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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
2776
« on: March 17, 2015, 12:37 »
The English is fine and totally understandable
I don't think so. From the FAQ: "What can I do if I purchased the pirated image(s)? SIM do a lot of job on copyright protecting, but no method is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to protect your rights, we cannot guarantee all the images copyright are absolute security. If you believe that any Images you purchased from SIM website infringes upon any copyright, you may complain the Images Contributor by click Complain on Orders & Downloads sections. SIM will terminate the Contributors account who infringes the copyrights of any third party. You are recommended to contact the Contributor directly for such infringement; you can get the personal contact information on the home page of the contributor, including the name, address, telephone number, and email address. If you need any detailed information during the judicial proceedings or arbitrations, we can assist you in court proceedings by providing the copy of the Contributors passport or the copy of the agencys Certificate of Incorporation so long as we received the requirement notice from the court." So in addition to the broken English, there is the issue of them providing full contact information for the contributor to a buyer, which I'd have a problem with. There is a separate issue with the site not noted in any of the earlier threads - RF images with people without a model release. See these examples: http://www.superimagemarket.com/ImageDetail.aspx?ImgNum=001gx003247http://www.superimagemarket.com/ImageDetail.aspx?ImgNum=001gx006339http://www.superimagemarket.com/ImageDetail.aspx?ImgNum=001gx007437Without a model release these should be sold with an editorial license (they have a RL license supposedly for that purpose) and I can't see why they say "Not required" for model release. Same for property releases: http://www.superimagemarket.com/ImageDetail.aspx?ImgNum=001cw001760The spam keywords on this image (tourism? traffic? panorama? construction?) are pretty bad http://www.superimagemarket.com/ImageDetail.aspx?ImgNum=001iz000093And pricing is all over the map, for no obvious reasons. High: http://www.superimagemarket.com/ImageDetail.aspx?ImgNum=001iz000093http://www.superimagemarket.com/ImageDetail.aspx?ImgNum=001cw001729Low: http://www.superimagemarket.com/ImageDetail.aspx?ImgNum=001iz000093And above all, I still don't see anything written about a plan for bringing in buyers - why will they come here versus go to Shutterstock?
2777
« on: March 16, 2015, 20:49 »
the reason I had the montage at the end, was that I didn't want to bore the audience with my website ad right away  it's a bit too long (30 seconds) and youtube suggests to keep the intros short, so people don't go away..
There's a lot of good stuff there, but for me (a sometime illustrator who doesn't do logos) the montage is actually a reason to keep watching - it shows some very eye-catching items that says to me "this person knows what he's doing and it's worth sticking around for the tutorial". I'd strongly suggest that you put the montage up front. I agree that you could speed it up a little for the intro without losing anything from the impact. I didn't actually find it to be as much a tutorial as watching you work. There were some useful hints here and there but not enough talking. Whatching the shapes be tweaked could be shortened a lot - it doesn't help me much unless it goes with some commentary to point out something helpful. Your work is lovely and more talk over a shorter video would be a big winner, IMO.
2778
« on: March 15, 2015, 19:58 »
I just don't see this as a big change for contributors or for existing customers; it does take one item off any checklists of those comparing iStock and Shutterstock when considering which subscriptions to buy, and that may be the primary goal - remove potential objections.
That's probably why they did it but I think it will definitely result in buyers downloading more, if it wouldn't then why would SS have this restriction in the first place?
When they started, SS offered unlimited images - check the Wayback machine for November 2004 and you'll see this: "Where stylish stock photography meets the subscription model! Just sign up for a plan, pay one low fee, and download as many images as you need. All of our photos are royalty-free and subject to a single licensing agreement" The one low fee was $90 a month and they boasted that they added 2,878 images in the last week. They quickly figured out this wouldn't work and by June 2005 they had the 750 a month limit. Price was $139 a month and they added 4,618 photos the prior week. The collection was just under 200K images. By October 2006 they added the 25 a day limit (price was then $159 and they were over 1 million images). I'm guessing with the growth came some heavy downloaders they needed to discourage. Back then, they would put the price up, wait a few weeks and then decide what they'd pay us. They needed to see what happened with download patterns before they set our royalty. At this point they have over a decade's worth of download numbers and the subscription part of their business is less and less important as time goes by. Back then it was 100% of their business and if they effed it up by overpaying contributors they'd have gone out of business. I have no details on their data, but I'm guessing they see clients who regularly don't download their 25 a day as well as skip weekend downloads, so there's no reason to believe they'd change anything if the daily limit were lifted. And if their overall business in any way looks like my split between subs and everything else, subscriptions are now about 40% of their business. They can afford to give this a try and always put the cap back on if something bad were to happen
2779
« on: March 15, 2015, 16:06 »
...
