At the bottom of the Yahoo announcement it says that it was written by curator and content manager Liz Lapp, as in, Liz Lapp the former curator for Shutterstock. And looking at her LinkedIn profile it looks like her days at Shutterstock ended as soon as her Yahoo/Flickr gig started, so I'm assuming she left Shutterstock for this new job. Interesting that they brought over a former Shutterstock person for this, and even more so that they seem to have maybe recruited her.

I think this will be interesting, and more or less so depending on how things shape up and this all comes online. Will they deal in illustrations or only photos? I think that's an underrepresented area of some of these other high-end curated collections. What will the licensing look like? Price points? Royalties? Lots of questions to be answered...

Could be cool, though. We'll see.

I've stopped uploading as well. I've never been a believer in deactivation. Far too much time and effort has gone into building up the portfolio. This will send a softer message perhaps but a clear message nevertheless.

DP has been exceedingly disappointing. They really appeared to be an agency on its way to top tier status when I began 3 years ago...

I'm really not concerned with sending messages anymore. I hate to say it but I just can't be bothered. There are too many jokers* in this business, too many to think we'll ever really send them any sort of message that they'll care about enough to make serious changes. They'll always pull these tricks and schemes until they get caught and then offer up some mea culpa. Delete images, don't delete them, it doesn't matter. DPC lost 7 million images, and are they slowing down at all? Did they change anything significantly enough to win us all back?

If anything I think the effort to send a message is, in itself, a bad message. We work way too hard trying to get these companies to change. And for what... a slightly less crappy deal? At a time when we've got many more better options, companies offering better royalties, better pricing, and we've got better things to aim for like Stocksy, Offset, Creative Market, etc., why beg for pennies?

We know what DP is. They've always been like this, it's just easier to see now. I'm not going to beg them for some consolation, some minor effort to change what they're doing just so they can find another way to reach their goal later on. And they will, they'll always find new ways to screw us.

I'm fine with just taking them out of my upload rotation and moving on. If they don't get the message, that's fine too.

* I used to be a parking valet and "joker" was the term used for anyone trying to sneak into the valet lot without actually using the valet service and to avoid paying, but not having to park in the non-valet lot. I really like the term for microstock companies trying to sneak one by us, pulling these 3% royalty schemes, partner program shenanigans, inclusion in dollar clubs, etc.

...there is no way I can work with the upload system as is.  Having to copy and paste the title, description into every image, one by one, as well as having to change all my keyword lists from a semi-colon to a comma, the limited length of title, the keyword (tag) limit of 20, the almost invisible watermark...  There's just no way.

I would contact them about IPTC integration. These guys add new things to the site all the time. They might be receptive to adding IPTC importing functionality.

In the meantime, maybe just add an extra buck to your prices to cover the time spent copying/pasting. If you're uploading stuff that's also on Shutterstock, you can copy keywords from there, their system converts semi-colon-separated keywords to comma-separated.

It's not idea, for sure, but it might be worthwhile to spend an hour with it, upload whatever you think might sell, and see how it goes for a month or two. Hopefully in the meantime they get IPTC importing going. If enough people ask for it, they might add it.

I wrote a post on the Creative Market forum about the legalities of stock photo use and licensing. We'll see what they say.

I don't mean to downplay any licensing issues and legal protections (or lack thereof). If Creative Market is doing something wrong, it should be fixed.

That said, I still do think that they're being judged too harshly for something that many companies, including Shutterstock, still do. In doing some brief research for that forum post I put at CM, I found photos of trademarked buildings like the Pike Place Market also on Shutterstock. Lots of them, actually, and not listed as Editorial, even though the Pike Place Market sign and clock are trademarked. I shouldn't be able to get a commercially-licensed photo of the Eiffel Tower lit up at night (lighting design is protected), but I can grab a bunch of images like that at SS right now. I thought anything shot at Princeton University was trademarked, and SS has a campus photo up for commercial use. And a few of Dartmouth (also supposedly trademarked).

You guys have a problem with it, that's fine. It's a completely valid complaint. But I expect that you'll be directing your concerns to Shutterstock and the other companies you upload to as well if it is so reprehensible to see a company selling photos of trademarked buildings and designs.

