Last year I discovered 1/3 of my port wasn't showing up. They fixed that in December as far as I could tell, but the sales are worse than ever.

So you contacted them and they fixed it?  I just shrugged it off when it happened to me but if there's a chance they will fix it then it might be worthwhile to write them.

I had a big shock when I looked at my earnings for December.  It was about the usual number and quite a few under 10 cents with a low of 3 cents.  But I had one sale supposedly for $2699 with my 15% cut being just under $405.  Is that even possible?  I've had some decent ELs there before but my take was never over $100.  The other weird thing is that it was in a batch of "Fixed usage fee" sales from July - are they often that late with their reporting?  With those removed it was my worst month in many years, but with those added in it was the best in quite a while.  We will see if the payout comes in January.  In the meantime I'm going to do an image search to see if that one was used for a major ad campaign or something.  If you can really get sales like that I might start uploading there again.

https://www.dpreview.com/opinion/9312839751/what-i-ve-learned-after-sharing-my-photos-for-free-on-unsplash-for-4-years

here an interesting article from a complete idiot. personally i find so mediocre to give your stuff for free. you simply are telling, am so cheap to the buyer and the world.

Wow, Millennials, incredible.  I suspect he must have a trust fund or some other source of income - over 1.7 million downloads, for free.  I can't imagine.

Towards the end he says "Photography isn�t about making money as a freelance photographer".  No, actually it kind of is.  The point he was trying to make (I think) is that fame is more important than money.  Easy to say if you have money, or maybe that's the Millennial ideal.  I don't do photography because I need the money, but I certainly wouldn't go to all the trouble of processing, keywording and uploading just for a brief fame.  For me, I'd rather have money in the bank than fame any day (although of course if you're smart and lucky you can parlay fame into fortune, there's no guarantee of that).

Lawyers are interviewed everyday by journalists and aren't paid.

Apples and oranges.  An interview isn't legal advice - every lawyer I know is going to charge you $300 an hour even for briefly answering an e-mail.

I would have done the same as the photographer.  Time certainly can pay.  I suppose since he posted the video originally on facebook they assumed he didn't care about the money - can't blame them for that.  But once he said he wanted to get paid they should have ponied up something if they wanted unlimited access.

When I was younger I used to work sometimes as a musician.  I was always surprised by how often people wanted us to donate our time, especially to organizations that had plenty of money.  We didn't charge much but definitely expected to get something for our efforts.  Our motto then was the same I would use now: no pay, no play.

In December I requested payout after a couple of years so it was a decent amount.  According to their site, my tax forms, submitted and verified in 2009, are still good.  I received the whole amount into Paypal with no withholding.  So apparently they don't expire, at least not on the old Fotolia site - I've been too lazy to merge it with Adobe so don't know what happens there.

The main problem I have is that apparently when I signed up I somehow got scheduled to receive my payments in British pounds and now it is impossible to change.  This happened even tough I signed up on the US site and live in the US - no idea how.  I would think changing the payout currency is an easy programming fix - very annoying, as I don't want to lose money changing them back into dollars - but apparently not.  I guess if I ever decide to take a vacation in Britain I can maybe finally use that money, but unfortunately no plans to go there again until maybe next year.  If they could fix the currency thing though that would be nice.

Animals rights should protect against the real abuse, killing for horns or sawing off tusks, abuse and criminal treatment, potential killing off species. Include protection of habitat. Prosecute the puppy farms, don't allow wild animals as home pets, prosecute people who actually abuse animals. Go after that, not a photo of a chimp.

Good summary.  There are very real problems of animal abuse that hopefully we all can agree should be stopped and prosecuted. 

I would add trophy hunting of animals to the list - if you're not going to eat it and it's not a direct threat then don't kill it.  I've never understood how someone can take pride from having the mounted head of a slain animal on their wall.  If someone shot a trophy deer, for example, and used the rest of the animal I suppose the trophy could be a way to honor the animal - I could sort of understand that.  But the head or skin of a big cat, for example, that was shot from a distance with a high-powered rifle or even a modern bow - that is not sport, it is murder.  If someone really wants to prove their manhood with a trophy then they should be required to use a knife or a spear - I could respect that at least.  Although I would be rooting for the cat.  It would make for some very different facebook posts at least.

The example image they showed in the blog post was obviously fake - I didn't see the harm in that.  (I also didn't see the point of the image or how it would be useful but maybe that's my own lack of imagination.)