https://twitter.com/AdamParks/
SS replied:Shutterstock @Shutterstock Mar 13
@AdamParks We're excited too! Thanks for the shout-out, Adam.
Thanks. If SS acknowledged it, then I guess they've decided to keep the change. I can't see that, for most corporate customers anyway, it'll make any difference in their download quantities. It sounds better (and it is, because it's more flexible) but if you're downloading what you need and it's only 500 a month of your 750 allowance, I can't imagine you'll start increasing your downloads just because you can. It is nice if you have a big project and want to download all 50 images for it on a particular day, you can now do that, so I imagine the change will make existing customers feel that SS is making their workflow smoother and easier. For a small business that's decided to use it to stockpile, it certainly makes it easier to do that, but you were able to hit 750 a month before, if you were determined to. I just don't see this as a big change for contributors or for existing customers; it does take one item off any checklists of those comparing iStock and Shutterstock when considering which subscriptions to buy, and that may be the primary goal - remove potential objections.
2780
« on: March 15, 2015, 15:43 »
The Seattle Times updated a report from Friday as a piece in Sunday's Business section: http://www.seattletimes.com/business/local-business/getty-attempts-to-sharpen-its-focus/"The move was announced as a 20th-anniversary transition but bore the marks of a private equity owner dissatisfied with managements turnaround efforts." In the article, a quote from Moody's includes this: To the extent they need more cash, they can cut back on capital spending and other discretionary items, he said. Im comfortable that they can manage their liquidity (although) its not as good as it used to be.
2781
« on: March 15, 2015, 13:21 »
if people are tweeting about it, the cat's halfway out of the bag.
1 person seems to have Tweeted about it from what I can see.
I had searched a little while ago on Twitter and couldn't find anything about that. I did find a couple of interesting tid bits, including one person wanting to know if anyone had 5 spare SS downloads they'd be willing to give him! No replies (but then you'd have to be daft to admit publicly to doing that). Any links to these tweets about changes in subs? As far as encouraging more subs, I don't see that as being very interesting for contributors. The good months are those in which the OD/SOD/EL numbers are good - that's the business I'd like to see continue to grow
2782
« on: March 14, 2015, 18:45 »
I don't think these stories had been linked in this thread: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-13/getty-images-ceo-jonathan-klein-steps-down-amid-photo-price-warhttp://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2015/03/getty-images-ceo-co-founder-to-step-down-as.html55 cents on the dollar went to 50 cents by close of business Friday. The Laura Keller (blurry outlook) interview linked above missed a few key points, IMO. Particularly that Getty was healthy and thriving with subscriptions (primarily from Shutterstock, but others too) in the marketplace several years ago. What took them from thriving to limping along was a series of management changes and dreadful choices about their own business that gave other companies an opening which they happily grabbed. Part of the reason for the hasty personnel and policy changes was the need to service the crippling debt courtesy of H&F and Carlyle. I don't think Klein ever got what was going on with the "amateurs" he so clearly didn't respect, and that didn't help. So I really think this picture of succumbing to the pressures of nimble competitors in one segment of the market is deeply misleading, but now the competition has an opening, they'd be idiots not to exploit that for all it's worth.
