Thanks - I see it now I scroll down

I have a 27" monitor and the main image fills that. It never even occurred to me to scroll down!

In the "It's all about you" section, clicking on a number of the icons produces just a name and "This gallery is empty". Doesn't look so good, IMO.

I would hope for photographs from a featured photographer - I guess the newbie Mr. Locke has to stop being so lazy and create something

I just saw that Sean is their "featured photographer" - with 0 files 

Where do you see a featured photographer? I just went to the site and couldn't find anything - I don't have an account, so is it something you have to be logged in to see?

What I did in 2004 and early 2005 with probably 300 images is something you couldn't do today with that many, but I made $136 in March 2005 from iStock, Shutterstock, CanStock and Dreamstime - the other agencies weren't around at that point. I don't know about vectors because I added those later and always sold a mixture.

No one made the blind folded person claims, so I'm not sure why you brought that up. The problem is - for those of us who have been doing this for a lot of years - it's not always predictable what will sell and at what agency, and only part of that has to do with your images and their marketability or quality. Not to mention if you suck at keywording or get caught by some unfortunate best match/default search problems, good images never get found. It shouldn't happen but it does.

The fact that we're not blindfolded doesn't mean we can accurately predict what will happen. Think about volcanoes - people who study them know a lot about them and how things operate but they still have a hard time predicting when the eruption will happen.

No one's holding out on you, we're trying to give you answers. I get that you don't like them, but that's something you'll understand if you keep uploading to agencies long enough

i am even asking why you are not with Stocksy, Offset, or Symbiostock. or even starting your own
coop , or "tribal stock" , as i call it. you all know microstock is  rotten already,
why sit and get beat up???

I'm not with Stocksy because Bruce wrote back asking if it had work "more like this" - pointing to their Pinterest board - and I don't. I don't think like that, shoot like that and so although I'd be happy to be part of something like Stocksy, I'm not what they want for the moment. I haven' approached offset - I think they're looking for well known names, but I haven't really explored that.

I have a Symbiostock site and was part of the WarmPicture coop (I didn't run it; Dan Padavona did that). I'd rather crush my skull with a rock than run a coop

I'm exploring Canva; I'm with GL stock (fair trade just not much in the way of sales); I considered Stockbo but haven't uploaded. I remain open to new ideas if there are any (Pocketstock seemed like a good idea but just struggled for a while and then I left before it became RooM).

In addition to the comments already made (and I'd emphasize adding IPTC support, not just looking at it - almost no one with a substantial portfolio will consider cut and pasting title, description and keywords):

You have a number of exercise images (isolated, female) and they all say "No" to model released. These clearly need a model release, so it's possibly a bug that they say they don't have one, but if you want buyers to consider your site, they'll need to know that images are properly released (i.e. safe for them to use commercially).

Your terms are in all caps. This makes it unbelievably hard to read - please fix this

http://www.ultimatstock.com/terms

Some of the text makes so little sense, I'm wondering if it was lifted from other documents and not edited. For example:

"THE USER SHALL AUTHORISE USERS TO ACCESS ULTIMATSTOCK IN ITS ABSOLUTE DISCRETION. THE COMPANY ACCEPTS NO LIABILITY FOR ACCESS TO USER CONTENT BY USERS AUTHORISED BY THE USER OR USING LOGIN DETAILS OF USERS AUTHORISED BY THE USER"

And in the section (E) titled SOLUTION:

"ULTIMATSTOCK IS THE PRODUCT DESCRIBED IN THE PARTICULARS.
ULTIMATSTOCK IS ONLY ACCESSIBLE TO THE USER FOR THE TERM SET OUT IN THE PARTICULARS."

Then there's something odd in the "Fees" section:

"THE COMPANY MAY INTRODUCE NEW SERVICES WITH CORRESPONDING FEES BY GIVING THE USER WRITTEN NOTICE OF THEIR AVAILABILITY AND APPLICABILITY."

As user is defined at the top as "USER MEANS ANY CONTRIBUTOR OR PURCHASER THAT USES ULTIMATSTOCK." I wonder what sort of fees you might be thinking of. Or is this just a general "we can change anything at any time" notice?

You say that termination of the agreement is by written notice and is effective in 14 days - does  that mean that contributors cannot delete their own content at any time? If not, why not?

You let someone download a watermarked comp without being logged in in a size larger than your extra small - 646 � 968 in the case of the images of a woman in sweats. It's a very light watermark for such a large size comp.

Some of the keywording is very bad. I know you're relying on contributors to do this, but if you don't insist (you inspect, no?) on useful and relevant keywords, your site will fail. As an example, I think this is a picture of an orangutan (which is an ape, not a monkey) with the keywords monkey, animal, bananna (sic)

http://www.ultimatstock.com/contentDetail?content.contentId=102&content.title=monkey

Even if banana were spelled correctly, I don't see one anywhere in the image.

