Quote from: KONJINA on July 26, 2016, 17:42

Quote from: Stock Wife on July 26, 2016, 17:16

Quote from: PixelBytes on July 26, 2016, 16:57

I got the emails too.  Was nice to have some royalty adjustments in my favor for once. 

Like many others, I never bothered trying to find or use their new forums.  Would someone in the know want to share the revelations?  I don't see a reason to drive traffic to their site.

The message in this e-mail was an error. These were actually adjustments to subscriptions from June.

I'm not sure they were subs since I got one mail with just one picture but with 0.72$, I get 0.28$ for subs so I think it can't be it. I doubt they paid me more because they felt sorry for mistake. But it was from June since that picture got accepted on 20th June.

Did that picture sell as a sub in June? The .72 is a 'bonus' meaning the sub plan should have paid you $1 not the $.28 you normally get. IS has been giving us this 'bonus' money as ambiguous money after the subs all get reported for several months now. This e-mail basically was making it not so ambiguous but actually telling us which images sold for more than the minimum sub price (which in my case is also 28 cents). I had four images get a 72 cent bonus, each of which gave me a 28 cent sale in June.

Thanks, Stock Wife for 5the explanation. 

I am considering requesting my account to be terminated or have my videos deactivated and just keep my account there. The only thing that is stopping me is that I heard I think in this forum that they are planning big things for video sometime this year, can anyone confirm this or have any details? I would just like to know if this is true though I doubt I would be a game changer unless they seriously overhauled the royalty scheme.

Thanks.

Whatever BIG THINGS they are planning for video, it will most likely include a cut to your royalties and a fiction that it will be made up in sales volume.

Quote from: ShadySue on July 21, 2016, 11:43

Quote from: LizS on July 21, 2016, 11:19

...must I just wait indefinitely to hear back from them?

Yup. They're busy just now.

I just got a reply from them and it took almost a week.

I gave up on their support system years ago.   That's why I really appreciate your asking the question about whether we'll still be able to close accounts and posting the answer here.  Thanks man.  You saved alot of us from wondering.

Quote from: PixBoxx on July 18, 2016, 09:42

This definitely seems like the lead-up to the release of iStock September Self-Destruct v3.0, as they drop everybody's royalty rates to the flat Getty 20%.

Now that would be an improvement on the crappy 15% they give to none exclusives
with no chance of making it to the 16% threshold

LOL.  I was thinking the same thing.  I'd love it if they would drop me to 20%.

Quote from: ShadySue on July 14, 2016, 15:46

In the past, amounts under $100 have been paid upon termination, according to previous posts here on msg.

Since I am not allowed to quote directly from stock forums, I will just say that I was told terminating your account is different than deactivating. No problem terminating once the new policy is live, but pruning images is an issue.  I have emailed contributor relations through Stock's "contact us" link for formal info from corporate. I'll post a formal response but I have no reason not to believe their admin.

If it's true I will leave my stuff up there until such a time I decide to leave.

Thanks for following up and posting that info.  I haven't uploaded there in a couple years now, so I'm just gonna let my old stuff stick around.  I don't see any reason to deactivate anything.  If/when I quit them, I am going to quit completely. 

I sent a site email to them asking if we can still freely close our accounts after the new terms are in affect or does closing your account equate to deactivation and we are at their mercy to give us permission to close our accounts. I want clarity so I can move to take action prior to August 20.

Yes, this is key.  They cannot legally prevent us from closing our accounts and hold our images hostage.  We are still the copyright holders!

Quote from: angelawaye on July 05, 2016, 21:57

Quote from: PixelBytes on July 05, 2016, 15:16

Been at this a bit over 7 years.  Past 3 years I have been down 20% per year consistently regardless of upload numbers.  Finally stopped uploading cuz it made no difference.   

Sometimes I am tempted to start uploading again, but then I read the posts from people in this as long as me who upload a lot regularly and are still dropping and I  figure why bother?  I got better ways to spend my time and still getting some residual income.

I'm sadly at this point. I think of a great photo shoot idea and then step back and realize I am actually loosing money each month - why should I invest so much time for nothing ...

I think you should quit for good.

Wasn't it you that started this topic wanting to know how people are doing this year over last?  Then two people post different results than you and you follow with snotty sarcastic response. 

Don't ask if you can't handle hearing honest answers that don't match your own.

Or at least put in a more accurate title, like MICROSTOCK IS THE GREATEST THING EVER AND EARNINGS WILL NEVER GO DOWN!!!!

Am I  the only one who read the title as Sitewide Outrage ?  Seems like their outages and outrages are both coming way too often! 

Not being willing to HEAVILY invest in your photoshoots is a sure way to never make real money.

A few years back I got to watch a top tier microstocker do a photoshoot. It was a pharmacy photoshoot. He actually bought a label printer and made fake labels for over 1000 bottles with made up medicine names so he could avoid copyright problems in the images. Also there were tens of thousands of fake pill capsules he bought off ebay filling the bottles, as well as shelves to hold it all up and of course models.

This was the 3rd unique photoshoot he did that day.

He shoots 5 days a week, all editing, key wording and uploading is outsourced. He even has people hired who find locations, models and schedule everything so that every single workday is filled.

It really made me realize that technical skill with a camera are only part of the equation. There is only so much you can do.  Being able to properly invest, scale up, and automate your work is the only way to really break this wall.

I probably can't hope to match this guy's performance, but it really did inspire me to take a little more risk and think bigger then doing an apple on a white background, or take crappy travel photos of churches, swans and fountains.

I bet this guy has hit the wall by now or will shortly.  Also, his profits may be the same or less than someone that runs a lean, smart operation and has only himself to pay.

Well, this is a complete load of horse dung.  I got it too and have literally never spammed my titles or gone back and changed any of them. 

If it is a malfunction of their current uploader, then I am still baffled why I got this POS threat.  I haven't uploaded in over a year, so the current uploader issues don't apply to any of my images. 

Looks like this was sent to everyone.  Good luck to them suspending all the accounts.  No more pictures to sell.  Oh well, buyers can find my work on Adobe, Istock, and about a dozen other sites.

https://forums.envato.com/t/10-fee-for-skrill-withdrawals/41640

Good info.  Thanks!   I just switched to paypal

We need a reasonably priced laptop with good graphics power and RAM to do animation, 3D, etc. Anyone have a suggestion?

Nothing here yet, and no notification of change in terms, as quoted by Jo Ann.  So now they can't be counted on to pay by 15th anymore?  Great.