2783
« on: March 14, 2015, 15:41 »
So I signed up for a 60 day free trial so I could have a look at some sample files in illustrator. In addition to the large quantity of really strange color choices or crude shapes or bizarro creative choices (a winking Christmas tree with legs and arms; a woman with shopping bags and cloned & flippped feet, toes touching in the center, an easter egg of dinosaur skin), the files are just sloppy. The groups and layers aren't named, so doing anything with the file isn't as easy as it should be (and look at iStock's free vectors for examples of how even naming a few top level groups can really simplify things). With the infographics - this is an example: http://stockunlimited.com/vector/infographic-of-a-house_1390026.htmlYou're going to want to edit the content given that it's unusable as is, but the entire graphic is one un-named junk pile of groups and compound paths and paths - every letter of the "Lorem ipsum..." text is its own compound path, not separately grouped so you can quickly remove and replace it. I hope they didn't pay much for this stuff, because I can't imagine signing up for a paid subscription after looking at what I get for my $10 a month.
2785
« on: March 14, 2015, 01:54 »
Custom licenses for larger customers. I would like contributors to have general information about the types of licenses, but SS has been asked and won't do it.
Given some of my SOD licenses have been for isolated objects (like a tin can), it is more than just sensitive use. At one point I think they said that opting out of sensitive use would exclude your images from these licenses, but I don't know if that's still the case.
2786
« on: March 13, 2015, 13:45 »
I haven't been selling there long, and only have a few files, but I've not had any refunds either.
2787
« on: March 13, 2015, 13:44 »
None of the major sites accept TIFFs from contributors. There are all sorts of articles about how to upsize without quality loss, but the bottom line of any upsizing is that you're inventing pixels that may or may not correspond to what would have been there had the original capture been at a higher resolution.
Level 12 (photoshop) JPEGs are pretty clean, so I'm sure the images are halfway decent, even enlarged. I just wouldn't pay anyone to do it for me.
2788
« on: March 13, 2015, 13:04 »
2789
« on: March 13, 2015, 11:37 »
So Carlyle is ticked off about crappy financial performance and is moving Klein out of the way to get someone else to fix things.
I hold zero good feelings about Klein and what he's done to other agencies, not just iStock, so good riddance. The real issue for iStock contributors is what the new person in charge is going to do trying to restore the business to the financial health Carlyle seeks.
Private equity firms do not invest in the long term of any business they own. All they care about is their 3-5 years and making a hefty profit when they unload what they bought on someone else.
2790
« on: March 13, 2015, 11:32 »
How would contributors get paid with this model? Why would we contribute there?
They are operating with wholly owned content, and that's the only way an unlimited subscription model can work. So what they have is a half a step up from what clipart dot com used to have - which was really awful, but very cheap (Jupiter Images owned it, then Getty bought them, moved some content to iStock so they could mirror it on the PP and then sold the site to someone else). They mirrored only a part of the content and that was borderline at best: http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/getty-clip-art-'mirroring'-has-begun/So I looked at the stuff that StockUnlimited has purchased - I assume commissioning some folks in very low wage countries to make them copies of old clipart books that are now public domain, or something of that sort - and this will at best be a niche market. It's just not all that usable. The problem they'll have if they try to expand to photos is that the low wage countries where they could possible afford to pay someone to generate content for them won't have the models or locations they need to sell the stuff in the US, Europe and Australia. Supply is unlimited if you don't care what sort of photos or illustrations you accept. It isn't if you want to appeal to a broader corporate audience, ad agencies, etc. I don't see much of a future for StockUnlimited with this business model - there aren't enough potential customers to make the model work as they've set it up. Edited to add that the fact that Andy Sitt (123rf) and a former Getty business development exec are behind it doesn't improve its prospects any, IMO. Getty kept trying these ideas to "monetize" the mass of people using freebies in their blogs and such. You'd have to use a lot of blog images to be willing to pay $10 a month, every month, for access to what they offer. The casual user would be better off buying what they need - more choice and less overall expense.
2791
« on: March 13, 2015, 00:44 »
Dreamstime and 123rf offer a TIFF as well - same as SS, created from a JPEG we upload.
I think the idea when they introduced this was to give the old-school macro agency customers what they were used to getting (upsized TIFFs) rather than arguing with them that the JPEG from the camera at native size was just as good.
Getting a 16 bit TIFF created from the RAW or PSD file would have some real value, but probably not enough and for too few customers to make it worth the hassle of dealing with other formats.