I think if anyone has any specific technical concerns that would prevent them from trying Creative Market, it might be worth contacting them and asking if they can add things like IPTC, better watermarking, etc. One thing I can say for sure that makes CM a bit different than other companies is that they are very technically proficient. If you want something changed/added, they might be wiling to do it if someone asks. They are very easy to contact, and you can send direct messages to specific staff members though the site.

Personally I wouldn't let any of the things mentioned here be deal-breakers on a site that pays very fair rates and lets you set your own prices.

Honestly I'm really surprised that the general tone here has been mostly negative regarding CM. On pricing and pay alone this is the best deal I've got going right now. Is the site perfect? Of course not. But it's far better than most of what is out there. And best of all, they've got customers, the missing piece that most young companies fail to deliver. Within the first year of business, CM paid out over $1,000,000 to contributors. Sure that pales in comparison to companies like SS, but it's really impressive for a startup.

I don't expect everyone to be all-in like I probably seem to be. CM fits my type of work well and I'm not bothered by any of the concerns mentioned so far. But even if I were bothered by any of these things, they wouldn't stop me from still being excited about the prospect of a company that maybe could be doing a few small things a little better but nevertheless has huge potential.

mike, but can you not remove your images from envato if u r not happy with the pricing there?
secondly, are there really sales in those sites u mentioned as your opening post?

if so, why is envato so vital to you? or is it that envato has a time to hold ransom your images like dt, is,etc..

Envato doesn't have a ransom on files, I can delete images myself from the dashboard. So sure, I could delete images or my entire portfolio if I'm really unhappy with the situation. I'd just prefer to try and reach some sort of better reasonable solution before it comes to that. I like Envato, I think they're a good company and they were really innovators in this whole model of creating multiple marketplaces for products beyond just photos and vectors. In fact they kind of came up with other marketplaces first and worked back from there to photos.

Envato also has customers. Lots of them. And an extremely powerful platform that draws customers from other marketplaces. ThemeForest is their biggest market (I think) and GraphicRiver benefits from the crossover between TF and other Envato properties. I think that's why GR did so well for me for a while. I was making over $500 a month there at one time. Not near that anymore, though.

So there is a lot to like about their system and what they are capable of, but the poor royalties and low prices are difficult to overlook, even in spite of all of the positive they offer.

As for other companies and whether sales are there or not, I can assure you they are there. The one I was talking about in my original post is Creative Market, which last month was my #3 best earner. I do better there than at Fotolia or Dreamstime. And it is companies like Creative Market that I think are poised to put Envato out of business if Envato struggles to get or retain top-quality content. And obviously having a poor royalty and low pricing is a good way to lose contributors or keep new ones away.

Again, I like Envato, and I'd like to see them continue to do well. But I don't want to let that happen at my own expense, having to drastically lower my expectations and the perceived value of my work just to stay in the Envato marketplace.

So you're admittedly not good at vectors, but you're most concerned with RPI right now. I think you've got your priorities a little mixed up.

And you're in a forum asking people who already sell vectors about their RPI, which makes no sense since, again, you yourself say that you're not very good at it. So how would my RPI info be of any use to you?

One comment. I applied and they didn't like my style. That's Ok. Actually I think that makes them a more viable option to be successful. They know their target market and are seeking artists who cater to that market. Odds are my sales would be slow there anyway because their customers aren't looking for images like mine. These are the types of new agencies that are likely to be successful. It makes marketing easier because they are reaching a specific type of customer and offering them precisely what they want to buy.

I agree. In that regard I sort of liken them to Stocksy. I've always figured that if Stocksy ever took illustrations, I probably wouldn't get in. But I wouldn't hold it against them, and in fact I think it's a good thing that they have a more clear idea of what they want and how to go about shaping their collection around that idea.

We need more companies like these.

RPD is the most meaningless stat that you could possibly use. It doesn't account for volume.

I used to think that. Pretty sure that someone could quote me as saying in this very forum that RPD is a "suckers' statistic" or something like that.

Now, I'd say that I was wrong. To an extent, anyway. You can't focus on RPD exclusively. For better or for worse (mostly worse these days) we need the high-volume companies if we want to earn decently in this business. But more and more lately, RPD has become an important stat. In my effort to find higher RPD companies to work with, I landed at Creative Market which is currently my #3 best earner.

Shifting more of my focus to companies like that may end up being my saving grace in stock. Because I'm not seeing any new growth in the high-volume companies, at least not personally.

