that posting your royalty rate on a public website would be insider information. Even Yuri couldn't be considered an insider, none of us could be, that point has been made countless times by people on this site. The policy is, as gbalex said, aimed at keeping contributors in the dark and keeping bad press to a minimum.
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