Pond 5 has just announced they're accepting PSDs; I sell a few PSDs at Creative Market. There perhaps will emerge more places where files other than JPEG can be sold.
At DT and 123rf I've sold TIFF files; always amazes me, but the sales do happen
2792
« on: March 12, 2015, 18:42 »
If I run around snapping random whatever and upload for sale, does this random sort of fluff sell much worse than say images that I actually took some thought into making?
If you had asked this in 2004, you might have been in a position to snap "random whatever" and sell some, but not a prayer today. I doubt you'd even get accepted at the major sites (there are admissions tests for many). Did someone tell you there was easy money in stock photography? If so, go back and tell them they're an idiot
2793
« on: March 12, 2015, 13:18 »
I had a bunch a week or two ago, then silence. Yesterday a message that the forum had moved and then lots more e-mails about old posts this morning.
2794
« on: March 11, 2015, 19:12 »
The other big thing is that some agencies have made themselves easy to work with and thus appealing to buyers. Their site is useful, attractive and works (fast) almost all the time; the search is good in returning them relevant results; prices and packages of credits or subscriptions are appealing. Once upon a time, iStock did a better job at the above than anyone else; right now Shutterstock is at the top of the heap. Inmagine is the parent company of 123rf (and they're based in Malaysia I think https://www.linkedin.com/pub/andy-sitt/24/60a/7b2) and they have distribution partners everywhere - some agencies have extensive networks of other outlets that your work may be sold through (although I think that business model is going to disappear in time). Fotolia was the first microstock agency to offer local language and currency support (everyone has since followed suit, with varying success and different approaches to localization). It has left them as the big dog in Germany. For a while, illustrators did much better at Canstock than photographers (for whom the agency barely sells anything any more). Pond5 does well for video but not much for photos and illustrations. Bottom line is that unless you have very specialized content, the income will come from where the bulk of the buyers are.
2795
« on: March 11, 2015, 18:59 »
...But I do not really understand well what she means. Will the image be the main subject, the quilt or the quilt with the image printed on it?
My english is not good enough 
If someone is making a quilted piece with your image, it seems more like the case of a printed book with your image in it or on the cover - those do not require an extended license unless the print run is over a certain number (varies by agency and some, I think, have dropped the limit altogether). There is work in constructing the quilt and the resulting product has value for that craftsmanship as well as your image. When the buyer says your image will be the basis for the design, I'm guessing your piece is something that could be stitched over given the elements in the image. As the result will not be sold, I think the standard license covers the use and the buyer is just being very courteous in asking for your OK and offering to credit you. What would be your basis for saying no?
2797
« on: March 10, 2015, 18:40 »
You are trying to make sense of the inherently subjective and often randomly applied rules of each agency reviewer. Good luck with that! I'm sure rule of thirds and golden mean will figure in an answer, but the bottom line is they didn't like the composition and to make it sound less arbitrary, they classified what they don't like as unprofessional
2798
« on: March 10, 2015, 00:27 »
...Anyway, I was thinking they just sent out this mail to everyone to get more pictures...
When an agency has images of mine that I know sell (from experience elsewhere) and they can't sell them, I don't bother to keep supplying them. What would get me to resume uploads to Alamy is more sales at Alamy.
2799
« on: March 09, 2015, 12:02 »
I was just about to start a topic on this. I received the e-mail this morning too.
I thought it must be a come-on - trying to get me to upload again as I haven't for ages as sales had been in the toilet - or CTR had nothing to do with sales at all.
I had a brief return to "normal" in January, but since then things at Alamy have stopped again.
2800
« on: March 07, 2015, 16:31 »
...It's something I will have to think because as I said some pictures I don't want to sell it on that low price.
When you sell one of the SOD licenses for $75 or $90 or $115, you feel a lot better about SS. The overall mix of sales, for me, has been more like 40% subscription, 60% everything else (OD, SOD, EL). If you get hung up on the problems with 38 cents subscriptions, you have to walk away from the other 60% of the picture too. Unless you have truly one-of-a-kind images, I can't see any reason to skip Shutterstock. Focus on the monthly earnings, not the amount per image.
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