I imagine that people are discouraged. It is not worth much effort in the microstock to earn so little that it is not enough for much.

Quote from: Roscoe on November 29, 2020, 08:48

Quote from: Horizon on November 28, 2020, 14:01

Uncle Pete!!  " They do pay us for OD, S&O and EL ".........these are extremely scarce! and 90% goes to Ukraine and Philippine contributors!

Every now and then statements like this pop up: microstock agencies are giving contributors from developing countries, or countries with lower cost of living a ranking boost.
Now, I might have missed it, but until now, I never seen anyone really proving this. Neither have I seen anyone giving a valid reason why agencies would do something like that.
They want to sell licenses, as much as possible, and the only way to optimize that is designing an algorithm that matches relevant content with keywords entered in the search engine.
Physical location of the contributor is completely irrelevant to that.

Maybe we are just seeing a lot more content from contributors from countries with a lower cost of living because ... well it is more profitable for them to engage in microstock?
A 35 dollar payout buys me a pizza in Iceland... or a loaded supermarket shopping cart in let's say Phillipines. (not sure that's completely true, but you get the point)

Interesting views and I learned something new today:

Cost of living in Ukraine
 Single person estimated monthly costs: $820 (23,381₴)
 Ukraine is the cheapest country in Eastern Europe (13 out of 13)
Ukraine is the 4th cheapest country in the World

Cost of living in Venezuela
Single person estimated monthly costs: $183 (49,656,775 Bs.S.)
(came with a warning that the numbers are estimated)

Cost of living in Iceland
Single person estimated monthly costs: $3,040 (404,164 kr)
(also estimated)

USA
Single person estimated monthly costs: $2,611
Cost of living in United States is more expensive than in 77% of countries in the World (18 out of 74)

No judgements, just some numbers. Well maybe one observation. Iceland isn't a cheap place to live! But I hear it's nice and beautiful as well. 

Cost of living in Venezuela
Single person estimated monthly costs: $183 (49,656,775 Bs.S.)
(came with a warning that the numbers are estimated)  Could you show me where did you find that information? it is very few!  Not rent cost included , no leisure, no medicines . Maybe that person only eat and live with his/her parents !
Look at this!
https://inmueble.mercadolibre.com.ve/MLV-569612537-alquiler-de-habitacion-en-el-paraiso-para-dama-_JM#position=11&type=item&tracking_id=b1d48ff2-ef93-409b-b85e-05b57f17a979 $ 80 room rent for a month, not an apartment.

In my country Venezuela exist two kinds of dollars, the black market , https://twitter.com/DolarToday, and the official dollar, Banco Central de Venezuela  http://www.bcv.org.ve/

I've received all of my payouts without problems

Insteresting to know that, thanks!

Quote from: Horizon on November 28, 2020, 14:01

Uncle Pete!!  " They do pay us for OD, S&O and EL ".........these are extremely scarce! and 90% goes to Ukraine and Philippine contributors!

Every now and then statements like this pop up: microstock agencies are giving contributors from developing countries, or countries with lower cost of living a ranking boost.
Now, I might have missed it, but until now, I never seen anyone really proving this. Neither have I seen anyone giving a valid reason why agencies would do something like that.
They want to sell licenses, as much as possible, and the only way to optimize that is designing an algorithm that matches relevant content with keywords entered in the search engine.
Physical location of the contributor is completely irrelevant to that.

Maybe we are just seeing a lot more content from contributors from countries with a lower cost of living because ... well it is more profitable for them to engage in microstock?
A 35 dollar payout buys me a pizza in Iceland... or a loaded supermarket shopping cart in let's say Phillipines. (not sure that's completely true, but you get the point)

I live in Venezuela a third world country  and i swear you with $ 35 usd, you can't fill a shopping cart market with food and others essentials for home, maybe in another third world countries, but in Venezuela not! I think sometimes, it's more profitable begging money on the street than microstock incomes. In the past ( 3 years ago, 2017) with $ 100 you could make a lot in Venezuela, but now you can't. 

Quote from: Hannafate on November 25, 2020, 08:46

Thanks for the link to the pin.  However,  the issue is ads, not pins.

And Shutterstock ads, to boot! Just one final FU from them to you. FYI, I think JoAnn Snover has mentioned the same problem. They closed her account, but they are all too happy to keep using images in their ads.

I have read that Shutterstock is used to selling the contents of the accounts that they close.