...money is not everything - there is a little thing called moral

Even for the folks who think money is everything, participating in DPC still makes no sense. It really is a simple money issue. If DPC grows, we all make less money. It is really just that simple.

I can sort of understand the logic that this is just another avenue of licensing images. And I get that some people take the approach to this business that they just want to get their work in front of as many buyers as possible, so DPC is a viable option for them. I don't agree with that logic, but I get where it comes from.

But I'll never understand the people who knew about DPC, knew what it was and the potential danger it represented, and yet they still couldn't step outside of their "scrape up every last penny I can get" mentality for even a short time and opt out, even if only temporarily. They could have participated in the opt-out for a month, just to try and help send that message to Fotolia that this isn't cool. But instead they stayed in just to get a few bucks at the start of DPC, if even that much.

It is by far the single most short-sighted thing I've ever encountered in this or any other business. Those people may very well have traded their long-term potential earnings in microstock for a month's worth of DPC earnings, which in many cases probably amounts to less than $1. I'm pretty sure I've never personally witnessed anything so insane before.

...I think it's all going to come crashing down and explode. I've built my life boat I just want it to be stronger.

It's not going to crash, but it will divide. Anyone worth their salt will find it entirely unsustainable (cracks me up every time I use that word in this forum) to continue producing work that ends up in these nanostock products like DPC. And there will be more of them, and without opt-outs.

Remember that every time a company pulls some shenanigans to cut our pay, it's a bit of an experiment. There is a pre-determined set of criteria in which the experiment is deemed a success or failure, and some of those criteria include how many contributors opt-out, how many delete their accounts and leave, etc. And as long as those numbers stay within a range that is satisfactory to the company, they'll keep pushing these things out.

Or other companies will watch and see what happens and they duplicate the experiment. They'll look at DPC and say, "Hey, Fotolia rolled out this thing out and only 25% of their contributors bailed." That's an acceptable amount loss in some cases, and that experiment would be deemed a success and worthy of repeating.

So as more of these things emerge, the market will divide. But microstock won't implode. It will just separate out from these nanostock offerings and we'll see these divergent levels of stock content, price points, etc. As far as customers are concerned, if they're satisfied with these cheaper yet lower-quality collections, they'll be fine with going to the DPCs of the world. If they want something better, they'll go up a level.

And these nanostock collections will suffer in terms of quality. Even though there are some good artists opted in right now, they'll burn out eventually and the quality of those collections will drop. Then customers will have to go elsewhere if they want better content.

...I love the Envato bundles, but they only come around once in a while and perhaps have too many categories included (but isn't their purpose to give you a "taste" of what their market offers)...

There are different types of bundles. Some are individual contributor bundles (Joe Artist bundles a bunch of his own stuff and sells it together as a single product), site bundles (Envato, Creative Market, etc., bundle a bunch of stuff from their own sites, comprising a collection of work from multiple contributors), and 3rd party bundles (Company XYZ is in the business of organizing and distributing bundled work from multiple artists who come from different agencies, companies, solo artists, etc).

What we've been talking about here is individual contributors bundling their own work and selling that as a single product on Creative Market. The concern that Jo Ann points out is that some of these bundles might be made up of work that the person selling the bundle doesn't have the rights to sell.

And also that these bundles are too cheap. Which, personally, I don't always agree with. I sell a bundle of 45 vector textures at CM for $10 and I think that's fair. It's mostly old stuff I created years ago, but even if I sat down and created all new textures, it wouldn't take long to get 45 new ones and the time spent creating them would be less than other stuff I also sell for $10.

Like you said, Pixart, these bundles are sometimes about giving people a taste of what is available. Some contributors at CM release bundles for a limited time. Not all of these bundles are fire sale products, they're often short-lived promotions intended to generate interest, followers, and customers of other products at full-price.

...I've posted this before, but I am quite surprised there are not more marketplaces like these.  Evolve or die, right?

"Evolve or die" is a fair statement when it comes to these new marketplaces. And I don't think many of the old companies are evolving. I can't tell you how many angry/frustrated/confused emails I've gotten from SS buyers wondering why they can't easily edit text in my vectors. And I have to explain to them that SS doesn't let me sell EPS files with editable text. The evolution of vector stock for me has been to provide more useful files. And that evolution has brought me to sites like Creative Market where I offer editable EPS and AI files, and in some cases fully-editable PSDs as well. Buyers want this stuff, and I'm happy to provide it at places who will pay me a fair royalty.