I know I'll get booed here for saying this, but I'm glad to see this change of policy.

If you want to photograph apes and monkeys, do the hard work of seeking them out in the wild. It's the right and "natural" thing to do.

Apparently you didn't read the blog post.  According to the new rules, you can still photograph them in zoos, no need to venture into the wild.

I understand and support PETA's goal to minimize exploitation, but I don't think this rule is a great idea.  Certainly banning animals being exploited by dressing them up in clothes or forcing them to do things they wouldn't do in the wild is understandable, but even photoshopping them?  If you photograph an animal at a zoo, cut out the image and use it to make a humorous card, for example, where is the harm in that?  What about editorial photos of animals being exploited that could be used to dramatize the problem and bring about its end?  Blanket rules to enforce someone's idea of purity are almost never a good idea in my experience.  Banning photoshopped images and editorials goes too far (I don't have either of animals, BTW, so this won't affect me personally one way or the other).

    Wearing clothing or accessories, such as hats or sunglasses
    Being shown in a studio setting or human environment, such as an office or circus
    Exhibiting trained or unnatural behavior, such as dancing or performing
    Engaging in unnatural interactions with humans, such as holding hands or being held

Situations like these are often set up without the animal being able to resist. What if it feels threatened or afraid, just because clients want a 'funny' photo of a monkey wearing sunglasses or performing dancing routines? Don't forget that animals like monkeys, elephants, tigers and lions are often mistreated during training for tourist attractions or the circus.

Agree 100%.  Except what about when a baby animal is rescued - it could be interacting with a human protector.  And no animals are hurt during photoshopping.

While it's possible that Mohamed was an innocent contributor caught up by an internet scammer, it still sounds fishy to me.  To go from less than $100 in three years to $700 in a month with the same portfolio by getting lots of ELs and high-value SODs by only providing a small payment and a link to your portfolio seems highly unlikely.  How does the scammer make their money?  How much were they paid?  What kind of contract did you sign?  Were you supposed to pay them a percentage of future profits?  Who is the scammer, exactly?  I don't see why anyone would run a scam like this - it makes no sense how they can make money at it if you only paid them a little bit upfront.  Clearly whatever they did resulted in lots of increased sales.  If it was possible to do that solely by increased advertizing then everybody would be doing it.  If it was a personal vendetta and all they needed was a portfolio link, they wouldn't need to contact you for that.  The whole thing makes no sense.

Mohamed, as you can see the people here tend to be very skeptical and many have analytical minds that will try to figure out exactly what is going on - both to try to help you sort it out and also to protect themselves and others from the same type of scam.  If you really want to get to the bottom of it, please provide more detailed information - any e-mails from the scammer and your responses, exactly what was said, promised and paid.  My prediction is that if we see the whole communication thread then the situation will not be as innocent as it seems, but the only way to know for certain is to see the whole story.  Full disclosure is the key to exoneration.  Or not.

And in the future, remember that old adage already mentioned by others, "anything that sounds too good to be true, probably is".

Quote

your account is linked to the fraudulent customer and therefore we will not be reactivating your account

I don't think this is a valid reason for closing the account unless found guilty.

The only thing that matters is whether SS thinks it is valid.  Nobody is found guilty - there is no trial involved, SS can do whatever they want.

Over the years we've had lots of people complaining about why SS or other agencies mysteriously closed their accounts.  In my recollection - and please correct me if I'm wrong -  once more information came out it was clear that the agency almost always did the right thing and made the right decision.  I have no idea about the present situation, but it most likely had to do with fraudulent sales as SS stated.

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on December 19, 2017, 13:27

It really is up to the buyer to make sure it is used properly, but if you sell it commercial then it might imply that you have the proper releases and in any event you probably don't want to take a chance on getting sued. ... I have insurance just in case, although hope to never use it.

Would your insurance cover you in this case? Or would it only cover you if a buyer used an editorial file commercially without permission or if someone stole an editorial file from an editorial site then used it commercially (if it would be difficult, e.g. by country, to sue for the theft).

No idea, to tell you the truth.  I assume it covers me for any type of lawsuit arising out of photography as long as I didn't break a law myself but have't had to test it and hope I never do.  I signed up for it a while ago and haven't looked at the wording of the policy since I learned more about what actually could happen - will try to do that before the next renewal.

I've had DLs on Alamy of images that also are on the micros as well as of the RM exclusive images.