There's an image titled "Female and male having a conversation". I searched for man woman talking but there are no results - because the keywords on this image are only: couple, talking, communication, team, working

http://www.ultimatstock.com/contentDetail?content.contentId=149&content.title=Female%20and%20male%20having%20a%20conversation

Aside from details, I'm still not clear about why a buyer might use your agency - let's assume you gather a decent quantity of content. How are you different from Stockbo? Or Photocase? Or Pond5? I can set my own price at Pond5 and they've been around a while longer - can you offer me something as a selling platform that they can't?

I am very interested in alternatives to the established agencies, but you aren't really making the case for why contributors should give you their content?

If you look at Fotolia's track record as an agency - not just their behavior over DPC - a number of people left them or were booted over the years as a result of their underhanded and anti-contributor actions. You can read about most of those past situations in threads on MSG if it interests anyone.

For those who already left them over the DPC deal (and remember, there was no opt out at the beginning; Fotolia only offered that after a number of contributors pulled their portfolios as the only way to remove files from the DPC) I can't imagine anything Fotolia says or does would entice them back.

For those who decided to stay opted in to DPC, why change? They've already demonstrated that they'll just take what Fotolia dishes out and hope for the best - there's no reason to sweeten the pot for them as they're already on board.

There was lots of talk that Fotolia had conversations with major contributors to persuade them to stay opted in. And for those who were making good money there, the income is a powerful persuasive tool.

I'm moving my comments on what I saw when I checked out Creative Market the other day (from the thread about Envato). I was looking at photos to try and see if it looked like a potentially interesting place to sell licenses:

Creative Market looks an awful lot like Fiverr to me (where that isn't a good thing). Some examples - 256 stock photos for $9

https://creativemarket.com/cmartinez_es/22295-256-Hi-Res-Image-Pack-BONUS

40 holiday images for $9

https://creativemarket.com/truemitra/28903-40-Holidays-Backgrounds

78 indochina images for $5

https://creativemarket.com/cmartinez_es/26909-78-Hi-Res-Image-Pack-Indochine

50 grunge textures for $9

https://creativemarket.com/truemitra/56115-50-Seamless-Grunge-Texture-Tile

90 textures plus a handbook for $17

https://creativemarket.com/dustinlee/56134-Standard-Issue-Vector-Texture-Pack

Even if all the stuff is the creation of the sellers (and I wonder at Amber Mueller's portfolio of Zoom Team's images - which are at Dreamstime, Shutterstock, Deposit Photos; plus those holiday photos look like so many others popular on SS) it's just not all that appealing to try and sell fairly priced goods in a marketplace that's hosting this type of content. Another post in the Envato thread had pointed out that a Creative Market contributor appeared to be selling someone else's work

http://www.microstockgroup.com/graphicriver/time-to-step-it-up-envato/msg387827/#msg387827

Their "Simple License" doesn't really appear to be appropriate for licensing photos - there's nothing preventing sensitive use, endorsements and it isn't clear that you can't make and sell prints of the photos. No print run limitations.

https://creativemarket.com/licenses/simple

With no image review process, I can't imagine how there won't be trouble down the road with content that shouldn't be offered for sale - if not because of unscrupulous contributors, then inexperienced ones.

They have no editorial license, yet I see an image of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA which you can't license commercially

https://creativemarket.com/GraphicWallace/59175-Lo-fi-Walt-Disney-Concert-Hall-Tower

And back to the content that appears suspect, a google image search on this item

https://creativemarket.com/truemitra/23810-modern-living-room

has many hits in use, but it's offered for free here (credited to someone called Sunny Kapoor, India, the same name as on the Creative Market account)

http://designozy.com/stock-photo/modern-living-room-8396.html

The web site the CM contributor lists has packs of vectors and images at dirt cheap prices

http://designersfolder.com/

This pack, as an example, has lots of familiar looking items in it (but nothing I could quickly locate as being clearly someone else's work)

http://designersfolder.com/1500-photoshop-designer-kit/

From the photos perspective, the site looks like bad news to me.

I've sent a site mail (via iStock) to Tomasz Tulik about Amber Mueller's portfolio. He can do a DMCA takedown notice if appropriate

http://www.istockphoto.com/user_view.php?id=603612

His work at iStock is a small subset of what he has elsewhere, but that's the only way I could find to e-mail him (Facebook is useless unless you're a friend). If anyone knows Tomasz, perhaps they can let him know directly.

Where do images sell for .20?  All the subs sites are .25 or higher aren't they?  I don't agree with any model that lowers the floor of what we get paid now.

I'll give you an example of licensing affecting my tolerance for price variations and lower royalties. I've been experimenting as a supplier on Canva - it's essentially a very limited RM license (one time, one design) but I only get paid 35 cents (35% of the gross). Given that all the designs are done online, the buyer has no access to the image other than as part of the design they produce on Canva. It strikes me as a potentially very interesting business model and I decided it'd be worth exploring. I've seen encouraging sales so far given that the site's still in beta and I have only 100 images online (50 more in the queue).