A review of the MINI 2 for photography.
RAW files, AEB, low light and HDR performance
https://youtu.be/g9tyqqYcuus

is it worth investing in a drone to sell photos and video on microstock?

Quote from: alexandersr on November 16, 2020, 19:21

Are you sure? But in microstock  is not allowed.  I don't know much about that. Well, many people has told that, for example composites.

A composite from two public domain images is very different from a composite made from two images that are not in the public domain. Same as Jingle Bells or Silent Night... you don't own the copyright to the music, but if you record your own rendition of the song, then you own the copyright to that track/recording. Which you can then sell. And just in case Lizard wants to chip in... yes, a website might not allow you to sell it, or they might want you to make it clear who the original authors were, or that you only own the copyright to the recording not the song... but that's a condition of the site in question, not of copyright law and the like.

I don't understand much about public domain images, but microstock sites allowed to sell composites made with images from unsplash, pexels and pixabay ? I am not very clear. Are they  public domain images ? For that reason I ask so much, because I don't know. Sorry.

https://unsplash.com/images/stock/public-domain
https://pixabay.com/es/images/search/domain/
https://www.pexels.com/public-domain-images/

You also need to check the contributors� terms for each agency you want to upload that image to. As has been mentioned, some do not allow the use of public domain photos, or even composites containing them.

Here is terminology from Adobe: �Generally, we do not accept Creative Commons Zero (CC0) or public domain content that is uploaded to the Adobe Stock site. Modified NASA images may be an exception, however. We can accept content that incorporates NASA public domain imagery if the content does not depict any NASA trademark or likeness of an astronaut or other persons and has been used to create a recognizably new visual work. For example, in the image above, a NASA image (1) was modified to create a new image (2) that is distinctly different from the original.�

And there is more here: https://helpx.adobe.com/stock/contributor/help/terminology-and-importance-of-copyright.html

You just have to check each agency.

Thanks! Is this the NASA public domain imagery? https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/index.html

I have some sells there. Alamy pays better than microstock sites, but sales are few.I think it worths!

Quote from: alexandersr on September 18, 2020, 13:49

I don't know Fine Arts America, but it sell for good price? Can i sell landscape photos i have in microstock there? People from Venezuela can sell there?
Thanks!

You can sell prints or print-on-demand items (tote bags, greetings cards, etc.) via Fine Art America and you get to set the markup. In other words, if their cost to print an item on canvas is $25, you get to set your markup (let's say $10) and the resulting price for the buyer is $35.

You can use microstock images - nothing is exclusive - but bear in mind what sells is something people want to look at (versus some of the useful shots that do well for stock agencies). I don't know of any reason they couldn't allow a contributor from Venezuela, but you have to be able to receive payments via PayPal.

https://fineartamerica.com/termsofuse.html?document=contributortermsofuse

If you start with a free account, you can only upload 25 items and see how things go. If you want to upload more, you need the premium account at $30 per year.

Thank you very much, Jo Ann Snover . I had my first sale on Fineartamerica.com look https://fineartamerica.com/saleannouncement.html?id=16dc7ae829efc087f63c929b58a7210b

Quote from: alexandersr on October 30, 2020, 11:37

Quote from: tpack on October 28, 2020, 23:03

No one in their right mind would use Russian agency for their portfolio.

Well Shutterstock is an American company and they are scam company!
If you don't believe me check this out! https://es.trustpilot.com/review/www.shutterstock.com?languages=all

Except there's no reason to trust trustpilot who makes money from manipulating the reviews. But you want to join an agency that gives this result? "Sorry, we couldn't find "pressfoto"" LOL

Images by subscription from $0.26 and on-demand from $1.00 And as Jo Ann mentioned, thousands of FREE images on Freepik. You want to support someone that encourages free pictures and free downloads and hides what they will actually pay you, if you should sell something for 26� Not for me.

With Jo Ann warning to me, and i have some doubts about Pressphoto, for that reason i asked to someone here. I will not enroll in Pressfoto. I told to tpack that a company for being Russian it is not necessary a scam company. But Pressfoto looks like a scam company. Peace!

Quote from: alexandersr on October 28, 2020, 19:52

I have used FTP software (Filezila) to upload  image to 123rf, but they don't get the image, someone else happens this?

Yes, they have some FTP bug going on.. It was fixed yesterday but again happening.

Thanks!