I wouldn't sell RF at that price. I wouldn't sell RM at that price if the buyer got their hands on the image file (no way anyone could police it). I'm not comfortable with the SOD licenses at SS - nice as it is to see $90 or $100 -because they won't tell us what rights we're licensing for that amount. It could be great for us - or terrible - but being in the dark is objectionable. I've put up with it because they clearly won't budge and so far, nothing unpleasant has come to light.

The sustainability (not my favorite word after iStock's abuse of it, but it's still a useful concept) of a site's business model also matters - I am not interested in schemes that will necessarily implode in short order, or scam buyers in some way, and I certainly don't want to be taken for a ride by the agencies.

37 cents for an RF license for an XXL image with no print run limits (which is what 123rf's latest download packs offer) is massively worse, IMO than the 35 cents per use that Canva pays me.

I couldn't find a copy of the license anywhere. Price doesn't really tell you much unless you can see the details of what rights are being sold.

I see that you're not accepting recognizable people - is that just because you haven't figured out handling of model releases yet? If that's the case, then you probably want to also consider the property release issues for anything (home interiors) shot on private property. A lot of stock sites require us to submit property releases for photos of our own artwork (just to be on the safe side).

Excluding people images really cuts back on a subject in high demand. Are you planning to change that?

Who do you think your buyers might be? People currently using the stock image web sites but who are bored with the sameness of what they find, or some new group that doesn't currently buy stock images? Other than thinking that I probably don't have any work that would be of interest, I'm also a bit at a loss to imagine commercial uses for the work I see currently.

How are you planning to market the site?

The other things you'll need if you expect people to upload is the ability to read IPTC data from the JPEGs or EPS - is that in place now? Do you accept vectors or just JPEGs?

Your locks on content seem a bit excessive for a new site - 60 days to close an account (during which time the art remains on sale), and no more than 25% of your portfolio can be deleted in a 90 day period. Why do you feel you need those? When you're an unknown quantity, that's a lot of trust to ask for.

You mention affiliates in this paragraph of the contributor agreement, and it taking an additional 60 days to remove work from them:

"Foundmyself shall use reasonable efforts to remove identical Content to that which was removed from Foundmyself from Foundmyself Websites, including co-branded affiliates, if they exist, within sixty (60) days of removal from Foundmyself."

First that seems excessive - an extra 60 days - and second, I hope you're planning to allow contributors to opt out of affiliate sales, and to publish a list of any such sites for contributors to see. There have been no end of problems with finding our work scattered all over the place and not knowing which agency licensed it, how much we would be paid, etc.

Then you have a term about not disclosing earnings (similar to the gag attempt Shutterstock made a number of months back):

"By submitting Content to Foundmyself, you acknowledge that you will acquire certain confidential information, including but not limited to royalty payments, purchase history, and earnings data (collectively, �Confidential Information�). Confidential Information shall not be disclosed to any third party other than representatives, attorneys, accountants, auditors and advisors with a bona fide need to know, who shall first agree to keep the terms confidential."

If you spend any time looking around MSG, you'll see that contributors keep track of how sites are doing and which ones are worth uploading to by talking about earnings, royalty rates, etc. People will talk your site up if they're doing well there or tell others it's not worth it if they're not. If you start closing accounts if people engage in that sort of discussion, I doubt anyone here will be interested in submitting to your site.

I'm assuming this has more to do with Getty (and thus Carlyle) than IS, and that there is some notion of the quantity of items in the collection mattering to them - because other agencies have more.

It's sad to see IS fall behind on so many aspects of its site and collection, search and just about everything else. The really good work that is there is just lost

By the way, anyone know how long it takes to get payout after you request it? I ordered mine first thing Monday morning.

If you got it done before 9am Calgary time on Monday, you'll get paid next Monday (if you use PayPal). Other payment methods have different days.

If you were later than 9am Calgary time, then it'll be two weeks from Monday

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=350427

So another "download pack" sale this morning - 44.6 cents.

I decided to take a look back at June (I don't normally monitor things all that closely) and I found some download pack sales there!

And May!

April looked clean, so I stopped checking. May 13th was the first of these sales and I have a total of 16 so far, for $6.83 royalty for me.

If I assume all these were XXL sales, I have 16 royalty credits vs. 96 and even at the minimum royalty for credits (based on 40 cents per at the buyer end) I would have earned $17.28.

That is a drop of $10.45 in my income for those 16 sales (a 60.5% drop)!

There might be more of the sales, because for any day with multiple sales for one image I can't tell whether the item listed in the subs column is a download pack or an actual subscription.

So 123rf has been offering these packs since at least May 13th without bothering to notify contributors.

Only one of the sales was at the high end of the rate scale (indicating a monthly pack), suggesting 15 of the 16 were people buying into the larger annual expiration bundle - and thus more of these sales to come.

One was for a royalty just about at the bottom of the scale for my level (4) - 37.4 cents, where 37 cents is the floor. I don't know how many images were in such a pack, but it'd be a lot more than 1,200, the largest pack they advertise openly on the site.

The more I look at this the nastier it appears...